I think what I’m most proud of as a chef is the people that I’ve worked under me. The different people that I’ve seen come up from a cook right out of culinary school or maybe even a cook with no culinary school that maybe grows into a sous chef position or an executive chef position or a chef de cuisine position. I would say that the investment in the people and mentoring people and seeing them grow is probably what I’m most proud of. I’m most proud of the people that I’ve worked with. There’s no personal accomplishment that I have that I would say is greater than the accomplishment in investing in people. It’s probably been the greatest reward in my career. Andre Natera

Conversation with 3 Chefs in Austin (Chef Andre Natera, Chef Kevin Fink, and Chef Fiore Tedesco) – Vol 1

Conversation with 3 Chefs in Austin (Chef Andre Natera, Chef Kevin Fink, and Chef Fiore Tedesco) – Vol 2

If you are interested in discovering more about the Austin restaurant scene, check out these two additional episodes by clicking on the respective pictures:   Chef Michael Fojtasek from Olamaie and Chef Fiore Tedesco from L’Oca d’Oro.

The way we prepare our eggplants here is we confit them in some oil and then we grill them. I really like the technique of keeping them in some sort of fat. Now this is where you can get creative so if you have the technique of confit the eggplant in fat. Well then you can change your medium up so you can use olive oil or you could use a neutral oil but you could also use duck fat. You could use tallow beef tallow you could maybe use chicken schmaltz to confit your eggplant so you could impart some of that meaty flavor. And then after it’s confit you can add your aromatics in there so you know bay leaves or citrus or whatever the case may be.

And then we have a wood burning grill so I take the eggplants and I put it on the grill. During the summer spring great for barbecuing. But if you don’t have a grill maybe you could put that in a cast iron pan and get some caramelization on them and then just serving it with a beautiful sauce in our case here we we do a romesco sauce but you know a salsa verde or something like that or chimichuri would lend itself very well to that grilled smoky charred eggplant and really creamy on the inside with you know because it’s been confit in some fat.

The hierarchy kind of works the same in professional fighting. [At the training room] you only give crap down. You’re not allowed to speak negatively up. There was a lot of that same mentality in kitchens when I started.

For me, the creative process is often done in isolation. But a lot the ideas that spring forth from isolation comes from collaborative discussions.

There’s no personal accomplishment that I have that I would say is greater than the accomplishment in investing in people.

In order for me to get better results, I had to look back on my career and realized that there was a direct correlation with my attitude and my leadership style to the results that had nothing to do with my culinary ability.

There’s a lot of pressure on a chef to perform. And I’m not sure people recognize that.

Chef Andre Natera

Fairmont Hotel Austin

Fairmont Hotel Austin

Garrison restaurant at the Fairmont

Revue restaurant at the Fairmont

Thomas Keller

René Redzepi 

Dean Fearing

Ramen Tatsu-ya

Olamaie

Emmer & Rye

Juniper