Chef's PSA Podcast

Abraham Salum has one rule he wishes every restaurant would adopt. A friend of his makes everyone pile their phones in the middle of the table before dinner starts. First person to reach for theirs pays the bill. Nobody ever touches their phone.

That same instinct for reading a room runs through the whole conversation. Salum opened Salum in Dallas 21 years ago on a block his own realtor questioned and a commercial broker publicly predicted would fail. He ran into him years later. The broker told him he had taken his foot out of his mouth a long time ago.

• Why he banned the words no problem in his restaurant and trained every server to say my pleasure instead
• How servers at his restaurant made more money in 2020 than they did the year before, even as the restaurant itself brought in 40 percent less
• The exact leverage he used against an insurance company after a flood to make sure his servers still got paid

Andre Natera and Abraham Salum cover growing up between Mexican, Lebanese, Italian, and Spanish grandmothers who all wanted to feed him, running 300 staff across seven restaurants in Cancun by his mid twenties, the kitchen design mistake from opening night that he is still working around two decades later, a storm that punctured his roof and shut the restaurant down for four and a half months, and the two year process of writing his first cookbook, A Spoonful of Everywhere, a project he kept completely secret from his own business partner.

It ends where every episode ends, with the Mount Rushmore.

Guest

salumrestaurant.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/salumrestaurant/

https://www.instagram.com/asalum/

Links

Lead Like a Chef App: https://studio.com/apps/andre/leadlikeachef
Get the Books: https://chefspsa.com/books
Shop Chef's PSA Merch: https://shop.chefspsa.com/
Get Episodes Early on Substack: https://chefspsa.substack.com/
Follow Chef's PSA on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chefspsa/

Nick Walker is an FSR 40 Under 40 chef who oversaw the James Beard nominated Meridian and now leads 11 Whiskey Cake locations across Texas and Florida. He started in a kitchen at 15, under the table, and cut his thumb open on his first real shift when a slamming office door caught his hand mid cut. They poured kitchen whiskey on the wound, duct taped it shut, and he finished service.

Why he believes a cook can cook food, but a chef has to manage people and run the numbers, and why so many talented chefs never make that jump

The line he still thinks about from a mentor who caught him publicly berating a cook over garnish, telling him to be the sous chef he always wanted

Why he says followers do not equal dollars, period, and what actually separates a viral line cook from restaurant success

Andre Natera and Nick Walker cover what kitchen culture looked like before HR existed and why some chefs still cannot accept it changed, the real staffing crisis behind restaurants paying 28 dollars an hour and still coming up short, the formula behind a menu item that actually sells versus one built for a chef's own ego, and why Brussels sprouts and hamachi keep showing up on every menu in the country.

It ends where every episode ends, with the Mount Rushmore.

Guest

@chefnickwalker

Links

Lead Like a Chef App: https://studio.com/apps/andre/leadlikeachef

Get the Books: https://chefspsa.com/books

Shop Chef's PSA Merch: https://shop.chefspsa.com/

Get Episodes Early on Substack: https://chefspsa.substack.com/

Follow Chef's PSA on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chefspsa/

Tim Laielli will not call himself a chef. He is clear about it every time someone assumes otherwise, including his own father, who is one. Eighteen months after posting his first cooking video, Tim was on set cooking against professional chefs for Gordon Ramsay on Next Level Chef.

He built Bare Food Tim, over a million followers, without ever working a line, and he explains exactly why. His father worked two jobs his whole childhood and told him constantly not to follow him into restaurants. Tim listened, then found a way to work with food anyway.

Three things worth hearing straight from him. Why he thinks most chefs make content for other chefs instead of the person actually watching, which is usually a tired parent looking for dinner ideas, not a technique lesson. The real numbers behind brand deal income, and why capping sponsored content around 10 to 20 percent is the difference between monetizing and losing your audience's trust. And the two paths he tells struggling restaurants to choose between when they want to go viral, an oversized showstopper dish or full personality driven content, because trying to do both at once usually does neither well.

Andre Natera and Tim Laielli also get into the friction between chefs and content creators, why lighting matters more than the camera you shoot on, which dishes reliably perform online and which never do, and the moment Tim realized the platform had started driving him instead of the other way around.

It ends where every episode ends, with the Mount Rushmore.

Guest

Bare Food Tim on Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/barefoodtim/

Links

Lead Like a Chef App: https://studio.com/apps/andre/leadlikeachef
Get the Books: https://chefspsa.com/books
Shop Chef's PSA Merch: https://shop.chefspsa.com/
Get Episodes Early on Substack: https://chefspsa.substack.com/
Follow Chef's PSA on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chefspsa/

Matt Lambert earned a Michelin star at The Musket Room in New York in four months, a goal he'd given himself three years to hit. He describes what followed as treating the star like a religion, the Church of Michelin, and says he's never felt that emotional high again, chasing it in different forms for years after.

Why he thinks the tasting menu has lost the plot.

The moment he realized every chef on Instagram was making the same tart with a different color, and what he did about it

Why moving back to New Zealand after New York hit him harder than the original move to America ever did

André Natera and Matt Lambert cover 75 Hard and the 30 kilos he lost once he finally started taking care of himself, winning a major international chef award a week after his brother's funeral and feeling nothing standing on that stage, the moment his own chef de cuisine's face told him he didn't want to be the best anymore, why hospitality matters more than the food itself, and building Return in Auckland as his own answer to what The Musket Room used to be.

Guest

@chefmattlambert

@return_restaurant

Links

Lead Like a Chef App → https://studio.com/apps/andre/leadlikeachef

Get the Books → https://chefspsa.com/books

Shop Chef's PSA Merch → https://shop.chefspsa.com/

Get Episodes Early on Substack → https://chefspsa.substack.com/

Follow Chef's PSA on Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/chefspsa/

Bryan Caswell has cooked inside three very different kinds of rooms. Jean-Georges Vongerichten's kitchen in the early 2000s, where he learned that a quiet, organized kitchen beats a screaming one. Seventeen restaurant openings of his own, roughly half of them his own concepts, from Reef to his new restaurant Latuli in Houston. And, less known, rooms full of policy people deciding how the Gulf actually gets fished.

• Why he thinks the redfish fishery is in the best shape he's seen in his career, and why almost nobody outside the industry knows it
• A real proposal for cutting aquaculture's biggest cost problem in half, using something shrimp boats currently throw away for free
• The specific menu-writing rule he still uses today, learned running R&D inside one of the most systemized restaurant groups in the country: count every move a dish takes to plate

André Natera and Bryan Caswell cover what it was actually like working under Jean-Georges before he was a household name, why talent alone breaks the moment a chef has to build a kitchen from nothing instead of running an established one, the Gulf Coast bycatch program he pioneered at Reef that's now industry standard, why he hasn't touched red wine in a sauce in over two decades, and his return to Houston with Latuli, his first restaurant of his own since Reef closed.

It ends where every episode ends, with the Mount Rushmore.

Guest

@wholefishLatuli Houston

Links

Lead Like a Chef App → https://studio.com/apps/andre/leadlikeachef
Get the Books → https://chefspsa.com/books
Shop Chef's PSA Merch → https://shop.chefspsa.com/
Get Episodes Early on Substack → https://chefspsa.substack.com/
Follow Chef's PSA on Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/chefspsa/

Rosana Rivera runs three businesses under one roof: a bakery storefront, a wholesale bread program, and a catering and events company called Gatheria Studio. Most operators would guess wholesale wins on volume alone. It doesn't. Catering does, by a wide margin, sometimes 30 to 40 percent margins in a good season, more than either of the other two combined at the bottom line.

She's also the first Latina chef to ever beat Bobby Flay on television, and the casting process that got her there is worth hearing before you ever get a similar email yourself.

• The one piece of advice from her producer that won her the Beat Bobby Flay episode, and how she practiced her signature dish for exactly the time she'd be given
• What it actually costs to open a restaurant right now, and why the number most people quote is too low
• Why she runs a monthly AI audit on her own online reviews, and what it caught in her matcha program before it became a real problem

André Natera and Rosana Rivera cover why most influencer marketing for restaurants doesn't move the needle, whether kitchen robotics are actually worth the investment, the one ingredient that wrecks her food cost every single year no matter what, why a bakery's margins are thinner than most chefs assume, and the full breakdown of why her events business outperforms both her storefront and her wholesale account.

It ends where every episode ends, with the Mount Rushmore.

Guest

@chefrosanarivera@chefandthebaker

Links

Lead Like a Chef App → https://studio.com/apps/andre/leadlikeachef
Get the Books → https://chefspsa.com/books
Shop Chef's PSA Merch → https://shop.chefspsa.com/
Get Episodes Early on Substack → https://chefspsa.substack.com/
Follow Chef's PSA on Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/chefspsa/

Eduardo Osorio moved to Dallas from LA less than a year ago. Then Kent Rathbun, Dallas royalty, ate at Meridian and posted about it, and the walk-ins started within days. It's the kind of endorsement that doesn't happen for just anybody.

He's built a career on adapting fast. Restaurant Daniel in New York, where a chef corrected his micro-green prep on day one and made it clear there wouldn't be a second warning. Eight months in Jeddah, cooking out of what was essentially a shipping container in 130-degree heat, where he learned the hard way that crossing your legs the wrong way gets you slapped. And now Meridian, where he's building a kitchen that runs on almost none of that old pressure.

• Why he thinks LA took ten years to build its dining scene and Dallas will do it in three or four
• What actually happens when you build a kitchen with no yelling, and why his team is more surprised by his calm than anything else
• The brown butter trick behind his now-signature cornbread, and the one ingredient nobody expects

André Natera and Eduardo Osorio cover the guest chef dinner series that's turned Meridian into a clubhouse for Dallas's next generation of cooks, the difference between LA, Vegas, New York, and Saudi Arabia kitchen cultures, why his sous chef of fourteen years just walked away from cooking entirely, the influencer economy and why a bad review travels further than a good one, and what it takes to run ten restaurants and two burger concepts at once without losing the plot.

It ends where every episode ends, with the Mount Rushmore, and the phrase his entire kitchen shouts when a table sends back a compliment.

Guest

@chefeduardoosorio https://www.instagram.com/chefeduardoosorio/

Links

Lead Like a Chef App → https://studio.com/apps/andre/leadlikeachef
Get the Books → https://chefspsa.com/books
Shop Chef's PSA Merch → https://shop.chefspsa.com/
Get Episodes Early on Substack → https://chefspsa.substack.com/
Follow Chef's PSA on Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/chefspsa/

Enrique Lozano is a Chopped champion, James Beard nominee for Best Chef Texas, and executive chef at Aguazul in San Antonio, with roots at Benny Frank's in El Paso and Mija opening soon in San Elizario.

He'd been trying to get on Chopped for over a decade before the call finally came, right after his James Beard nomination. His strategy once he got there: cook exactly what he already knew, nothing more ambitious, nothing borrowed. It won him ten thousand dollars and, once the embargo lifted a year later, a wave of business he hadn't planned for.

• Why he thinks contestants lose on cooking competition shows by trying dishes they've never made before, instead of doing what they already do well
• What actually separates Beat Bobby Flay from Chopped once the cameras are off, and why one felt like being treated like a rock star
• Why he doesn't strain his ramen tonkotsu broth anymore, and the tare trick a friend talked him into trying

André Natera and Enrique Lozano cover what it actually takes to build a 100% sustainable restaurant from the ground up at Mija, why a 200-item menu at Aguazul isn't chaos but cross-utilization, San Antonio's quiet run of Michelin recognition, the deep well of chef talent coming out of El Paso, two restaurant closures and the identical tax mistake behind both of them, who actually showed up when things fell apart and who didn't, and whether music belongs in a kitchen at all.

It ends where every episode ends, with the Mount Rushmore, and the one addition to his tonkotsu broth that isn't a spice.

Guest

Instagram: Chef Enrique Lozano

Links

Lead Like a Chef App → https://studio.com/apps/andre/leadlikeachef
Get the Books → https://chefspsa.com/books
Shop Chef's PSA Merch → https://shop.chefspsa.com/
Get Episodes Early on Substack → https://chefspsa.substack.com/
Follow Chef's PSA on Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/chefspsa/

Matthew Cutolo is a third-generation chef at Gargiulo's, the Coney Island restaurant his family has run since 1965 and that has fed Brooklyn since 1907. In 1977, The New York Times gave it three stars, unheard of at the time for a restaurant outside Manhattan.

He learned to bake from Mike the Bake, the restaurant's pastry chef of over forty years, who refused to write down a single recipe, including for family. Matthew asked to learn anyway. Mike's answer was, "If you want to learn, you have to watch." For the first two months, Matthew stood at the mixing bowl and watched Mike add ingredients with no measurements at all, a scoop of this, a lap around the kitchen, a conversation with someone else, back to the bowl. Only after two months did Mike start telling him what was actually going in.

• Why the same holiday recipe came out different every year, because it was never really written down, it was feel
• Why Matthew never uses a thermometer frying cannoli, and the one thing his uncle said that changed his mind about tradition versus evolution
• How a summer internship on The Chew turned into a decision to go all in on content, and why cooking videos never worked for him but talking to the camera did

André Natera and Matthew Cutolo cover the difference between Italian food and Italian American food and why that argument goes back to Ellis Island, the family's daily 2:30 lunch that nobody is allowed to skip, guys' night and the right way to make a negroni, the meatball debate settled once and for all, sauce versus gravy, dried pasta versus fresh, Parmigiano versus Pecorino, what actually makes a video do well on YouTube versus Instagram, and why toxic kitchens exist in family restaurants too.

It ends where every episode ends, with the Mount Rushmore, and the correct cannoli filling.

Guest

@matthewcutolo
https://www.matthewcutolo.com/Gargiulo's on Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/gargiulosrestaurant/

Links

Lead Like a Chef App → https://studio.com/apps/andre/leadlikeachef
Get the Books → https://chefspsa.com/booksShop Chef's PSA Merch → https://shop.chefspsa.com/Get Episodes Early on Substack → https://chefspsa.substack.com/Follow Chef's PSA on Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/chefspsa/

Bobby Hicks read roughly 800 mid-century cookbooks to write one, and what he found was not a list of bad recipes. It was the exact point where American home cooking lost its thread.

The Great Depression ran into World War II with almost no recovery in between. Two generations of mothers cooked without butter, without sugar, without the ingredients their own mothers' recipes assumed. What did not get cooked did not get taught. By the time the post-war boom arrived with canned soup and boxed everything, and women moved from house labor into factories and still had to put dinner on the table, the chain was already broken. The dishes we laugh at now were what filled the gap.

• Why a pineapple was a status symbol, and why people rented them by the party
• Why aspic was proof you owned a refrigerator, not something anyone wanted to eat
• What actually broke the transmission of technique, and who put it back

Bobby Hicks is a food historian, a Next Level Chef season four alum, and the author of Retro Recipes: Vintage Dishes with a Modern Twist from Countryman Press. He shows up with a vintage basting spoon from an estate sale and opens with the most embarrassing thing that ever happened to him in a kitchen. He was telling an extern that onion skin works as a bandage. Mid-sentence, he cut off the tip of his finger.

André Natera and Bobby Hicks cover the three books he studied before going on television, why sleep and food were what actually wrecked him on set, the market exercise he still gives private chefs, why he believes you can teach technique but not adaptability, what happens once a publisher wants 100 recipes in six months, twelve years of content advice from before it was a career, and how to order a drink without embarrassing yourself.

It ends where every episode ends, with the Mount Rushmore.

Guest

Retro Recipes Kitchen on Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/retrorecipeskitchen/
This Fellow on Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/thisfellow/
retrorecipeskitchen.comRetro Recipes: Vintage Dishes with a Modern Twist → https://www.amazon.com/dp/1324117257

Links

Lead Like a Chef App → https://studio.com/apps/andre/leadlikeachef
Get the Books → https://chefspsa.com/booksShop Chef's PSA Merch → https://shop.chefspsa.com/Get Episodes Early on Substack → https://chefspsa.substack.com/Follow Chef's PSA on Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/chefspsa/