The Joe Rogan Experience - #1469 - Adam Perry Lang

Episode Date: May 5, 2020

Adam Perry Lang is a chef, restaurateur and cookbook author. He is the owner of APL restaurant in Hollywood, CA.

one. What's happening, brother? How are you? Good to be here. Good to have you. I have enjoyed your restaurant many times. This is my favorite steak restaurant in all of Los Angeles. Thank you. It's one of the reasons why I wanted to bring you in here because this is a really crazy time for restaurants. And I mean, that's basically, that's the gist of it. This is a crazy time. It's bananas. It's absolutely crazy. Trying to just This is a crazy time. It's bananas. It's absolutely crazy. Trying to just get a handle on it. It's just overwhelming.

For me, it's just head down and cook. Try to help people that are in need, and then we'll figure it out later. I know you've been doing a lot of cooking for first responders and for hospitals. What have you been doing with your time now that this is? Well, it really first started where basically everybody was just staring at each other and saying, what is going on? What's happening? And I didn't lay off any of my employees. And it's all happening. Everybody else is closing up shop.

And I'm just overwhelmed as a business owner. What am I going to do? shop and, you know, I'm just overwhelmed as a business owner. What am I going to do? And I actually had my GM come up to me and, you know, because I'm trying to figure it out. Everybody's asked what's going to happen. My GM came up to me and says, hey, listen, you know, we're with you. We know you didn't create the coronavirus. You know, you do what you have to do and we know your heart's in the right place. And I was just like, I just like kind of just let out a breath and I'm like, okay, well, I appreciate you saying that. And then I was just head down, get down to business with it.

And we had a cutback, 90% of the staff. And we were just like, just cook. Didn't know who was going to buy it or anything it was just crazy so would you just tell her but it's the the steakhouse is called apl and it's in uh la in what is that like the theater district what is that called yeah it's in the heart of hollywood hollywood and vine yeah and it's right next to the pentagious theater which we and what's ironic was it was literally when they closed down all the restaurants, it was going to be the night of Hamilton premiering, which was a big deal for us as a business. And, you know, all of a sudden it's like it stops.

Yeah. We, I went to your place right after we saw something. It was, oh, it was Frozen. Yeah. Okay. I have daughters. Yeah. We went to see Frozen and that was the last time I was at your place.

It's got to be a very strange thing. This has never happened before. And one of the things that we've talked about a lot on this podcast is what's so devastating about this is there's a lot of people that have lost businesses in the past because markets changed and because maybe they didn't do what they could have done or work as hard as they could have worked. But for so many small businesses and restaurants and bars, they've been doing the best work they've ever been able to do. They're putting in the hours, they're showing up, they're putting out these amazing meals. And then because of nothing, that's their fault, it just gets shut off. It just gets shut off.

It's crazy. And without any real understanding of how long it's going to take or when you're going to. I mean, we just had a conversation. I was saying we should just talk about this on air because we're just talking in the green room. There's no clear indication of when you'll be able to go back to work and serve food to the general public and what that's going to look like. I know it's, it's, it's the unknown. Um, but how I'm investing my time, how a lot of other chef restauranteurs are investing their time is trying to serve take out to the public, but also doing, um, charitable and things to provide for, for first line,

you know, frontline, you know, defense. And one of the things is, is, you know, Jimmy Kimmel and I teamed up to for every meal that we prepare, we donate a meal to St. Joseph's center. So that was the first thing was for our, our attitude was is like we want to help people and let them know that they're cared about. And then the other thing is to really just keep even just the five people working. So because we didn't even know if people are going to order. So we jumped into it like that. And then these services such as Frontline LA, which comes in and

brings, it's like the glue between us and the hospitals and we we prepare meals for 150 meals at a time for the hospital workers and do you guys package them up and then have them delivered to the hospital yeah exactly i mean so we'll just sit there they'll say hey we have a need for this particular hospital you know um hollywood presbyterian okay great 150 people we package up the meals how do you do that? Do they order off a menu or do you just prepare stuff that you think that they'll enjoy? We prepare healthy things, things that they would appreciate. And then also sometimes I just serve comfort items.

So sometimes I'll do meatloaf gravy and mashed potatoes because, you know, if they're just all healthy, sometimes they just need a little bit more of like, you know, warmth and like just kind of like pulling in. That's a weird word, comfort food, you know? It is, but that's what's happening now. But it works. Like when you say macaroni and cheese, comfort food. Yeah.

It is. That's what people are gravitating towards. That's where my menu is right now. It's all comfort food and barbecue. Really? Yeah. So is that because that's what people are asking for? Well, that's my cook steaks, right?

That's my read on the market. You know, I had experienced a similar thing where things shut down and people needed help. And that was around, you know, during 9-11. And, you know, our attitude was, is like, how can we help people those, you know, those in need and and really comfort food really kind of just blossomed out of that. So when you're doing, right, so you're doing takeout as well. And how does that work? Do they order online or do they call up? Like how's that working?

We prefer curbside as opposed to just doing Postmates and Grubhub. People can do that. And so we'll get people to come deliver. Yeah, let's get to that. Because how does that work, Postmates and Grubhub? Is that good for your business? Is it less good than people ordering directly from you? How does that work?

Well, it's great for our business because it gives us a greater range, and we really can't deliver. So it gives us an opportunity. So it's a whole other market. But they charge a back-end fee on it, so we have to upcharge it a bit. And for us, we'd prefer just to kind of sell directly to the customer curbside which we're doing a good clip up to it's probably about half and half so like what if you had a guess like what's the capacity is as far as like for your business is like full on wide open where people can come and sit down versus now? Like how much has it deteriorated?

Oh, it's maybe 10, 15% of the business compared to, yeah. So that's why I'm just focusing on like I just got to keep moving. That's how I'm emotionally getting through this thing and also keeping the business going is just basically just cook for people that are in need, you know, focus on the hospitals and the neighborhood just right around us. So it's a tough spot. And you have, obviously, you have a lot of friends that are in the restaurant business. So what is...

We talk all the time. What's the general feeling? Like, what's the temperature? Like, how's everybody dealing with this? You know, first of all, knowing that a good number of us are not going to be around, because just even figuring out all the rules and the laws that are going to happen around this thing are unfolding. They're just very hard to read and get a clear understanding of what's happening. So a lot of people just don't know the unknown. You know, landlords, you know,

A lot of people just don't know the unknown. Landlords, we're deferring rent, but at the same time, they're not accepting of that. So we're like on the hook and we don't even really know where we're going to end up with it, even just the PPP loans. What is PPP? protection program, and that's really a government-funded assistance to supply restaurants and all businesses. I think of all the loans given out, I think only 5% of all the loans given out were actually to restaurants. So they give you a chunk of money, essentially, that covers eight weeks of payroll, and also a portion of that for 20 – that's 75% has to be spent on payroll, covers for eight weeks. And then the other 25% is for rent and utilities. So it's like an eight-week lifeline. And so far, how long has it been now? We're looking at like six weeks of lockdown so far or something like that?

It feels like longer. It's got to be a little bit longer. Like for me, it feels, it probably is that. I don't even have a concept of time. I'm working so hard. It's just me and four other people and two are in the front and two are with me in the kitchen. We're doing dishes. We're cooking.

We're cleaning. We're doing everything. I mean, it's a great sense of accomplishment. I got an email from a nurse thanking us for the healthy meal that we prepared for them, and that makes it worth it. But for me, I'm actually inspired and just kicking it into high gear. I'm not going to just wallow in it. I'm just going to keep working, head down, do what I do, and just hope at the end of the day. At the end of the day, people have to eat.

So the world's going to be different, you know, probably not going to be the same at all in terms of from my business, but what, what choice do I have? Right. You want one of these men? Yeah, sure. Kill Cliff CBD drink. Delicious. Oh yeah. Nice. Sorry for people listening to me slurp. I like that. So when you're operating at 10% capacity, obviously this is not sustainable. 10% of your business is not sustainable. That's right. Just because operating costs and all the above. And then you're obviously in a very high profile area, which must be extraordinary rent too. We're just not paying the rent.

We're just pushing it off. We don't have the money rent. You know, we're just pushing it off. We can't, we don't have the money for it. So we'll have to work it out. You look very stressed out. I don't see, I've never seen you like this. Every time I've seen you, that's you right there with a big smile. Whenever I see you at your restaurant, it's always smiley. I found out about your restaurant online.

I don't have the answers, you know, it's just, it's crazy. I found out about your restaurant online. I was just Googling new places to go for dinner. And I don't know, maybe a couple of years ago. And I was Googling steakhouses. And then I saw that you specialize in dry age steaks. And I had a steak that you cooked once that was more than a year dry age. It was delicious, yeah it was delicious

but it was really weird i mean it's weird it doesn't taste different anything like a regular steak it tastes like um boy it's like a different animal it's like you're eating something you know some exotic animal and that's what i like to do, you know, more age doesn't necessarily mean better. But, you know, it's just different. And that's, you know, for me as a chef, you know, I call my dry age room an environmental chamber. Yeah, there's a picture on Instagram of me and Adam in the basement, that fucking weird meat room that you've got. And it's for people that have never been to a dry aging room, it's very odd. There's fans blowing around. Everything's a very specific temperature.

You've got all these different things labeled as far as like what date it was put in there. And for people who haven't seen dry aging, it's very odd too because you're like, hey, what is wrong with that meat? Yeah, exactly. The outside crust of it. Here's a photo of it. Folks, you can see it in the background of the – it's not working? There it is.

So for folks who can see it in the background, the meat has like a black crust to it, and then you slice that crust off. What do you do with the crust? Get rid of it. But is it edible? It's not enjoyable. What about for dogs? I wouldn't give something a dog I wouldn't eat myself.

Wow. You eat dog food? What's that? Do you eat dog food? No. But you feed your dog dog food? I don't have a dog. I wish I did to be honest with you.

I have a dog and he eats dog food. Yeah. But you feed your dog dog food? I don't have a dog. I wish I did, to be honest with you. I have a dog, and he eats dog food. Yeah. I love him to death. But he actually eats ground elk mixed in with regular dog food. Even that, I mean, it gets a white ash, which is almost like a—I call it a—there's a friendly oxidation, I refer to it, in the whole process. Okay. Is that white ash like the same as you get on outside of salami? It's like that.

It's part of it. It's a mold. And the whole concept behind dry aging, it's based on three things. It's air velocity, temperature, and humidity. Air velocity. Yes. And it's really important. I like to, you know, when I teach people about dry aging, it's like if you're on a beach in Jamaica and there was no wind and you just start getting sweat and you're just uncomfortable.

But then if trade winds went through, it would have at the same temperature to evaporate the water off your skin. So what we're trying to do is we're trying to, at the right ratio, evaporate the water off the surface so it doesn't get like a smelly, stinky, bad mold and dehydrate it slowly. What it does is it concentrates the flavor. It transforms the amino acids into a whole different compound and changes the flavor altogether. And then also enzymes within the meat through the process of rigor mortis. It breaks down. So it becomes more tender. So you get flavor enhancement. You get tenderization.

And it just blows it away. So what does it do to the amino acids? It transforms it into a whole other compound. It's like a flavor. It's like when we talk. Have you ever heard of the concept of Maillard reaction? Yes. But I don't know what it means anymore.

I've heard the expression, but I forgot what it means. Yeah, the Maillard reaction is Yes, but I don't know what it means anymore. I've heard the expression, but I forgot what it means. Yeah. The Maillard reaction is basically like when you're cooking something, what ends up happening? Spell it? God, I'm the worst speller. Is it Maillard? No. M-A-I-L-L-A-R-D. Right. Maillard. Okay. Maillard. Okay. I said Maillard. Okay. That's what I know is. So, you know, whenever you're browning or you're doing different things at different rates, amino acids transform into different things and you get different flavor compounds. And that's really what happens, you know, with meat, you know, so if I dry age, you have to handle dry age meat a lot differently. You can't go out and say,

okay, I'm going to slow cook this once it's dry age, because then it just, it develops a really nasty kind of like funky flavor. But if you cook it under high heat, like really aggressive, like that's why you have steakhouse broilers. There's something about that browning of that dry-aged meat that transforms that just like awakens your senses. That's interesting.

So you don't slow cook dry-aged meat? No, I don't. It gets livery. It's almost like a livery. Really? Yeah. I don't even, if anybody wants dry-aged above medium, I try to talk about, I don't it gets livery. It's almost like a livery. So really yeah I don't even if anybody wants dry-aged above-medium. I try to talk about I'll cook it any way you want But if you start cooking past medium

It's almost like you know Seeing someone like transform like it just ages like when you cook it a long time It just ages and just turns into something else. It's just nasty. People who want well-done steak are offensive. You should go and eat Burger King, you monsters. What's wrong with you? When I go to dinner with someone and they order well-done steak, I just cringe. I'm like, who am I eating?

It's a cultural thing I noticed with some people. They just want to cook. But if they want a well-done steak, then I recommend the wet-aged steak to do well-done because at least you have a fighting chance for some type of flavor that would be appealing. But it's weird. Why are you eating steak? Yep.

It's true. That's for me. For everybody. It's a criminal act. You're wasting a piece of meat. It's true. I kind of look the other way. What do you want, ketchup with that? Yeah, it's painful for me. Yeah.

It's painful. I mean, some people grew up eating well-done steak, and that's how they like it. Joey Diaz eats medium well. Medium well. I'm like, what are you doing? Why? It just doesn't taste as good. And it's also, there's an art to the perfect temperature, right?

What's the perfect internal temperature of a medium rare steak? What should it be, like 135 or something? No, it's a bit less. But it's not necessarily the temperature. It's kind of like how you get there. Okay, let me explain that to you. I have this method where, particularly for thicker steaks, where I'll cook it. I start the cooking and then I get it to about

105 degrees and then I allow it to rest at 105. And what ends up happening is, as I call the method, just like tempering of the meat. And it basically basically it starts transmitting the the temperature in towards the center and then i put it back in again and then it'll it'll it'll heat up the temperature if you like take it i would say for medium rare even though like on many logs will say okay 120 125 is rare but it's not you know for me if you're going to do that method, um, a solid medium rare will be about one 20. Really? Yeah.

So why do they think one 20 is rare? Like, I don't really understand that exactly. You know, they'll get there. I think they're overshooting it particularly for me. It's not rare. Like rare is, is, is one 10 using the method that I use. Now, different people have different methods which is really what's fascinating about cooking meat um i ate at a couple times i've eaten at uh bizarre meats

in vegas which is a fantastic restaurant yes fantastic amazing chef yeah andres amazing it's an amazing place too when you walk in there it's just visually it's really interesting because they have these grills with live logs i mean they take not live obviously but they take logs they're cooking all over fire and they have these grates these grill grates that rise and lower and um you know you could see how they're doing it when you walk in the door like as you're walking to your table, you're passing by. And this method of this idea of cooking over logs, like cooking over fire. Some people prefer that. And then some people like those crazy broilers where they're gas, but the broiler, it's on top.

And you slide the steak in and it's lowering down. Is there a difference and why? It really comes down to what your taste preference is. For me, where I'm at right now, dry age without any type of smoke or wood is more preferable because I really want to taste the dry age. When you start getting into the wood fire cooking and you're burning logs that aren't burnt out,

I like to cook basically my wood down to charcoal, like to ash, so that it's cleaner. Okay. So then you really taste the meat. When you start, you know, burning on unburnt fuel, you know, the logs themselves, it has like these creosotes and different flavor compounds that will get on the meat. And it's just, it kind of just like coats your palate. So for dry, I like that for more wet age beef. Okay. But for the dry age, I really like cleaner. I like the steakhouse broiler. I like using a plancha, you know, and that's just like a heated piece of steel. It's like, you can do that in your home with a cast iron. It's called a plancha? Plancha. You know, it's just kind of like this flat sheet of steel. And it's all about crust development and surface contact. So I like

to cut the steaks on a saw. So it's a perfect line and it's all about contact, direct with the surface. It's about the browning of the meat. If you're going to get in there and you're going to cook over live wood like that, he's doing it obviously right because he's amazing. But when you raise and lower the shelf, like I was saying how I rest it, you can start on the higher level of the heat and then you bring it up higher, the actual grill higher, and it's actually resting while still getting the tickle of heat up there. The tickle of heat.

Yeah, so I imagine the flames won't actually touch the meat. It kind of tickles it. So it's kind of like it kind of wisps at the bottom of the meat. And so the way he's doing it at Bazaar Meats, he's using wet age steaks because that's how you would cook over that kind of. I don't know if he's doing it. That's my personal preference. I mean, I think he does do some aging. It does do some aging, I believe, over there.

personal preference. I mean, I think it does do some aging. It does do some aging, I believe, over there. But it's just, I've watched YouTube videos on how to cook the perfect steak. You can watch three different videos and three different chefs and there's three different methods. Same thing about dry aging though. I mean, all dry aging is not created equal. I call it an environmental chamber. So think about it like making cheese in France. You say, hey, I order goat cheese and you think you'd get one type of goat cheese across the line. I'm creating an environment just like a cheesemaker, okay, that's unique to my own. I actually have the culture from like 15, 16 years ago that I've traveled with. Hold on.

You put culture? Yeah. I have like a method. I basically take meat that has been aged and I bring those spores, if you will, from that aging meat because, you know, there's a mold on it. It's a friendly mold. It's a friendly mold. Yeah, I like it. I don't want to like, you know, turn people off to it because this has been.

I didn't know that you brought your own mold. Yeah, so. I just figured you just let it dry age. It's not as simple as that. For me, it's each environment. Again, so I get away from like someone can turn around and say, like my dry age is incredibly clean at 100 days, 120 days. Because I get there slowly. My temperature is very low.

I like to dry age at 32 to 35 degrees. I like a higher humidity so I don't dehydrate the meat too soon. I like 85 percent, sometimes a little bit lower if I want to pull. It really depends. And then lots of fans. So when you say the culture, how are you bringing this culture in? How do you get it to interact with the meat? I basically take pieces from the previous dry age room and I bring it to that.

And so I put it up by the fan and it will circulate spores. You put it by the fan? How do you do that? Well, there's a fan in a cooler and it's blowing around. It's like blowing the – so it will blow the spores around the room. So my dry age has a unique flavor. You might try, you know, some great guys who like master purveyors in the Bronx, which is these guys are like my heroes, you know, they taught me practically dry aging. They have their own flavors. Their dry age tastes

different. You know, Pat LaFrieda is another New York guy does amazing dry age beef as well. You know, his has a different flavor. So, you know, for me, that's why I take a lot of pride, even though it's not the most cost effective thing to carry, you know, a hundred thousand dollars in inventory, but it gives me a unique flavor profile. That is my unique selling point for my restaurant. So you have these pieces. So like those steaks that we saw in that photograph, you would take one of those dry-aged steaks when it's ready, and then you would trim the pieces off. Then you use those pieces, those darkened pieces, which has the spores on it, and that would – how do you know how much to put in there? I put in as much as I can. You know, I'm really – I don't want it to, like, clean, clean in there.

I want it to be an environment. So it's like a cave. And, you know, I'll put a couple of trays in and then I'm very tactile. So I'll touch the meat and I'll feel it and, you know, I'll taste it. I'll see where we're at. I'm always cutting into a steak. It's like a lot like- When you say you taste it, you cook it? Yeah. Like I'll cut off a piece, like how are we looking at 30 days? How are we looking at 50 days? So each room is different because, you know, I had a dry room

in Vegas and we had, you know, ceilings that were 30, 35 feet, a lot of circulating air. It was just, it was just like had a different flavor profile. We were able to age 150 days and that was like our sweet spot. Okay. And then here in Hollywood, it's a lot less of a lower ceiling. It circulates differently. It's just, you have to really kind of taste. It's not just like, Hey, I've dry age, or you go to the supermarket. It's like, Oh, you sell dry age. Okay, great. I'll take it. And if you think that's what it tastes like, it's a good indicator of what it is. But if you really want to get, you know, like down to it, you know, each dry age can taste a lot different. So that's really weird.

So it's very experimental in a lot of ways. It's constantly moving. How long did it take you to dial it in? Well, when I first did it, it was really by mistake, particularly the extended age, because you just weren't selling the meat. So I had a lot of pieces like left for a long time. And I was like, I cut into it and I tasted it. It's like, whoa, I mean, this is incredible. And I was talking to the old school guys who dry aged like, oh, you're wasting your money. Nobody wants steak over 42 days. It's just dehydrating. I was like, no, I think we're onto something.

There's a big difference here in the flavor. And as we would see a huge difference, a jump in flavor and good quality, not like the funky stuff, like the full year. That's another level. It's very good, though. You say funky, and I just want to clarify to people, it is delicious. It is delicious. But it's unusual. It's like you're though. You say funky, and I just want to clarify to people, it is delicious. It is delicious. But it's unusual. It's like you're eating something from Africa, some unusual kudu meat or something like that.

It's true. Some strange game. Yeah. And you don't want to eat too much. People want a whole steak. I'm like, no, you just want two slices of it. Savor it like a fine wine. Understand it.

Get to know it. But don't hunker down on it. How come you don't want people to hunker down on it? Because sometimes too much of a good thing is not good. Okay. And I say the same thing also for the Japanese Wagyu, like, oh, you see all that fat and the marbleization. It's incredibly rich. And if you eat it like a Westerner, it's not right. It's just, it's too much. So certain ste steaks certain types of beef you should be eating only a small amount and appreciating anything more like you

just it's just I don't know it gets me it's it's too much for me when did people start dry aging a year like when when did this really because this is not something I mean obviously I'd know nothing about restaurants yeah other than that they're great but yeah but when i had heard about dry aging i would hear like 30 days dry age 60 days dry age i never heard of a year like is this a new thing um you know they were doing it in spain for some time particularly with the older animals like the oxen, you know, animals that are five years, eight years, ten years old. And they would age these for long periods of time. I was not aware of this when I started doing it. But they were the first people that I heard about it was doing it while I was doing it.

There was amazing food writer Jeffrey Steingarten who just like dialed into me. who just like dialed into me. And we did a tasting with one of my culinary heroes, Harold McGee, who wrote the incredible book on food and cooking, which is a scientific manual to all chefs around. He's an amazing guy. And he had put in his book that there's really no difference in flavor

when you get to that point. And so that later stage, so we cook three steaks and we cut a cube out of the center of it. And at that point, he says, wait, maybe there is something different. I'm not sure. I mean, nowadays you hear more about it because we're chefs. We like to play with things. We like to push the limits on things. But not many people want to make the commitment because it's so costly to carry the inventory. And they're scared to actually do it because if you screw it up, you lose all the money.

So I see more of it now. But back when I was doing it, there really wasn't anybody else pushing the limits. Maybe a few people. I don't want to say like I was the only one. But possibly there could have been a few people i don't want to say like i was the only one but you know possibly there could have been a few people but you know so it's what's what's interesting to me about just cuisine and cooking in general is that i didn't think of it until i watched bourdain's original show no reservations i didn't think of it as an art form. And then when I watched the show, I was like, look how into cooking this guy is.

That's one of the things about people being really passionate about something. It's incredibly contagious. And his passion for cooking and his fascination with different methods that these masters would use and the way he would just, you could see it. He was so focused on it and so enthralled by these flavors and these creations that these chefs would make that I realized, oh, this is an art form. It's just an art form that you eat.

But I never thought of it that way i just thought oh that place has delicious food this place tastes good and then you go to a really fine restaurant or a fine steakhouse like your place and you go oh these people are they're artists they're artists it balances between art and craft you know it's it's like there's a moment in time when as chefs we explore it as art, you know, because, you know, you're not going in with any boundaries and you're not going in any preconceived notions of what it should be. And that's when cooking is a true art. Most of the time we're doing the craft part where we figured it out and then there's a regiment of like lining it up to make sure it's consistent. And we pride ourselves in basically that consistency

and team gathering around and doing something universal together. But the art form for me is, and maintaining just being curious and inquisitive has just been my bug from the day I decided to be a chef. And for many people like Bourdain and every other chef that I know of, that's the key that you know that you'll never learn everything,

you know, but, you know, you keep trying and there's just like a sea of information that, you know, that's out there to explore. Yeah. He would take you on these journeys to these like very strange restaurants in France where, you know where they're on the side of a lake and there's 10 customers and 100 chefs working and they're creating these things with filet knives and a grape and two or three caviar eggs and then they give it to these people and they're in ecstasy. I'm like, what? This is so different.

I almost felt embarrassed when I first started talking to him about this. You know what it's like for me? I've been a lifelong martial artist. When some people believe ridiculous things about martial arts and then you have to kind of, well that's not really how it works. You have to kind of explain to them.

And then they see it from my perspective and they're like oh you've been doing this your whole life. This is something you're deeply invested in and you're very passionate about. You care very deeply about the true nature of what martial arts are. Well, that's how cooking is to chefs. They're all very similar. I know people don't like to think of martial arts as an art form. That's a great analogy.

Yeah, but they don't like to think of it as an art form because it hurts people, because it's violent and violence is bad. Right. But it is an art form. That's a great analogy. Yeah, but they don't like to think of it as an art form because it hurts people, because it's violent and violence is bad. Right. But it is an art form. It's just a strange one that it's beautiful to the people that appreciate it, that understand how difficult it is to pull something off and what this incredible dance between these people is. But on the outside, an ignorant person or a person with a very

narrow-minded perspective would say oh that's not an art that's violence that's terrible like was it Meryl Streep that said that wasn't it during what yeah it was it was like and no martial arts are not the arts like okay lady it's. People have their preconceived notions, and I had an embarrassing preconceived notion about food. And I say embarrassing because— It's a great analogy, by the way. It is in many ways. And comedy is similar in that sense as well because people look at comedy like, oh, they're just telling jokes. So, yes, yes, they are telling jokes.

But the process is so labor intensive. There's so much going on. And it's, I think it's like everything. So many things you look at them from the outside, whether it's carpentry or sculpture, you look at it from the outside. And if you have no experience in it, people can dismiss it and they don't think of it as this passionate art form. But now I have a completely different, I mean, I became good friends with Bourdain and I did a show and hung out with him a bunch of times and I got it then. I'm like, okay, this is a different thing than I had this idea, this narrow-minded idea

of what food is. And then you get to meet other chefs and you meet all these people and you're like, these are these sort of underappreciated artists that are also feeding people. He had that ability. He had that ability to bridge the gap and to help people understand. He schooled me once in trying to understand Japanese cuisine. Yeah, you were telling me about that. Tell me about what was that like?

Well, I was sitting there around a table. I was there with him and Emeril. It was after an event down in South Beach Food and Wine. And we're all, as cooks do, all at the end of an event, you know, we're sitting around and we're just kind of reminiscing on things happening. And he was there. I was sitting next to him. And someone brought up the concept of, know Japanese cuisine and I just said yeah you know it's it's so simple um and he just says yes but it's so complex and then I just took a step

back and he just began to really school me on it and he just had the ability just to really communicate food and connection to community and culture. And that, for me, was a big moment. Like, I just got to really see him as that person directly. I didn't think that sushi was very complex at all, the Japanese food, until I watched Jiro Dreams of Sushi. I know. That's it. You watch that, and you go, oh, my God.

I mean, you just look at the fish and it just starts to curl. You know, it's so fresh or they slap the clam and it just like curls up. It's like, whoa, that's fresh. And the pride and the seasonality. And I mean, like what blew me away, I've been to Japan a couple of times. This amazing guy is known as the Tokyo Fixer, Shinji Nohara. All the chefs know him. If you go to Japan.

Tokyo Fixer? Yeah, he's known as a Tokyo Fixer, Shinji Nohara. All the chefs know him. If you go to Japan. Tokyo fixer? Yeah, he's known as a Tokyo fixer. Why is he a fixer? Because he knows all the places in the books, off the books. If you wanted to, let's say, just know who produces the best tuna, he'll get you to the tuna boat and he'll introduce you to the guy, the main guy. But I mean, these guys who buy the tuna, for example, like you're seeing them at the market touching feeling, but the best sushi chefs know the actual captains and they know how they're handling the fish and they have a relationship that far before it actually hits the auction.

I mean, they're in it. They're so committed. I asked him one day, he was talking about this big tuna auction that they do every year. And I said, why would someone pay a million dollars for tuna? Like, you know, Western, like, how do you make your money back? He's like, no, you know, Japanese, it's considered, you know, an obligation if you can afford it to actually be able to, even at a loss to your customers, because it's almost a duty to do so. And that for me is profound.

And that's why Japanese chefs, I went there and I was just like that. The million dollar tuna thing was explained to me by another chef as a dick waving contest. He said, it's essentially you're, you're looking for the, it's,

it's a prestige thing. It's a prestige. it's a prestige yeah like that they'll show that they're spending so much money on this tuna not because it's worth that no it's definitely not yeah but because that's why it's confusing to people because people like how's a tuna worth a million dollars well it's not but but culturally yes deep down inside of them it's like it's almost their duty to do it it's not as if i mean mean, it's definitely like you could look at it as a show-off thing. But I mean, if you really understand from like Western culture, but in reality there, it's almost like it's a pride thing. It's not like, hey, look at me.

It's really more like, you know, I'm able to provide this for my customers. So to me, it's like it's a little bit more beautiful to look at it that way, right. You know, and, and profound. And like, even like why I got into making knives for me, it's like, it's everything to do with my trips to Japan was because I wanted to, as a chef to do everything that I can within the cycle of serving the steak on the plate, like up to the point where they cut the meat to, to, you know, to have that control on it. And then ultimately whether they like it or not, that's their business. But at least I did everything that I could, you know, to control it. Cause even just how you cut the meat is, has a different impact on how you would taste it. Yeah. That's one of the interesting

things about your place. Like you make the steak knives. So like when they serve you and they put the forks and the knife down, they tell you, you know, Adam Perry Lang made this steak knife. And you're like, Oh, and I priced it at $950 and one cent. Everybody like, why so much? I said, it's priced to be a deterrent. You know, it's one cent over the felony threshold. What's the felony threshold? It's like if you steal something and the value is over $950, it's a felony. Really? Yeah. So in the state of California. So from my perspective, I don't want to sit there, people are idiots sometimes. They'll go into the restaurant and they'll just take stuff and they don't realize what goes into it. And I was like, listen, you know, I know I'm going to have a couple of bad apples in there.

But the majority of people really are good people and they're not going to steal things. But a good majority will take pepper mills and things. I mean, it infuriates us as restauranteurs. That's so gross. I never thought of that. Oh, it's terrible. It's terrible. Like what they'll take, you know, meaningful stuff.

Because, you know, you really want want to do nice things for your customer. Do you catch people taking pepper mills? No, I don't put pepper mills on the table. I won't even expose myself to it. But for the knife, though, we have caught, like I have one story. Only a few people have attempted, and I basically got to the point of like pressing charges to get the guy. But instead I said I found them on, you know, Twitter and I messaged him. I was like, listen, I don't.

How do you know who took your knife? You know, we know everything. And we have cameras and we have, you know, who the reservation is under. So we had cameras all over the restaurant. So when we put the knife down, we have a whole system of like knife in, knife out. And this guy had slipped in. I'm not going to mention his name because at the end of the day, he did the right thing.

But he had slipped the knife into the baby carriage, into his baby's carriage. And I'm like, you mother. I said, you fucking. So I called him very calmly. And I said, listen, I don't think you realize what went into those knives. I make them no response, no response.

And then I reminded him, it's like it's a felony and I'm going to give you until six o'clock today to return the knife. And then he realized we were serious. He returned the knife and then, you know. So he returned it personally? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah awkward Yeah, I had another guy and he returned it and he just like it's pissed off He handed it back and he walked out the door. I'm just mad at you because he stole something That's figure it. It's dealing with the general public

I mean in the sense this is a lot like comedy clubs like most people are amazing Yes, and then you get a few knuckleheads that want to yell out things and interrupt the show. You just try not to allow it to penetrate you, to start causing you to not make nice things so your customers enjoy. So you try to block that out. You just try to give a good experience to people the best that you can. Yeah. That's the same thing with comedy. You want to make sure that you never have a negative feeling about the audience but some

people do develop that they don't understand you're it's it's almost like if you read every comment on Twitter you know most people are nice yeah but it only takes 1% like I was explaining to friend Jack, who was on the other day, author Jack Carr, and he read some comments. He goes, now I know why you don't read the comments. I'm like, I told you. I go, listen, you just have to think. If 1% of the people who are on my Instagram page are assholes, just 1%. That's 92,000 assholes.

It's insane. You have to think of it that way. Why would you risk your mental well-being and put it in the hand of 92,000 assholes? And that's generous. One out of 100 people, if you went into a room and there's 100 people in there, what are the odds that one of those people

is going to be a fucking idiot? It's pretty high. You've got to think that way times three or four online because of anonymity yeah because the fact that people are you know they don't think they're hurting a person when they say something mean and they look at a restaurant like all these fucking guys they don't need this knife yeah tuck it or this will look cool and like it's almost like there's an entitlement you know yes and, this meal was so expensive. I'll steal a knife. Yeah, I mean, they feel like you are doing great.

You've got this really nice restaurant on Vine in Hollywood. You must be a baller. Yeah, they don't get it. No. Well, hopefully they'll get it if they hear this. Yeah, well, they probably won't. Maybe there's a guy out there listening that actually stole the knife right now. He's like, motherfucker.

Yeah. He brought me up. We've gotten them back. We've gotten them back, the good majority of them. So there's a few out there, out in the wild. A few out there. And you can buy them too, right? Well, you know what?

I have sold it, but again, I price it to deter. Right. So because I only have a certain number, you know, I made, I think I made like 320 on the first run. And then I just made another 500 with my partner. He's a master bladesmith, this guy, Casey London. He's just, you know, him and I like we're head down and we can literally spend 12 to 14 hours just stamping an insignia into the blade. And, you know, days upon days, like, thousands of hours of work go into these things. Who else does that? Is there any other chefs that make their own knives?

Not that I really know of. You got that market cornered. I guess so. I guess so. How did you get involved in that? Like, was that something you thought, like, hey, this would be a great additional touch? Or were you always fascinated with knife making? Well, I've always been fascinated by knives because knives to a chef are an extension of themselves.

So you can judge a chef just basically on how sharp they are and how they maintain their knives in terms of what type of quality of output they're actually going to do. It's a sense of pride. terms of what type of quality of output they're actually going to do. It's a sense of pride. So if you're just a home, someone who has a garden and grows a tomato, you're going to take that first tomato. You think you're just going to grab any knife from the drawer? You're going to get your sharpest knife and you're going to slice into it. So everything we do, it's like, if you're seriously committed to the craft, it's like, you want to make sure your tools are top notch. And for me, I've always, you know, always had a knife in my hand, but when I sold my business in London, um, you know,

I wanted to just take some time and I got into this concept of wanting just to go that next step, that next level. Um, and I was fascinated with steel. So I went to the New England School of Metalwork. And I started – first we learned how to make steel from iron and then went through the whole process. How long did that take? They have these great courses, you know, a week, two weeks, three weeks at a pop. So, you know, it was about a year flying back and forth to Maine to, to attend the school. And then that community is, is like, I remember a restaurant community before, um, food network got involved and, you know, it's all about craft and, and sharing information. So you can go to these things called hammer-ins where around the country, there'll be an ensemble of maybe like nine to 10, you know,

master Smiths who will show like, Hey, Hey. Handle making or, you know, um, making a dagger or, um, tempering steel, you know, in a certain way. And, you know, you learn. And, uh, I just became fascinated with it. Um, I mean, just to actually just use a power hammer with a 5,000-pound anvil and thin out steel. It just puts adrenaline through you. It's like physical, like making something, and then knowing that you're making something

that will last generations if it's maintained. I mean, that's powerful stuff. You want to see something cool? On the other table, that's a samurai sword from the 1500s. Where, where, where? Yeah, hold on a second. You need to see this. I do need to see this. I do need to see this.

I'm into this. Oh, my gosh. Can I take a look? Yeah, pull it out. Don't cut anybody. I won't. That's a legit samurai sword. Wow.

With papers and everything. With the stingray. Yeah, I don't know whether the scabbard is original, but the steel, the actual steel is original. I'm sure it's been rewrapped. Can you imagine that? Now, look at this steel. I mean, this steel is like— It's 500 years old.

That's what's crazy. And that's the profound thing. I mean, there's something about making something that would last like that. Yeah. My God. No, it's amazing. It's an amazing thing to just have around. No, it's amazing.

It's an amazing thing to just have around. And when you pick it up and hold it, it's got weight to it, but it's delicate in the sense that it's thin and elegant. But yet it's designed. And you see the curve in the blade like that? And what's amazing about this is that when they do the quench, in other words, when they're actually putting the sole of the blade into it. What does that mean, the heat treatment. So anybody can pound out and make a shape. Well, not anybody, but pretty much anybody who's handy with making things can make what looks like a blade. But the true sole of the blade comes through the thermal cycle, the heat treatment. That's why people are like, oh, Japanese steel is the best or German steel

is the best because there's this whole process that is about aligning the molecular structure and the right type of stack and the type of steel that you do and then hardening it or softening it. So if you want a softer blade that might be more utility or you want a harder blade that might be more utility, or you want a harder blade that might be more brittle but can get really razor sharp. That's what determines what the blade is and what it will be. And it's that sole of the blade that, like something like this, so this curve is actually produced by the quench. So after you go through this process and you heat it up and you put it into the water, it actually, it just bows up and actually creates its curve and evenly too which is incredible that's why these guys are to me the epitome of like masters

these craftsmen that make knives and blades well there's always the dopest scenes in movies where someone's making a samurai sword when they're about to go out and kill somebody with it this is the thing is the guy goes to the knife master the the sword master and he's pounding on it and the the red hot steel and dunk it into the fire they want you know i went i want to get a blade made for me in japan and i went to this amazing place corn trading in new york and um the owner she came to me and she says, the knife maker would like to have a picture of you while they're making the blade. And at that time, I was just like, whoa, this is,

this is before I was making metals. So he wants to look at you while he's making it? Yeah, for some reason. I said, wow, that's pretty profound. You know, I was like, okay. You know, puts your soul, your character into the blade, so. So he wants to think of you as he's making the thing. That's cool.

For me, it was pretty incredible. This is amazing. Yeah. Let me get it out of here before something spills on. Yeah. Yeah. I always,

I, people take pictures with this and I'll have you take a picture with it. Yeah. At the end of the, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa.

That's why. There we go. What's that right there? You got so much cool stuff around too much this fucking I'm cleaning it up today after this podcast I've decided I gotta take Donnell Rawlings black ash

candle off I love you Donnell but I'm not into this smell every day but I wanted to get back to something you said earlier you said the way restaurants were before the Food Network. Yeah.

Like what happened? You know, I think Food Network and food shows in general are a great thing. You know, it empowers people to cook and there's all different levels. And I think it's the greatest thing. And also has given us as chefs a platform to do some incredible things too. also has given us as chefs a platform to do some incredible things too. But there was a different type of motivation between the cooks in the kitchen and a good number of the cooks today. So before, you know, there wasn't celebrity involved.

So you were there for the reason, for the love, the art of it. Where as nowadays, I'm not going to say everybody because I cook with, and I know there's plenty of people that are very serious about it. It's about, about the craft of putting in the hours, the repetition that doesn't make sense until all of a sudden you're doing something without thinking about it. And that's what it was like really before. We were just, everybody who was in the kitchen was there because they loved cooking, not for any reason of celebrity or whatever it is. So it really, it did change good, you know, patients, like, so people, like the progression would be like, oh, you work as a line cook for three to four years.

And then, you know, then you're a sous chef for a number of years and then you're a chef and, you know, there was a progression. And then when the whole thing came along and then it was, everybody was like from culinary school to chef, you know, they wanted to jump right into it. And are, do you think there's a significant number of people that are actually getting into cooking to become famous? There's something about it, yeah. There's an allure.

I mean, it has a thing. I don't know. Not the term. Famous is a little bit different. I'd say like notoriety. In other words, they're like ready to show like, hey, I can do this. But with cooking, there's a certain number of hours you just, you cannot avoid. You have to put this in. You have to have the knife in your hand for thousands and thousands

of hours before you really are starting to cook. Because it's easy to do a dish, but it's difficult to do a dish and to cook, you know, consistently with all the different things getting thrown at you, like this coronavirus thing, like, okay, how do you adapt? How are you resilient? You know, how can you bounce back? How do you understand, like, no matter what, I'm going to get this dish up at nine o'clock if that customer wants it at nine o'clock, not anything else. I mean, there's, so the more that you can get in terms of your toolbox, in terms of the use of the knife, I mean, cooking, I don't think about cooking when I'm doing it.

It's just only when I step back and reflect and I want to teach somebody, I say, oh, yeah, I do that. Oh, I didn't notice that. But because all of a sudden your hands start moving, and it's all about heat. So you're like, oh, I have heat on the side of the grill. I know it's not on the grill grates, but I'm going to use it to cook the side of the steak.

I'm going to push it up against there. How often do you teach people? Anytime somebody asks. i love teaching it i mean for me i love to share my knowledge and i mean i'm at a stage where you know it's like martial arts so i i did a keto for a while and what was amazing to me was the learning process for the black belt so your white belt basically until your black belt pretty much i know there's a brown belt in there. But when you're training, by teaching and explaining and slowing down, you get to reinvent, not reinvent, you get to reacquaint yourself with something that is so familiar. So that movement might be functional,

but now you're seeing someone else doing it and it causes you to rethink it so when I'm teaching somebody I'm actually learning yeah that happens that's a big part of this process that happens in jiu-jitsu when people start teaching and I've seen I've never taught jiu-jitsu but I've seen it from a lot of my friends that have become teachers all sudden their level jumps way up and there's the only thing that could be attributed to is that they're teaching people. So because they're teaching people, they're going over the fine details that you would ordinarily, you just kind of have it in your head. Like, you know, when you pass the guard, you put your knee here, you put your foot there.

It's normal. You do it all the time. But then when you're teaching someone, it solidifies the important points. And almost all the great jiu-jitsu practitioners are also great teachers. That's key. Yeah. I totally relate to that correlation for me. It gets you to really dial in on the minutia of details and perfect yourself.

Well, not perfect you, but strive towards perfection. The craft of cooking. The craft of cooking. And again, there's probably a dozen or more different styles right like everyone's got their own way to sort of prepare things and do things there's definitely a core like you'll have different schools of how you approach things like you say hey one guy does it this way one guy does it that way but i think the best thing that you can say is that you know you know i like i think about as like hey you have a golf bag and you have all these different irons and woods and all these different things in there.

It's like, you know, the circumstance, the environment, it's going to dictate how you cook. Not say, hey, I'm going to cook that steak and I'm going to use a cast iron pan. It's like, well, I don't have a cast iron pan. So what are you going to do? It's like, well, I'm going to cook and I grill. It's like, you don't have a grill. It's like, okay, what do I have? It's like well, I'm gonna cook and I grill it's like you don't have a grill. It's like, okay What do I have? It's like you have this this and this that's you know, so I only have this shitty, you know

Steel pan here and doing like this and you know, you take a look at it and you're like you adapt You know, I guess that's the shield steel pan shitty. No. No, it's great. Okay, he said like I'm just saying like Steel pans are great. Blue steel, you know, I use that all the time in the kitchen. You know, I like cast iron just in terms of the heat recovery that it has. What does that mean? When you have a cast iron pan, so you heat, it's like it's slow to heat up. But then once it gets to that level, if I was to put like a cold steak in it,

the cold steak on a different type of pan would bring the temperature of the steel down and then it has to heat back up. And then by that time, water can start to develop like underneath the steak and then it starts boiling or steaming. And that's why you can't get a crust. When you put in a steak into a cast iron pan, for example, and you do a planche or whatever, the rate at which water is repelled is it basically it steams or it goes away from the meat. And so as a result, it then starts the browning and transforming the flavor rather than it boiling. Because if you tasted a boiled piece of meat versus a piece of meat with a crust, you'd say the piece of meat with the crust is a lot better. So there's just something about it. So the cast iron pan is basically when you put the steak in, the temperature is not even going

to be moved because it's like a freight train. It's just moving. It's going to keep going. But something like a thinner steel pan, if you put something big and cold into it, it's going to drop the temperature of the steel. And then it has to recover not only with the steel but the mass of, let's say, a thick steak. So it's got to compensate. That's really why. Now, I have a carbon steel pan that I sear steaks on all the time. Most of the time the way I cook is I use a Traeger grill and I cook it very slow. So I'll do it at 225 degrees and I do it until I hit an internal temperature about 125. And then

I sear the outside. That's been the method that I use. Well, I'm going to just share my knowledge with you. So I, you know, with cooking steaks, the term sear doesn't really, it's a misnomer. There's only browning because like searing really only can happen when, you know, you have live flesh, so to speak. So it doesn't actually happen like where it sears in or seals in juices. What about like ahi tuna when they sear that? Well, it's more like browning. I mean, I'm just, it's just like, it's a terminology. It's like keep searing. I'm not telling you not to think like that. No, I mean, I'm just, it's just like. It's a terminology thing?

It's a terminology. It's like keep searing. I'm not telling you not to think like that. No, I understand what you're saying. The concept is it's browning. It's not searing. So bring me back on track. Low temperature. Okay.

So for example, what I would tweak with you is like, I would say go to 265. You're going to have the same results in a quicker period of time with the same tenderness. That ratio of speed is not going to impact your product. So at the end of the day, 225, everybody says slow and low, but I'd say a lot of times like a bit hotter and a bit quicker is actually better for the crust development and also for the meat. Because for the tenderness of the meat, let's say you have a thick, like a brisket, and it's got all this collagen in it, which is tightly wound protein. I think about it as like a sponge that's dehydrated. When you throw it on top of the water, it kind of floats, and then all of a sudden it catches and then soaks up the juice.

So when you're putting it in at that lower temperature, you're heating it up, you're causing the protein to squeeze out the liquid. And then if you're doing it in at that lower temperature, you're heating it up. You're causing the protein to squeeze out the liquid. And then if you're doing it at the rate ratio, it's drinking the liquid into the collagen to turn into gelatin, which is that unctuous, beautiful mouthfeel that you'll get from a long-cooked piece of meat. Now, if you get a long-cooked piece of meat, like a really well-done br brisket what temperature are you cooking that at um depending on the cooker that i'm using but 265 is my is my like typical dial in so 265 you don't you ever go lower than that for anything i can if i want to get sleep it's depending on my schedule in other words like i'm going to get relatively the same results but less crust development from 225 depending on how i handle it again there's like lots of little variables so but um by 265 i found that for brisket for

example it's the right ratio of that collagen drinking it up to get the gelatin and also the right crust development the a lot of what i cook is wild game like most of it so which is a lot leaner. Yeah. And so that's why I would go a little bit hotter. Try it the next time you got nothing to lose. So 265. Go 265 on it. Okay. And then how do you feel about that method of cooking it slowly and then browning the outside later?

I'm not a big fan of it because, you know, there's all these different compounds that are full. You know, it's not like, I mean, they call it like a reverse sear. That's like the terminology. For me, there's nothing like a crust that is created because what ends up happening is it's like, you know, if you're cooking it slow, all these juices start to get pulled out. Okay. And they disappear. They're like they're juice on the bag and make it into a sauce or it gets evaporated into the air. the bag and make it into a sauce or it gets evaporated into the air. The thing about doing that is, is like, if you're putting it directly in the pan while it's wet, all those juices are

bouncing back and then re-adhering to the meat. Okay. That's flavor. That's flavor you would lose normally. Now the sacrifices, like sure, you'll get it cooked from end to end. Perfect. Okay. So it'll be pink to pink. Okay. It's great. Right. But if you go back and sear it or brown it after, you miss out on all these compounds and it's not the same crust. I bet you if I gave you a blind taste test using both methods, you would appreciate the other crust over the reverse sear. And this is even with wild game, even with a very lean meat? That's a different story.

That's what I cook though. lean meat that's a different story that's what i cooked though okay um that's a different story so with the lean meat um i would probably say to brown it first and then go slow the reverse because there is a gentle there is a gentle way of of like it's so lean you want to kind of like slide into home i kind of say is like you develop a certain amount of momentum and for the leaner meats it's so lean, you want to kind of like slide into home, I kind of say. It's like you develop a certain amount of momentum. And for the leaner meats, it's about the rest. So you're cooking it and then you're taking it out and then you're allowing that heat momentum to kind of carry over. Now, I gave you a bunch of elk meat. How did you cook it?

A lot of it just like hot and fast so I can really taste it. I don't mind a bit of a chew. Most people are different. hot and fast so I can really taste it. I don't mind a bit of a chew. Most people are different. For me, I want to taste the meat. I want to savor the juices of what that is.

And elk's my favorite. Thank you for that. I mean, I still have some of it. It's fantastic. I got more if you want more. Oh, I'll take it. I'm not going to say no. That's the best.

Well, I want to try some of the way you cook it. I want to have you cook some of that elk. I'd love to do that. Yeah, we've got to make that happen one of these days. I'd love to see your method and what the difference is. I learned how to do it from Chad Ward. He's a world champion barbecue guy. Whiskey Bent Barbecue on Instagram. Whiskey, is it BBQ?

Whiskey Bent BBQ, I think. Chad's a great guy, and I've been with him in camp on several hunting trips where he's cooked for Traeger. Traeger will hire him to come and cook for us. And it's incredible. And that's the method that I learned from him is that reverse your method. And it's incredible. I mean, you can go to all different chefs and they'll get to the same place taking different paths and they'll get there. For me, like fishing you know it's like which fly like you know which fly do you choose like fine you know whatever the hatch is but it's oftentimes it's the fly that you believe in most that is going to catch the fish i mean okay i'm drawing a terrible analogy here i know what you're

saying but confidence confidence you're going to fish it harder. You're going to believe in it. And you embrace it. And a lot of that has to do with success in cooking. You have to believe in what you're doing. Obviously, there's some metrics involved. But a master like that guy, for example, I can't refute. At the end of the day, it's fantastic. I get they're a different way. Maybe there's subtle differences.

Maybe mine's better. Maybe it's not. I don't care. I don't even think better is the way to put it. Maybe there's subtle differences. Maybe mine's better. Maybe it's not. I don't care. Well, I don't even think better is the way to put it. Exactly. They're different. And what do you prefer? How do you feel about sous vide?

I think it has its place, but it's not the answer. For me, certain types of proteins like shellfish, it's a godsend. Shellfish? Yes. Lobster tails or shrimp or anything like that. Because the protein there, it's a godsend. Shellfish? Yes. Lobster tails or shrimp or anything like that. Because the protein there, it's so delicate. And if you can go slow, like Thomas Keller has a fantastic recipe, butter poaching lobster tails in sous vide. And it just cooks it so that it's super tender and it's not tough.

So you vacuum seal it with the butter? With the butter and some aromatics. I want to cook that right now. It's fantastic. That sounds incredible. And then take it out. You can kind of like toast it on the grill lightly or put it in a pan. It's something else. Yeah.

My friend Forrest Galante, he's a biologist, and he goes off of Santa Barbara. He goes out there and catches them. And he gave me a couple of them. So you've never done it with the butter and the... No, no, never done it sous vide. It's going to change your life. Yeah, I've only done it on a grill. I've only done it when it was delicious.

He gave me four lobster tails that he captured himself. They were delicious, but I cooked them on a grill. I just followed a recipe that I found with butter and paprika and a couple different things. Yeah. Garlic. Next time, put that in a bag, seal it, follow the time sequence, take it out, and then kiss it on the grill. You're going to be born with it.

So what other shellfish is good? Is scallops good? Scallops is good with sous vide. But for me, scallops, particularly if they're fresh, I mean, I'd rather kind of just cook them in a pan. There's something about that particular, the cell structure and the scallop that I want just, you know, charred in a pan and still just like almost like a bit raw. There's a sweet spot with scallops, right? There's such a sweet spot. And once you cross the line.

Yeah, they get tough and weird and you kind of ruin it. Yeah, it's terrible. How do you know when they're ready? Yeah, they get tough and weird and you kind of ruin it. It's terrible. How do you know when they're ready? Well, for me, it's a feel. And, you know, you want to kind of feel it so that, you know, when you touch it, it doesn't feel raw, but it starts to give it a slight spring and then you pull it.

And then, like I said earlier, it's like you kind of like slide into home. You let that residual heat and that temperature kind of slow down. A lot of times if you're going a bit fast, you take it and they have like some cold melted butter, not too cold, still a bit liquid. And you cook it and then you just dunk it right into the butter and it just arrests the cooking. And then you have it there and like then the guests come and then all you have to do is just like heat it up a little bit and then it goes oh it's so complicated it's not though i'm sure but i mean it's like you gotta dial it in you know it's it depends on what you want you know the end result so like you know you have guests coming over you want to enjoy your time with them you know you figure out little tricks what you can get away with and what you can do so my friend tom papa who you met earlier who's getting tested for covid along with you when he uh has been in here before he brings

this homemade sourdough bread that's just sensational i'm not a bread guy i don't eat a lot of bread i eat very little of it in fact especially now but when i eat his like my god it's so good and he's he keeps saying i'm getting better every time i do it i'm like it's fucking bread no are you getting better no he's getting better it's crazy i'm just being an asshole i know but he's my friend i'm just fucking around but he's he it's similar in a lot of ways to your dry aging too because he has this starter which is a living thing yeah it's and you know his starter is i don't know how many years old it's old as fuck though but he's been using this same starter that he got from somebody else and

just it brings soul to it it brings soul to the food yeah for me and that and that connection that you have to the food is going to also you know make you care about it more while you cook it and you know it's not just a commodity where like, what are me 16 steaks in a box, you know, and bring it in. I mean, you can push out food like that. There's a place like there's a place for that in this world. Well, what I'm really hoping, really hoping is that some sort of a rapid test for COVID, not even like the 15 minute one that we came because I heard something about some saliva test that they're trying to develop that's extremely rapid. That would be amazing if you could just test people right before they come into your restaurant and no one has to worry about shit. Yeah.

We're gearing up for what the new world is going to be. Yeah. Temperature. Everybody gets their temperature taken. But that's not good enough. See, the temperature thing is not good enough because if you're asymptomatic but you're still spreading it, like why are we pretending? That's avoiding science. We need to find out whether or not people actually have it.

This temperature thing is just whether or not you're sick. I know. It doesn't mean you don't have it if your temperature is low. It's real weird. And that's what's going to be mandated on us. I mean there's a certain series of things that we're going to have to do and it's, you know, nobody knows for sure or whatnot, but, uh, you know, who knows? Well, at a certain point in time, I think we really need to make a decision as to whether or not we're just going to allow this to take over our world or whether we're going to do what we can do to protect the sick.

You know, if you're in contact with people that have a weakened immune system, you're going to have to have a different life than someone who doesn't. If you're a person with a weakened immune system, you're going to have a different life. If you're an older person, you're going to have to have a different life. But for the vast majority of us, we're going to have to give people the freedom to make choices and to do what they want to do with their own life and their own health. If you're giving people the freedom to eat terrible food, look, heart attacks are killing people as quickly as anything, right? Cancer is killing people as quickly as anything. Cigarettes kill half a million people a year. There's no government mandate that's trying to get people to stop smoking cigarettes.

In fact, there's not a single word ever spoken about it in presidential campaigns, in governor campaigns, congressional campaigns. No one's out there trying to get people to stop smoking cigarettes. But yet it's killing half a million people every year in this country alone. We're so strange in, and I understand, cigarettes is a choice and infectious diseases are not. We're worried about protecting people who have these compromised immune systems, but it's not most people. You know, the vast majority of people that are going to get this are not, it's not going to be fatal. We have to figure out how to protect the people that are high risk. But to quarantine the whole country, it just seems like maybe it was a good move to do initially, but we can't sustain that.

So now we have to figure out how to move forward. And there's all these protests all over California now. I'm sure you've seen it in Orange County and Huntington Beach. And there's counties in Northern California that are like, we're opening up everything. We're going to open up restaurants. We're opening up bars. We're going back to business. Texas is basically back to business. Montana is doing the same. And they have a modified approach to dealing this. And we're going to have to figure it out on the long way. But I just don't want us to lose. I don't want us to lose any people.

But I certainly don't want us to lose restaurants either. I don't want us to lose bars. I don't want us to lose comedy clubs. I don't want us to lose small businesses that are crippled by this. What is the world even going to look like? I mean, here we are. You talk about a comedy club. How do you even, like, six feet apart and then there's a certain energy in the room. going to look like i mean here we are like you know you talk about a comedy club like how do

you even like okay six feet apart and then doesn't make sense there's a certain energy in the room like what type of world do we have you know in front of us the way it's slated right now right and no what kind of government overreach are we going to have where people are going to come in and police this you know like what i mean there's no real science to that either by the way you know they have a bunch of people jammed into a room whether six feet apart or not you're touching things you're breathing on each other I mean I don't I don't know I I think you should allow people to do what they want to do you know if it gets to a certain point where we have some sort of a viable cure

or a treatment like there's this what is that stuff called again? This antiviral medication that Dr. Fauci has been remdesivir. Yeah, remdesivir, is that how you say it? I mean, boy, we're hoping for that, right? We're hoping that there's some sort of a treatment where it's not a death sentence for people even with immune compromised systems. So, I mean, I just, I feel so bad for people like you and for all the people out there that own these amazing restaurants that it's one of my favorite things to do is to go to a nice restaurant. And it would be for me to go to work.

Yes. It'd be such a shame if because of this, this pandemic, all that goes away i mean and what kind of a build-up are we looking at to try to bring those places back yeah i you know i don't have the answers you know for me um what can be done if you had a magic wand what would you do if someone said, Adam, fix this? It's difficult for me because, you know, I hear your point, but I have just such great empathy for, you know, people that would get sick just by someone else's negligence. And for me, so that it's a bit of a tussle here because, you know, I want to just, you know, on one hand you have like an economy that is just tanking and businesses that are going to go out of business. But then on the other hand, you have people that are defenseless, some people that look healthy, fantastic, like a friend, 45 years old, goes in.

Then they're on a ventilator and it's just like you can't give the answers. Right. I don't know if I'm even prepared to give you a summary on it. I haven't formulated in my brain the way that I've just been coping. And that's all I'm just trying to hold on. And, you know, for me, I'm just trying to put faith in the fact that people have to eat and people like you really want to have restaurants around. And in the end, we're going to find our way. And the only way I know to get through this is just to head down and work and be

really helpful to people that are in need and be there for the community and feed them. But outside of that, you know, I don't know. God, like if I had the... I don't know how to answer you. Yeah, nobody knows. That's what's crazy. Even if I was in control, I mean, you know, because I don't want people to die unnecessarily by people's negligence.

But on the other hand, I just don't know. Well, it's such an incredibly messy situation with no clear-cut answer because of the fact that you do have these people that are seemingly healthy 35-year-old people that are getting it and dying and it doesn't make sense and then you have you know you hear oh guy world war ii veteran 102 years old beats covid yeah you know like you see that too so it's like what how do i think about this do i think about it like the common cold do i think about it like the flu do I think about it like some new thing that we, I mean, everyone is unsure and that's what makes it so strange.

I think the key is for us to get the, you know, a vaccine as quick as possible, you know, so that we can get it, you know, at least have some type of defense for this because, and I don't know how long that's going to take. People like are talking a ridiculous amount of time, but. Well, it takes a long time to develop a vaccine correctly. I mean, they're going through don't know how long that's going to take. People are talking a ridiculous amount of time. Well, it takes a long time to develop a vaccine correctly. I mean, they're going through a bunch of trials right now. We've talked about it before. There's several ongoing, including ones with human beings that they're testing the vaccine on. There was a woman in Seattle. She was the first ever person to receive this coronavirus vaccine. They did a story on her and they're monitoring her. person to receive this coronavirus vaccine there they did a story on her and they're monitoring her you know what does because that's the only way for us to be sure yeah i mean because responsibly i

mean even just people coming into the restaurant like don't get me wrong i want the business and i want to have a bar that's bustling i want to have a vibe i want people to be happy well fed enjoy themselves but you know right not be nervous not be nervous someone coughs and everybody freaks out yeah servers have the mask on so now all of a sudden we can't have music because people can't hear you know the server and there's you know yeah yeah nobody used to give a shit they would shake hands it's weird you see people shake hands in a movie now and you're like oh what are you doing i know it's you could just get twitchy about it yeah so it happens so quickly too that's what's weird like the the whole world shifted so rapidly and um people like you are the ones i mean obviously the people that get hit the hardest of the people

a with the disease and b that work with people with the disease right the people that are that have the disease and then the the first responders and hospital workers and all the different people that work to help those people, they're the most devastated by this. But there are so many small businesses right now that are in this position that you're in where there's so much uncertainty. The key is going to be the rent game. I mean, at the end of the day, for a lot of these businesses, that's the looming factor is being on the hook, you know, not only just to make rent the following month with a compromised, you know, 50% occupancy, you know, if you can imagine, you know, if you're paying rent for that, you know, you have a model in terms of how much income, you know, someone brought out

the possibility of like, instead of, you know, forgiving the rent, taking the rent and putting it on the back end of it. So right now, essentially, for the three months, you don't need to pay the rent, but you'll be add on three months to the end of your lease. That, for me, makes sense. You know, that for me makes sense. But for us to turn around and, you know, work at, you know, 10, 15% capacity and then all of a sudden get a bill for six figures. Like, okay, you owe this. So who's going to fill my shoes? Like, so if I can't make it at my location, who's going to come along and take on that rent anyway?

Nobody's going to do it. So they're stuck. We're stuck. What are we going to do? Right. It's almost like the deficit that gets established is insurmountable for someone to come on and start from scratch. Like how much, I mean, you started that restaurant how long ago? We have a two year anniversary and I guess it's in four days. So I must have found out about it right after you opened.

Yeah. How long did it take to prepare to open up that restaurant god if you want to include looking for a space and trying to find the right location it's a couple years so a couple years of preparation and then how long does it take to actually develop the space and set it up correctly what was it before you guys were there it was an empty space i mean it was a project built from scratch. So going through just the permitting process in LA and just going through everything, you have to hire so many consultants

and people in between to get things through. It's a lot different than New York. So I mean, for us, we were delayed. Like every project is delayed. I mean, it took us over a year to build it out. And you're just like, let's open already out. And, you know, you're just like, let's open already. Because each day that passes, you know, you're losing money. And when you do something like this, like, were you working as a chef in another place

while you were doing this? No, I was just basically living off of the proceeds from the sale of my business that I had in London and other projects. And you just kind of like, as an entrepreneur, you know, you're just putting it into the restaurant, hoping it opens as quick as you can. And then, you know, you kind of, then you have your cashflow. God, the fucking opening up a business like that must be so insanely stressful. Yeah. Because, you know, especially, you know, not inheriting an existing restaurant, like for me, it's like, wow, I really believe in the area. I love Hollywood and Vine. It gave me like certain activity in the area, gave me like a New York vibe. I really love the energy. Yeah, so I love the historic building. It was built in 1923. It was LA's first skyscraper. You know, it was a whole story. Like as chefs and restaurant chefs, we get romantic about it.

We get connected to the story, to what it is. And sometimes it overrides the sensibility of, you know, building it out. But, you know, you invest in it and you want it to work out. And it works out. It's great. But it's a lot of work and it's a long road to get there. That whole area seemed before this like it was experiencing a resurgence. Like it was like super shady just about 10 years ago.

Yeah. A lot of development, you know, I think that over the course of like the past like within five years and two years, like six billion in development of buildings and hotels. And there's a revitalization project that's taking place on Hollywood Boulevard that's going to extend the sidewalks and make it almost promenade-like. And, you know, I think that, you know, if any place in L.A. should be that kind of place, it should be there. I mean, I saw the revitalization in Times Square, for example. You know, as a kid, like, don't walk down the street and don't go there. Now it's Disney. It's a whole other world.

It's so weird there now. Well, now it's really weird. But before the pandemic, it became a mall. It became a mall. It's crazy. It was the dirtiest place in all of New York. It was horrible. I've only been there a couple of times back in the day, back in the 90s before it got cleaned up.

But I remember it was not a place I wanted to stop. Yeah. 70s and 80s. I remember my dad sitting down and was like, okay, you don't walk down the street and you always look as if you're carrying something. You always look like you walk like as if you're carrying a knife or something. This is a 12, 13-year-old kid. Oh, my God. How do you walk like you're carrying a knife or something. This is a 12, 13-year-old kid, you know? Oh, my God. How do you walk like you're carrying a knife?

Really confident, like, that you can handle yourself and, you know, not look like a victim. Remember the thing they would do in the movies where a guy would pretend to have a knife or pretend to have a gun in his pocket? Over a scarf. Yeah, nobody does that anymore. Right.

Like, to have the gun in the pocket move? That was... That sort of... That went away with quick a scarf. Yeah, nobody does that anymore. Right. Like to have the gun in the pocket move. That went away with quicksand. People started talking about those things. When you first came out here, was that the first place that you opened? Have you had a restaurant in LA before? No, I did a series of pop-ups. So for me, there was a huge lot by Jimmy Kimmel's show and I basically took a 5,000 square foot space and I built it out. I have a whole barbecue trailer on a tractor trailer. So I have

a thousand gallon propane tank that was custom welded by her and Franklin in Austin. He's amazing. One of the top, top. Franklin's barbecue? Yeah. Topuer, top fabricator. He's got some great YouTube videos. Oh, he's tremendous. And, you know, aside from like the videos in terms of teaching people, he's just a great down-to-earth guy. He's fantastic. Seems like it. Yeah, he's tremendous. So I just created just kind of like an homage to barbecue, to doing it right.

I had a little Airstream. I slept in the parking lot, cooking it overnight, served only lunch. You know, everybody got the same thing. So I did that for about four years before I opened up the restaurant. How do you know Jimmy? I did a show back in 2008. We hit it off right away. And, you know, after the show, like, hey, you want a barbecue? So then we ended up hanging out the weekend and he's into fly fishing you know we're into like the same into the same stuff we just became great friends so you actually are into fly fishing so you're talking about it not just as an analogy oh i'm obsessed

with it really oh where do you go obsessed with it uh anywhere and anywhere but a good majority of the places places that i love in idaho montana Wyoming. Are you one of those catch and release guys? Absolutely, 100%. How weird is that though? It's not if you look at it as just a system and environment. We talk about this process thing. Fly fishing, it's the one thing you can invest your time in and you can do into a very old age.

So if you're lifting weights, there's a certain point where you're just going to stop. But fly fishing can really invest your time into. And there's just something about all the different facets of it that are absolutely amazing. Gosh, I lost my track. I'm thinking about it. Well, I did a lot of fly fishing when I was a kid. Oh, really?

Yeah. Where did you go? Boston. I mostly did it on ponds and lakes. So like largemouth bass and stuff? Yeah, I did a lot of fishing, but I did a lot of fly fishing as well. How much better is the take on a popper, on a fly rod of a largemouth bass? It's fun, but I also like topwater baits with a casting rod, a casting reel, a spinning tackle.

I like a lot of different fishing. But fly fishing is for people who think fishing is too easy. No. Okay. This is what you had asked me to say, the catch and release thing. So it's kind of like creating a sustainable culture and environment that gets passed on for generations. Because there's so much more than just catching the fish. It's that moment in time when you completely block out.

You turn your phones off, or most of the time you're out of range. You're with a fishing buddy, and you're almost like parallel playing, and you're sitting there, and you're just, you focus on a certain riff in the water, and you start casting to it, and you start figuring out what's going on. And there's just some real beauty in the whole process of it that uh to me it's like shooting elk with a suction cup at the end of

the arrow like i got him he's running off like the suction cup arrow that's going to drop off and he's going to be unharmed um it's just weird i have done catch and release before i just just state that but when i think about it when i spend time alone thinking about it, I'm like, why am I doing this? I'm putting a hook through this fucking fish's head. Why don't I just leave that poor fish alone unless I want to eat him? Like I like catching fish and then eating them. That's my favorite thing to do. So maybe I should just stick to that.

Well, maybe. I mean, you know, for me, like trout, it doesn't really eat that well. There's so many other. What doesn't eat well? Trout doesn't eat well. How dare you? It doesn't. Who are you? You're a chef., like trout, it doesn't really eat that well. There's so many other better- What doesn't eat well? Trout doesn't eat- How dare you? It doesn't. Who are you?

You're a chef. Yeah, no, it's true. How can you say such a thing? Don't you think there's a method to cook trout perfectly where it's delicious? I've had trout in restaurants before and it was excellent. I'm not saying it's not delicious, but I am saying that there's so many other fish out there- That are better. That are better. That are better. And most of the fish I like to eat more rare and raw, you know, for me.

Like, it's more flavor. But the trout for me, I don't know. Like, at this point, it's like a sacrilege to kill a trout. I mean, I just identify with it. Just that whole process. Well, trout tastes better than largemouth bass. Oh, yeah. And I've released, I've caught and released largemouth bass before.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, because they're in a pond and it's the stagnant water. It's swampy. Yeah. I've tasted them. It is weird that that is a factor, the swampy water. Because smallmouth bass I've eaten, it tastes much better.

Oh, yeah. I liken it the same thing to my dry age room with that concept is that if you don't have that free-flowing air and that oxygen in the room, it has an impact on flavor. If you have a swampy, wet environment, it's going to impact the beef. I think about that all the time. But here's the monkey wrench in that theory. Catfish. Catfish is delicious. It's delicious, but if you have a catfish from a pond, it's not as delicious.

So river catfish is what you want because it's flowing water? Probably. I mean, I've had catfish that is just absolutely phenomenal, but I've also had catfish that was kind of muddy. Right. Right. And there's different methods that people use to try to get rid of that muddy. I've seen people soak them in milk.

I've heard of people even soaking them in coca-cola which is really weird i've never heard that i've heard milk i've heard you know buttermilk breaks it down a little bit you know but then again if you're going to fry anything with buttermilk and crust then you know you could have cardboard in there and taste good oh really yeah right that's like the spices and the crust is what you're eating more than the actual flavor of the flesh itself yeah um last time i fly fishing, I haven't done it in years, but last time I entertained it, I was with my family. We were in Montana.

We were taking a whitewater rafting trip down the Gallatin River, which is really fun. Yeah. But as we're going there, there was all these guys that were fly fishing, and they seemed like the most peaceful people in the world. Just casting and just slowly manipulating this and then they were catching these these trout and then just gently catching them and then releasing them yeah and we have a group of guys that we do this with we

travel all around there's maybe about like eight to ten of us where we'll go and we'll go on a trip together and jimmy kimmel does this with you? Oh, yeah. Oh, he is obsessed with fly fishing. We are both. It's just a whole journey. We log the trips. We talk about what was caught. Do you rather tie your own flies?

I've done it, but I don't do it now. I mean, with the restaurant the way it is, it's always just been so time consuming. And now they make such beautiful patterns. But there is maybe the next level, like when I retire, quote unquote, you know, like delve into. I have like a whole mailbox desk with all like the hackle and everything there. But it's just sitting there. You know how you talk about how making your own knives is like another level.

I would imagine that tying your own fly. It's the same thing. And then catching like a large trout. It's that whole process to lead up to. You have a pattern or it's even just like, what are they eating? Seeing what's hatching, coming off and matching the hatch. Or there's some, the temperature of the water, the water levels, the speed. Like the first thing we check before we go on a trip is what are the water levels?

What's the water flow like? Because if it's going too fast, the trout are getting all the dirt, everything hitting them in the face. But there's a certain level where you look for where it's best for. So it's always like, okay, what are the conditions like? You go through it. So it's like a you know so it's always like okay what are the conditions like you know you go through it so it's like a whole process before like the lead-in that how did you start well i've always loved you know fishing like any kind deep sea anything as a kid like it was my escape since i was a little kid but um i think that i always looked at fly fishing as like the higher level.

I always aspired. I remember being on the Delaware River and I was at camp and there was a guy just underneath a bridge and he just kind of picked up like 20, 30 yards of line. He just laid it down and I was up at high level and I just saw the fish come up and bite it. And I was just like, whoa, you know, just like blew me away. And then from that point on, I always wanted to. And then I bought my first fly rod. And they always remember your, you know, you always remember your first fly rod. I still have it. And, and it just started the obsession there. There's just something about the connection to the fish and the whole thing, as opposed to just kind of like going on a boat and trolling and waiting for them to strike. Like this is more like hunting. What you're doing is, it's like you're trying to find the location of the fish and then you have to place the fly and you have to like let it drift without any drag. And it's like this combination of skill and

intuition and hunting. That's the the excitement whereas just catching and throwing meat in the thing okay i mean i've done it i still do it i like being on the water but fly fishing is just like this higher level thing do you do any kind of fishing with lures other than fly fishing do you ever like not really and i can't even like there's so much social pressure you know amongst my group anyway because they get on me because all most of the guys are dry like jimmy is like dry fly only like even if like no we should explain dry flies or flies that float on the surface on the surface it's like the epitome of like delicate presentation and then underneath you know you can basically you follow like the life cycle of an insect. So the eggs go to the bottom, and then the larva comes up, and it kind of floats to the surface, and then it pops open, and it flies away.

Most of the fish eat all the food that's subsurface, so before it even gets to the surface. So their eyes are straight down. When the conditions are right, the trout are looking up because the hatch happens so that's when all the bugs are coming up and the take is you see the fish and it's more dramatic jimmy is like straight up like dry fly fishermen like even if like and it all comes from like one of our mentors and this is huey lewis like he's part of lewis in the news yes he's one of really like he is like one of like, he's one of our group hip to be square. A hundred percent. He is lives in Montana and he is like,

we talk about every year fishing on the bitter root for the squalor hatch, which is a certain kind of almost like a salmon fly. It's very large. And when these things come up and hatch, like fish are huge and they're hitting and jumping out of the water. It's very dramatic. Wow. And does everybody catch them, Elise? Or do you ever run into people that catch them and cook them? Not in our group.

It's very looked down upon? Huge. You'd never. I mean, even me, like they tease me because if they're not biting on the flies, like I'll drop a bead head, which is underneath the fly. And so it's kind of like, they call it bobber fishing. Cheating? Cheating.

So it's not, it's like, they call it down and dirty as opposed to on the surface. That's so silly. Yeah. Yeah. Isn't it crazy? Sometimes I just want to see a fish at the end. Listen, there's bow hunters. I bow hunt and there's bow hunters that also rifle hunt.

And then there's bow hunters that look at rifle hunters like it's legalized poaching. Like, what are you doing? You're using a rifle on an animal? Same thing. But then there's other people that have a really good ethical argument for that. Like, hey, if I am at 200 yards and I see an elk or a deer and I squeeze that trigger that is a dead animal 100% of the time it's a huge responsibility it's not even 100% but it's very high 90s yeah yeah that's a huge responsibility for the animal I mean you know you want the animal just to you know not

suffer well it's also there's something about the difficulty factor of bow hunting. It's very effective when the arrow hits the animal. The animals die, like, they could die as quick, if not quicker, than a rifle with a well-placed arrow because they bleed so quickly. It goes through the vitals and they're done in seconds. But it's harder to do. And it requires an immense amount of discipline and dedication. And I'm sure fly fishing requires some. and it requires an immense amount of discipline and dedication. And I'm sure fly fishing requires some, but with bow hunting, you literally have to practice every day.

You think you saw in the back, I have an archery range in the garage back there where you see there's a 45-yard range and I shoot arrows every day. I love it. I have a bow too. I've never gone hunting. A PSC. Oh, I have a PSC. Yeah, it's beautiful. It's a great bow. I've never gone hunting. A PSC. Oh, I have a PSC. Yeah, it's beautiful. It's a great bow. I went down with my friend, Glenn Jonas.

He took me down. He's a hunter. He's like, this is what you get, and I got it. And I don't get enough practice in. I've never gone hunting with it. Yeah, it's not something I recommend. I wanted to, though. I mean, you know.

I have friends that want to do it. They're like, I want to go bow hunting with you. I'm like, no, you don't. If you did, you'd be out there practicing every day. Like it's a thing that once you realize what's at stake, how difficult it is to do, how much respect you have to have for the art of archery and how much effort has to be put into the discipline. Most people don't want to do that. effort has to be put into the discipline. Most people don't want to do that.

If you really want to hunt your own meat, and this is one of the things that's come up during this pandemic, is people are really scared about the food supply. They're scared about not having food in their home that they can rely upon. Also, before that, there was this whole thing about gathering organic meat. People were worried about the source of the meat.

They were worried about animals that weren't treated correctly and factory farming and all the different things that people should be concerned about. And the ultimate solution to that is get an animal that's in the wild. This animal's been living the way they've been living for hundreds of thousands of years. You just, you stealthily make your way through their world, get yourself into a position, and then through hard work and dedication and understanding and take an animal ethically. Yep. I'm with you on that. Yeah.

I think it's great. I mean, and also I love that, you know, the responsibility you take for it. You know, it's like, you know, some people don't understand hunting. They think it's just a bunch of yahoos going out there. And some maybe are. Some people don't understand hunting. They think it's just a bunch of yahoos going out there. And some maybe are. But the people that I know that take it seriously take a huge responsibility with it.

The people that I know that do it, that take a huge responsibility, they're some of the best people I've ever met in my life. And the most dedicated. And the kind of hunting that I do, which is western mountain elk hunting, requires physical fitness. Western mountain elk hunting requires physical fitness. It requires incredible stamina because you're going, gaining and losing thousands of feet of elevation in a day. You might trek 15, 20 miles every day. I mean, you have to be fit and you have to be ready. And then you have to be able to keep your nerves in the moment of truth. And then that final moment, you know, it's like. Yeah, you could hunt for 10 days for one moment.

So you're hunting for 10 days for 15 seconds. It's profound. Like the buildup, it's amazing. Yeah, you got to keep your shit together. It's hard. And there's no catch and release. No catch and release in bow hunting. But when I sit down and I feed my family.

The code is the same. The code, though, if you really look at it, it's, I mean, if you just focus on the catch and release or whatever, but there's a code to it. I mean, you get it. You know, I believe in that. Yeah, the code, the difference between bow hunting and regular hunting versus regular fishing and fly fishing. But even just regular hunting, you know, and bow hunting, I'm just saying you're hunting with guys that that you know have an ethical responsibility understand the environment you know and follow the rules and i think that you know yeah that's amazing well there's also the the thing to consider is there's millions in fact billions of dollars

every year that go into wildlife habitat go into, all the different people that work as game wardens are all paid by this. And this is all money that's taken from hunting licenses, the Pickman-Robertson Act. They take a certain percentage of, I think it's 10%, of all the proceeds from ammunition sales, licenses, equipment, all that stuff goes to preservation. The amount of resources that go to managing these areas and keeping these animals healthy and monitoring them and monitoring their populations and even reintroducing different animals like Rocky Mountain sheep and all these different animals that elk that get introduced into all these different places. All that money comes from hunting. And it's crazy to think that at one point in time, most of the animals in North America that we hunt on a regular basis were on the verge of extinction, including white-tailed deer. Which is crazy to think if you live in a place that has white-tailed deer because there's so many of them, it's insane. But there's more white-tailed deer today than there were when Columbus landed. It's really, really weird.

And this is an incredible system. And this is an incredible system. The wildlife management system that's in place in North America, including the management of public lands and the access to public lands, is a truly special place. It's truly special here in North America. And that is because of the people that love hunting and love these wild areas. Yeah, it makes sense. I mean, I love it.

The sustainability factor is everything. And I think that's also why the catch and release thing. I mean, if everybody kept everything that they caught, there's just not enough. Right. Like in that environment to pull. No, I understand. You know. And people say that about hunting, too, that if everybody went out and hunted, there wouldn't be animals left, which is really true.

But everyone's not going to do it. That's like saying if everybody became a marathon runner, the streets would be filled. But then you's not going to do it. That's like saying, if everybody became a marathon runner, the streets would be filled. But then you're not going to, that's not appealing to a lot of people. Everyone's not going to do it. And it's very difficult, and especially the stuff that I like to do.

It's just very, you can do it. A lot of people do it, but not nearly as many as go to the supermarket. When you get your meat, do you have a specific rancher that you use? You know, it's a great question. And it's, you know, everything is a process and it's part of the process. So just kind of like aging the meat and then putting on the plate.

But there's a whole backstory to this. I've developed a relationship. One of my closest friends and my mentor in beef is this guy by the name of John Tarpoff. friends and my mentor in beef is this guy by the name of John Tarpoff. And, um, you know, he's, he picks out the cattle and, and then it goes through the system and, you know, they audit the system and he, I knew him before he came on board with Nyman Ranch. So, um, I knew him when he had his own slaughterhouse in, um, in Granite City, Illinois. And I met him through the guys through Master Purveyors. And then he became, I guess, the VP of Beef in Nyman Ranch.

And so I invest most of my focus with him and he's taught me. So he's picking out a lot of my cattle. And that gets – it's done through family farms, all antibiotic-free, steroid-free, raised ethically. Animals die with dignity. They're not, like, cattle prodded and pushed along. How do they die? Well, most of them – well, all of them, it's basically – it's like a pin. It's like a stun bolt.

Like No Country for Old Men, that thing. Exactly. Yeah. That's exactly how it's done a, it's like a stun bolt. Like no country for old men, that thing. Exactly. Yeah. That's exactly how it's done. But it's done in a certain system. Temple Grandin transformed the entire system of, of abattoirs in, in this country. She's, do you know about Temple Grandin? No. Such an interesting woman.

Autistic, but she actually is like the cattle whisperer. And she can go into the environment and she can see just like a shadow of light going onto the floor. And all of a sudden, the cattle will see it, they'll stop and it builds all the stress. And as a result, the stress creates, you know, fear and worry in the animal why are they afraid of light it just can be something normal i mean if they walk clockwise as opposed to counterclockwise in the circle um and all these things have an impact she's written several books on it they did a whole series on her like a great movie i think on hbo claire danes played her um and uh but she'll like literally crawl through the abattoir to understand all the angles and advise so the animals don't get super stressed. A stressed animal has an impact on the quality of the beef. And also, you don't want to torture anything. There's a responsibility behind eating meat, I think. So for me, it starts not only with the family farms that they're

raising the cattle, the feed that they're finishing the cattle on, and then how they're transported, and then how they go through the system in terms of the abattoir storage, and then come to me. I like to receive a majority of my beef in combos, which means it never sees the inside of a cryovac bag, the plastic bags. For me, dry aging that way is also, it preserves a lot of the natural, good, friendly bacteria that's on the meat, as opposed to like putting in a bag and then they put steam to like, you know know almost sterilize the meat and they put it along and so there's all these different flavors that are gathered but you know i think from like john tarboff and nyman ranch you know they really have been my go-to nowadays but it's

like john and his sons you know they really have educated me on beef and and and give me a lot of pride and you know there is a genetic factor for tenderness in beef. I mean, I didn't realize this, but, you know, it's not just, oh, that one's really nicely marbled. But it's not. Like, you have to look at the grain of the beef. So, like, you're looking at the eye. It's not only just the fat.

It's, like, how the fat is dispersed. And that has a huge impact also on stress. I mean, you can look at a piece of meat and sometimes they'll be rejected and called a dark cutter. The meat comes almost like dark, deep, like almost like burgundy red. And when the animal's like that, and I've tasted it just because I was curious, but the quality of the beef is just because of stress. The adrenaline goes through the animal and taints the meat. And that's what makes it dark? Yeah, taints the meat.

But what about grass-fed beef? Grass-fed beef, I don't, you know, it's a great question. You know, for me, I don't look at grass-fed versus grain-fed. I look at nutrition. Okay? So just because something's grass-fed, I think sometimes the animals themselves, it's more stressful to eat grass that is not nutrient rich. So I believe in grass fed with responsible grass farmers that are then allowing the cattle, you know, to do grass fed right, which I've experienced over in Ireland, Scotland, and in

England, is it's literally, it's about the nutrition. So, I mean, you go out and you say, okay, this animal is grass-fed and you taste the meat. It's like, this meat is horrible as opposed to another grass-fed. And like, this is great. So it's not like absolute. So for me, it's really more about the nutrition. Like how healthy can you maintain the animal?

I'm not talking about like force feeding the animal, but I think the right characteristics of beef that you and i love really come from grain finished beef as a mainstay but you can find some grass fed that's competitive with that but it's it's hard to find the the argument about grass-fed beef is primarily a taste if you prefer it and i do do a lot of times, but also health, that it's healthier for you, that the essential fatty acids of a grass-fed cow are different. That's true. But again, you know, it depends on how you look at steak. You know, look, if you're an everyday beef eater, you know, I think that conversation is completely valid.

But if you're someone who looks at, you know, steak as an extravagance or something that is, you know, almost a celebration to enjoy, you know, grain-finished beef is, it's like butter. I mean, there's no, the taste itself, it's deep, it's rich. Remember we were talking earlier about like Wagyu cattle or, you know, it's, everything has its place, but, you know, for that steakhouse experience, I would never want a grass fed steak for like that broiler steak, which is cooked on like that for me, it's like a really treat. It's a real treat. It's, it's something like you can't get, like, I like black Angus or Angus Hereford cross. Um, that's the, that's the cattle that for me brings Americana on the plate. Yeah. Bourdain felt the same way. He was not interested in grass fed beef the same way I am. Yeah. But there's different levels of grass fed. I mean, I've had grass fed and again,

it could rival any grain fed like over in Scotland and Ireland. I mean, I've had grass fed and again, it could rival any grain fed like over in Scotland and Ireland. I mean, you look at their grass, it's so nutrient rich. Over here, it's a different story. Especially here, right? Because it's dry and then they've got enough water. Over there, it's rainy every day. Rainy, it's green. It's constantly the cattle. They're growing their own, they're substitute, you know, they supplement barley that they grow on the estate. You know, the whole thing is just, it works. So like this whole concept of like saying grass fed versus grain fed, I think that there's another story. And that for me is really the nutrition of the animal.

But I do agree with you there. There is the concept of, you know, healthy nutrition that you'll find higher, you know, higher traits of that. But I'm not a nutritionist at the end of the day so you know are you aware of the carnivore diet i am yeah have you ever messed around with that um yeah so how often do you eat meat yourself well i taste it every day um but to sit down and have a steak it's it's rarity. But I eat a lot of red meat. I eat quite often.

But you don't sit down and have a steak very often. I can't. I can't. I can't do it. Why? Because I taste it all the time. So to sit there and eat a whole steak, I might eat a half a steak. I have that flavor.

It's like it's a whole. For a whole month, I did it. I have that flavor. It's just like, it's a whole. For a whole month, I did it. For the month of January, they call it World Carnivore Month. I ate mostly ribeyes and elk steak and eggs. What did it do to your mind? I think I've got more aggressive. Uh-huh. And I'm kind of joking about that.

Maybe it gave me more energy. I don't know. It's different. Something happens. It makes sense to me that if you're a cow, you don't need to be aggressive because you're basically just eating grass and chilling most of the time. However, there's bulls. Bulls are very aggressive. Bulls are very aggressive.

But so I don't know if my analogy makes sense, but if you eat meat and only meat, I really feel like there's some kind of a shift that happens with, I mean, virtually no carbohydrates. I mean, I might have had like a couple of pieces of chili mango and I think I had a few olives or something like that for the whole month. Right. And I felt great. You would think you would feel like shit. Yeah. I did not feel like shit at all. I felt really good and I had incredible energy. But I got bored.

Yeah. I got bored. I wanted to eat other things. But here we are, it's May and that's a few months ago. But I think sometimes like, hmm, maybe I should get back to that. I mean, it was only five months ago, right? But I lost a lot of weight. I got down to – and that's the other thing too.

I wonder whether or not how lean I would get or whether or not that would level off. But I wound up – I think I wound up losing 12 pounds or somewhere around that range. Was that a lot of water weight though? I would imagine so because in general – Because you're depleting your glycogen stores. So at the end of the day, you're just like thirsty for that in your cells. But it didn't really fuck with my workouts. I worried about that, that it was going to mess with my workouts but i had good energy um but again i only did

it for a month i've had friends my friend trevor did it for i think he said he did it for six months but after a while he felt like he was dropping off but then i know people that have been doing it for years and they feel great i lean towards that i can't do it like a as a strict you know regiment you know but uh have you ever tried't do it like as a strict, you know, regiment, you know. But have you ever tried to do it as a strict regiment? When you say you can't do it as a strict regiment. I have. You know, I have.

But not when I have the restaurant in operation. Because, you know, I'm sitting there and, you know, I'm tasting everything, you know, making sure everything's right. And it includes like a pasta or something. It could just be like a bite and just messes with you. Oh, yeah. Yeah. The greatest thing in the world to me is intermittent fasting. You know, for me it's like, you know, not eat, you know, from that period of time and,

you know, start eating at like four o'clock in the afternoon. And that for me has always been like a godsend that just, that works. Yeah. That makes a big impact. And especially for people that are struggling with their weight, you know, it's so easy to just shove things in your face It's so easy just to continue to eat when you're really not even hungry anymore You're bored like for me the struggle is late at night You know when I come home late at night, especially when I was coming home from the Comedy Store

I just want to fucking eat, you know, I'd want to eat chips. Yeah, I want to eat some bullshit Yeah, it's always bullshit when you're tired too it's always the worst food once you get sugar out of your system you don't crave it but once you eat a little bit of sugar then it's you constantly crave it yes yeah it's that that devil that there's this there's something evil about sugar it's ridiculous it's so devilish there's something about it but it's also so great like how can they be how can those two things coexist it's crazy because like an amazing uh like just ice cream with fudge and some whipped cream is so good sometimes but then the feeling that i have afterwards like you fucking dummy yeah why did you do this to yourself 100 but i mean there's

like a feeling like when you take a spoon of that fudge and ice cream you put it in like so good it's like it goes through your whole body i know your body's so happy for that brief period of time but then it's just a trick because then you feel like you got poisoned 100 i remember one time i was eating real strict and then i decided to go off the reservation for a day. And I had a cheeseburger with fries and a giant shake, a big chocolate shake. And my fucking head hurt. Really? I had to lay on the couch. Yeah.

And my kids were asking me questions I couldn't even answer. I was like, what are you at? I don't know. What? Who am I? Where am I? It was like my head was in a vice. It was really, it felt like i got drugged

yeah i was just like oh i had nothing because your body's also super sensitive yeah because you know because i wasn't eating like that yeah yeah that's the the dance between delicious and nutritious like what is that how do you how do you manage that dance how do you manage that dance? How do you navigate that dance? I'm pretty disciplined. I'll get into, I mean, up into this, like for the past, I mean, I was super into working out daily. And then I got so focused on the restaurant, it just was like I don't have time.

I've got to get back to it because I felt so good and so much energy. But in terms of like the dance for me, I'm like just little snippets of tasting good food, like great food like all day. While you're cooking? While I'm cooking. What is your day like when you get there? Like when do you get there and when do you leave?

Well, now. Well, normally. Just normally I'd get in at let's say anywhere from 10 like 10 o'clock and then could leave as late you know typically like 10 30 11 so you guys have a lunch crowd no it's even no lunch it's just preparation really it's just dinner well i have barbecue for lunch and so that's good so i would like sleep there overnight get it going i have this amazing chef marcus who's sleeping there yeah you sleep there because you know you know we're talking about the temperatures and everything so there's a certain time when you need to wrap

the beef for example in in butcher paper that usually happens at like 4 35 in the morning and if you don't do it you, you miss the window to do it. So I don't like to hold the meat too long. So to get the better quality, you have to write it. A lot of people, they'll just make it earlier, put it into the warmer, and it will hold. But I think that there's a huge difference. So we'll wrap it really, really early. So that's usually what happens.

So where do you sleep? Downstairs. You just get a cot or something? On the couch, yeah. Wow. And you set the alarm for 4.30? Yeah. It's painful.

So you want to be a chef, huh? Well, that's it, you know. There's the agony and the ecstasy. Yeah. You know, that's it. But my usual routine, like particularly now, like I'll get in by 10 o'clock. I take a list of what's, you know, going on like for that day, pack out meals, whatever, and then I'll finish like 10, like eight, anywhere from between eight to 10.

That's a long day. It's a long day. I'm feeling it lately. I mean, all like the muscles in my hands, like I don't even know what's going. And that's why I say I have to start training again because I'm like, my transitional movement is slow. I'm like an old man. Like I get out of bed, I'm like, I make the noise. Like it's just been terrible, you know? Well, I also imagine this stress is not good for you either and probably not good for your sleep. I've been compartmentalizing a lot of what's going on right now. You know, that's the only way I'm getting through. I, you know, I have to be strong for my team. Um, I have to give really

strong leadership. Um, I need to inspire them just through example. That's the only way because a lot of people, they just want to take off and they want to collect unemployment, you know, the way it's working now, it's, they make more money beyond unemployment than working. It's crazy. they make more money being on unemployment than working. It's crazy. So, um, yeah, so I have to lead from the front first one in first one out. And, uh, but I compartmentalize. So the stress is like there, I'm just, again, I'm focused like, okay, I got to feed the hospital workers. I got to feed St. Joseph and that, well, how could I come up with something that the neighborhood wants like to indulge on whether it's meatloaf and peas and mashed potatoes or it's fried chicken or it's chicken with grains, lemon, and honey, something like that. Well, I can only hope that this is over soon enough and that things will bounce back.

No, me too. But you've got an amazing restaurant. Thank you. It's really great. I love eating there. I'm grateful for you. me too. Um, but you got an amazing restaurant. It's really great. I love eating there and I can't wait to come back there again. And I really hope that it, it's a short amount of time.

I mean, I don't know when and how, I don't know how it's going to. We're, we're tough. Restaurant people are tough. Oh, you have to be just the fucking hours that you put in,

man. Do the best that we can. That's all you can do. You know? Well, thanks brother. Thanks for being here. Thanks so much.

Appreciate you. And, uh, hopefully next time I see you can do. Well, thanks, brother. Thanks for being here. Thanks so much for having me. Appreciate you. And hopefully next time I see you, it'll be at your restaurant. Yes. All right. Thank you. Bye, everybody. Okay, bye.

Bless you. You did it. Thank you. My pleasure, brother. No.