Industry Night with Nycci Nellis

There is a wood fired oven at Pupatella in the Mosaic District built with bricks that came straight from Mount Vesuvius, and a pizza comes out of it in about 90 seconds. What took almost twenty years is everything around it. I went out to Merrifield to sit with the two men who built that, and yes, I ate very well while I did it.

Every independent operator eventually hits the same wall. You are the product. You are behind the counter, you know every regular's order, and the whole thing only works because you are standing there. Enzo Algarme hit that wall and said so out loud, to a stranger, over breakfast. What happened next is the part almost nobody gets to hear, and if you are trying to grow anything in the hospitality industry without wrecking what made it good, this chef interview podcast episode is the most useful hour you will spend this week.

Enzo Algarme came to Northern Virginia from Naples to play soccer and study medicine, and ended up selling Neapolitan pizza out of a cart in Ballston in 2007 because he could not find the food he grew up on. He named it after his grandmother. Michael Berger spent a decade building Elevation Burger and its supply chain before an attorney they happened to share put the two of them in a room together. Today Pupatella is twelve locations across Virginia, Maryland and DC, and the largest group of VPN certified Neapolitan pizzerias in the country.

Key Takeaways

• Enzo built a pizza cart because no landlord in Arlington would rent a restaurant to a man with no money in the bank and no restaurant experience.
• VPN certification meant an inspector flew in and worked alongside Enzo for two days before Pupatella got its number, and the standard is still audited today by video.
• Michael replaced a seven distributor supply chain with one national distributor in about seven months without changing a single ingredient on the pizza.
• The hardest part of scaling was not the pizza, it was writing down what Enzo already knew in his hands so that anyone else could be trained on it.
• Pupatella has not raised prices in nearly two years, because buying power on artisan ingredients grew faster than the cost of those ingredients did.

Enzo Algarme said, "My concern was always how do I replicate myself?"

Michael Berger said, "We wanted to be the neighborhood pizzeria but with our Neapolitan flair."

Timestamps

00:00 A wood fired oven, Mount Vesuvius bricks, and 90 second pizza
02:04 How Nycci finally crossed the river to Pupatella
03:19 Naples to Northern Virginia for soccer, then medicine, then neither
05:36 Sunday lunch at his grandmother's table
07:22 Nobody would rent him a restaurant, so he built a cart
09:24 What actually makes a Neapolitan pizza
12:05 Sourcing an oven from Naples and the volcanic stone floor
13:47 Fried street snacks, rice balls, and the first Arlington menu
15:04 Fig and Pig, before unusual toppings were normal
18:11 Michael's road from real estate to Elevation Burger
21:19 The attorney who put them in a room together
25:08 Protecting the product while rebuilding the supply chain
28:43 VPN certification, buffalo mozzarella, and the numbered stores
32:24 Site selection, and why they refused to chase one market
41:06 The hardest part was replicating a person, not a recipe
46:13 What happened to the Dupont Circle location
49:35 Delivery apps, catering, and the price tolerance conversation
56:00 Rapid fire: pineapple, supply chain scares, one ingredient
1:02:23 Pizza masterclass with Chef Enzo
1:12:03 Outro

Connect with Enzo Algarme and Michael Berger
Website: https://www.pupatella.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pupatella_pizza/

Four people who knew him best, one table, and the stories that never made print.

Twenty years ago a general manager named Brian saw four starving women walk into a restaurant that was already closed, sat them at the bar, and asked if they would like a glass of champagne. That is the whole story of Central Michel Richard in one move, and it is why this James Beard Award winning restaurant is still standing. I recorded this one on location at Central, which is the only way to do it.

This is a DC food podcast episode and a DC dining guide entry in one. Michel Richard shaped how Washington DC eats, and we lost him ten years ago. If you have ever wondered what actually happens behind a restaurant that survives two decades in this city, this is the chef interview podcast episode for you. It is about mentorship, ego, failure, loyalty, and a fried chicken recipe with six steps that nobody is allowed to skip.

Around the table: Chip Sandground, the DC attorney who negotiated Michel out of his Citronelle non compete and became one of Central's original investors. Mel Davis, Michel's right hand for 15 years across his 11 restaurants. Chef Cedric Maupillier, Central's opening executive chef, now at Barbouzard. And Mark Bucher, co owner of Medium Rare and founder of Feed the Fridge.

Key Takeaways

• Michel Richard's Central opened for a single day on December 31, 2006, then closed again because the restaurant was not actually ready.
• Central's kitchen was built for volume and once turned 750 covers in a single day, with two and sometimes three turns at dinner.
• The fried chicken is still on the menu after 20 years, and when a union kitchen in New York cut six steps out of the recipe, the result drew a zero star review.
• Michel Richard's generation treated the restaurant business as a mentorship business, training young chefs like Cedric Maupillier to be better than himself and asking nothing back.
• The MR in Medium Rare stands for Michel Richard's initials, chosen before the words were.
• Cedric Maupillier said, "Everybody thinks that the restaurant is only glamour and Gucci. No, they are wrong."
• Chip Sandground said, "It was a hard business then. It's an impossible business now."

Timestamps

00:00 Central at 20, and the night four starving women got fed
04:44 Chip Sandground meets Michel Richard and gets put to work
06:41 Negotiating Michel out of the Citronelle non compete
08:57 Open for one day, December 31, 2006
13:48 Mel Davis is told she is not qualified, and stays 15 years
16:19 The 11 restaurants, Atlantic City to the Palace Hotel
18:41 Mark Bucher, the head cheese, and the chicken nugget setup
25:13 Cedric Maupillier on listening to guests and rebranding
27:17 Inside a kitchen built for 750 covers
30:50 The last generation of the mentorship kitchen
38:40 The fried chicken, and why six steps matter
40:43 The tuna burger that sold the restaurant
45:05 Trompe l'oeil, and the baguette caviar typo
54:11 What Michel taught Mel about people
56:15 Ten years of silence, and the apology
58:34 Michel's last years, and the friends who tried
01:04:34 St. Jude's, and Michel with kids
01:09:53 One last story each, the cake and the dog
01:16:37 Rapid fire, the dish that says Central
01:21:01 Twenty years, and the whimsy missing in kitchens today

Connect with the guests

Cedric Maupillier, Barbouzard: https://barbouzard.com/
Cedric Maupillier, Barbouzard on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/barbouzard/
Mark Bucher, Medium Rare: https://www.mediumrarerestaurant.com/
Mark Bucher, Medium Rare on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mediumrare_restaurant/
Central Michel Richard: https://www.centralmichelrichard.com/
Central Michel Richard on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/centralmrdc/

Two chefs on what this business cost them, and the one they built instead.

Women belong in the kitchen. Also the front of the house, the wine list, and the ownership papers. That is where this one starts, on the water in Southwest DC, and about twenty minutes in it stops being a feel-good conversation and turns into an honest one.

If you have ever worked a line, run one, or wondered why so many good women leave this business right around the time they have kids, stay with this one. Kat and Rochelle talk about the kitchens they came up in, including the moment Rochelle was told that if she could not work with the man harassing her, she would be the one moved. Then they walk through what they run now. No touching policy. No drinking on the clock. Good insurance, paid time off, mental health days, almost no turnover in six years. This is the DC food podcast episode about the business case, not the feeling.

Kat Petonito is executive chef across The Duck and The Peach, La Collina, and The Wells for Eastern Point Collective, a CIA grad, a two time RAMMY nominee, and executive sous at St. Anselm before this. Rochelle Cooper is executive pastry chef across all three, Johnson and Wales trained, with years at Range, at Minibar, and in R and D for Jose Andres, and she is the 2024 RAMMY Pastry Chef of the Year. They are longtime colleagues, best friends, and both mothers of young kids.

Key Takeaways

• Kat and Rochelle built their culture on two rules, no touching and no drinking on the clock, because the second is what makes the first hold.
• Rochelle was told that if she could not work with the chef harassing her, she would be the one moved locations, leaving her to choose a step back or a step out.
• Kat treats sustainability as a people question first, so primal cuts sit alongside mental health days nobody has to argue for.
• Seven babies have arrived among the staff since opening and most of the team has stayed close to six years, which is how the benefits pay for themselves.
• Rochelle turned leftover menu ingredients into Lucky Plum Ice Cream, and Kat renders the restaurant’s waste duck fat into bar soap for guests and staff.
• Katarina Petonito said, “At Eastern Point, our sustainability starts with our culture.”
• Rochelle Cooper said, “I’ve never had a boss chase me out the door and tell me I’m working too much ever.”

Timestamps

00:00 Live from The Point in Southwest DC
01:00 A third of the chefs, six percent of the top kitchens
02:28 Meet Kat Petonito and Rochelle Cooper
02:57 Where did your hunger start
03:32 Rochelle wanted to be a doctor
06:38 Kat was born into the industry
11:14 Range, Chris Ford, and Mercado Little Spain
15:27 Mentors, and the ones who taught you what not to do
21:00 How Kat and Rochelle came together
21:49 A hard look back at an era in DC kitchens
24:02 How bad was it for you
27:25 Having to be one of the boys
28:43 Step back or step out
29:59 Kat shuts it down
33:09 The no touching and no drinking policies
34:04 Inside The Duck and The Peach, La Collina, and The Wells
35:16 Goat butter, cow dairy, and the pastry program
40:28 Sustainability starts with your people
44:31 Primal cuts, duck fat, and the soap project
46:21 Lucky Plum Ice Cream
49:55 What travels in a to-go box and what does not
51:38 Mothers in kitchens, seven babies in six years
55:17 Health insurance, PTO, and why retention pays
59:12 Hospitality is taking care of people
01:00:11 Rapid fire
01:03:17 Where to find them

More from Industry Night, the DC food podcast and DC dining guide, at thelistareyouonit.com.

Connect with Kat Petonito and Rochelle Cooper

Kat Petonito on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chef_meoww/
Rochelle Cooper on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shakinbaker219/
The Duck and The Peach: https://www.instagram.com/duckandpeach_dc/
La Collina: https://www.instagram.com/lacollina_dc/
The Wells: https://www.instagram.com/thewells_dc/

She decides which restaurants the world calls the best. Here is how that actually works.

Over 30,000 restaurants and bars. More than 600 a year, still. I have met plenty of people in this business who call themselves obsessed, then I met Virginia Miller, who keeps spreadsheets on all of it and finds that unremarkable. We sat down at Bar Betsie because when this team heard who was coming, they did not say yes, they said Bar Betsie, obviously.

If you have ever looked at a best restaurants list and wondered who picks it and whether any of it is real, this one pulls the curtain all the way back. Virginia walks through how the voting works, who gets to be a voter, how many of her own picks never make it, and why she says there is no number one. For anyone who follows this DC food podcast for the industry side, this is the view you rarely get on tape.

Virginia Miller is Academy Chair for The World’s 50 Best Restaurants and North America’s 50 Best Restaurants, a James Beard Awards Committee member, and a lead judge at San Francisco World Spirits and the American Distilling Institute awards, which she has judged for 17 years. She writes The Perfect Spot, the Substack she launched back in 2007. Then Bar Betsie co owner JP Sabatier got behind the bar, built a Love Yuzu, and explained how both of his bars got their names.

Key Takeaways

• Virginia Miller moved to San Francisco in 2003 and hit roughly ten restaurants a week in her first year, purely out of obsession, before she was ever paid to write about any of it.
• World’s 50 Best has more than 1,000 voters and roughly 26 to 28 chairpeople worldwide, and every chair has to replace at least a quarter of their voters each year.
• Judging spirits is blind and technical, closer to a lab than a night out, while judging restaurants takes in aesthetics, hospitality and the whole experience.
• She deliberately went after every food she disliked until she learned to enjoy it, on the theory that you can train yourself to like anything.
• Jane Jane, Bar Betsie and even the business entity behind them are each named after one of the three owners’ mothers.
• Virginia Miller said, “There is no number one. There’s many.”
• JP Sabatier said, “Jane Jane should feel like you’re going to a school field trip and Bar Betsie should feel like you’re cutting school.”

Timestamps

00:00 Welcome to Bar Betsie in the Union Market District
01:22 Meet Virginia Miller, 30,000 restaurants and counting
03:25 Homeschooled, half Sicilian, and collecting Zagat guides
06:22 Tom Martinez pours the Clover Cult
07:33 Moving to San Francisco and hitting ten spots a week
09:32 Launching The Perfect Spot in 2007
10:24 From the Bay Guardian to Zagat and Time Out
13:01 How the bar and spirits world changed since the early 2000s
14:36 Tasting everything, and training yourself to like anything
16:10 The on air cocktail competition begins
17:01 Judging spirits blind for the world’s biggest awards
19:58 What World’s 50 Best actually is, and how chairs are chosen
22:28 Inside the voting, and why it is never just your picks
25:04 Tasting the two competition cocktails
28:12 The writing world is shrinking, so she built her own
29:36 Travel guides, the arts, and food as a portal
31:41 JP Sabatier on Bar Betsie and the Union Market District
33:50 Jane Jane, Bar Betsie, and naming bars after your mom
35:39 The CIA, the cocktail program, and the Love Yuzu
41:36 What is coming up at Bar Betsie
42:29 Roasted Not by Us
43:43 Closing thoughts

Connect with Virginia Miller

• Website: https://virginia-miller.com/bio/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/virginiamiller.sf/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/virginia-miller-33a2952/
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7I7RheWhlACUjmb-URLIQg

Connect with JP Sabatier

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/supergayp/

Bar Betsie

• Website: https://www.barbetsiedc.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/barbetsiedc

The man who taught this city to care about beer is watching a generation drink less of it.

I have been doing this long enough to remember when you could not get a decent beer in this town, and Greg Engert is a big reason that changed. So when I sat down with him at Modan, our newest partner for the series, I did not want the victory lap. I wanted to know what it actually feels like to run twenty concepts right now, when happy hour is dead, labor costs what it costs, and there is a new restaurant on every corner.

If you care where the DC dining scene is headed, this one is for you. Greg has watched the pendulum swing since 2006, from farm to table to hyper local to the craft beer boom, and he is blunt about the fact that what a Gen X diner wants is not remotely what the Gen Z diner walking in behind them wants. Any Washington DC restaurant insider will tell you the double turn is gone. Greg will tell you what he is doing about it.

Greg Engert is the Beer Director and Managing Partner at Neighborhood Restaurant Group, the group behind Church Key, Bluejacket, Rustico, Josephine, Iron Gate and Snallygaster, the biggest beer festival on the East Coast. He came to DC for grad school to become an English professor and ended up waiting tables at the Brick Cellar instead. I also pulled Chef Chico Dator out of the kitchen, an old friend from his Nobu days, who runs the only dry aging fish program in the region right here at Modan.

Key Takeaways

• Greg Engert walked away from an academic path in modernist literature and fell for hospitality while waiting tables at the Brick Cellar around 2004.
• Neighborhood Restaurant Group now runs about twenty concepts and roughly as many locations, nearly all in the DMV, with Junebug in New Orleans as the outlier.
• Moving away from happy hour toward low price points available all day is a deliberate answer to the fact that people no longer go out early or late.
• Younger drinkers are not abstaining more than previous generations did, they are drinking less per visit, and inflation and healthcare costs drive that more than wellness trends do.
• Chef Chico Dator calls his process conditioning rather than aging, because he does not want a guest to think they are being handed old fish.
• Greg Engert said, “This question energizes us every day when we get up and keeps us up at night every night.”
• Chef Chico Dator said, “There is this one guy that says fresh fish is boring.”

Timestamps

00:00 Welcome to Modan in Tysons
01:27 Meet Greg Engert of Neighborhood Restaurant Group
02:56 From English grad school to the Brick Cellar
07:45 Four restaurants in 2006 to twenty concepts today
12:02 Church Key, Birch and Barley, and 14th Street in 2009
13:24 How 2008 reset the hospitality business
15:42 Real estate, competition, and the end of the double turn
21:44 Keeping long running restaurants relevant
23:50 Columbia Firehouse, Josephine, and a reconcept that worked
27:27 The constriction in beer and in alcohol generally
29:36 Why the next generation of diners is different
33:18 Killing happy hour and rethinking price points
35:49 Feedback, reviews, and the us versus them problem
41:38 What is opening next in Del Ray
46:46 Snallygaster, fourteen years in
48:22 Rapid fire with Greg Engert
52:44 Chef Chico Dator on Nobu and landing in DC
55:16 Inside Modan’s dry aging program
58:55 Closing thoughts

Connect with Greg Engert

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

Four million people ask her what’s for dinner. She never planned any of it.

Everybody knows her as the gnocchi lady. One video, three million views in three days, and the whole trajectory changed. But here is the thing about Ereka Vetrini that most people scrolling past her reels have no idea about: she had already had an entire career before that. Boston College, GE finance, Estee Lauder, and yes, the first season of The Apprentice. Then she walked away from television because she was tired of telling everybody else’s story.

This one matters if you have ever wondered what actually holds a food career together when the algorithm keeps moving the furniture. Ereka is honest about the parts nobody posts: the non compete that nearly ended her TV run, the years she said no to a cookbook deal, the difference between a brand partnership and an affiliate link, and why she is pouring money into a blog instead of chasing the next platform. It is the kind of conversation this DC food podcast exists for, and it will land for anyone in the hospitality industry building something that has to outlast a trend.

Ereka Vetrini is a first generation Italian American recipe creator, a former NBC, TLC and HGTV host, and the author of the forthcoming cookbook Well Fed, out March 30. She grew up in Westchester in her parents’ pizzeria, learned to cook by tasting and by getting yelled at, and now makes five recipes a week for an audience in the millions. Her people come to her for a lighter hand on Italian food and an approach that actually works in a real kitchen.

Key Takeaways

• Growing up in a family restaurant taught her that food work is people work before it is ever cooking work.
• The Apprentice opened television for her, then a non compete nearly closed it, and she wrote her way out of it herself.
• She left hosting because she was handed the script and told what to wear, and she wanted her own story back.
• Chasing what other creators are doing is the fastest way into a rut, so she filters every trend through her own kitchen first.
• She is building an email list through her own blog rather than renting an audience on a platform she does not own.

Ereka Vetrini said, “Working in food is more than just being able to cook or loving food. You have to really love people.”

Ereka Vetrini said, “I am not affected by the haters. Like, I’m truly not.”

Timestamps

00:00 Why this one is in the office instead of a restaurant
02:44 Growing up first generation in a Westchester pizzeria
04:12 Naples, Dente Cane, and food as family history
07:11 GE, Estee Lauder, and the business path
08:01 How she ended up on the first season of The Apprentice
10:04 The non compete that almost ended her TV career
11:34 NBC, TLC, and six seasons of HGTV
12:15 Walking away from telling other people’s stories
13:58 Raising two eaters and the no yuck rule
16:17 The 2020 dare that became a career
18:03 Staying on top in a crowded recipe creator space
24:04 Why the recipe has to actually work
25:02 Where five recipes a week come from
29:50 The cookbook, the algorithm, and owning your audience
34:24 Content creator versus influencer
36:55 The team, the blog, and the Substack question
38:03 Roast chickens and Aunt Gigi’s farro stuffing
42:29 Rapid fire
44:07 Where to find Ereka

More from Industry Night, the DC food podcast and DC dining guide from Nycci Nellis, at thelistareyouonit.com

Connect with Ereka Vetrini

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/erekav/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/erekavTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@erekasfoodWebsite: https://cookingwitherika.com

A California steakhouse veteran heads home to Utah right as Michelin comes calling.

I love it when a chef gives me the honest version of a big accolade instead of the polished one, and that is exactly what happened this week. My guest got the email that every chef dreams about, and his first thought was not pride, it was suspicion. Is this spam. That is the real reaction, and I am obsessed with it.

This episode is about what happens after two decades of cooking in some of the best kitchens in the country finally catches up with you, right as Michelin decides Utah is worth a look for the first time. If you have ever wondered whether awards like Michelin, James Beard, and World’s 50 Best actually mean anything beyond ego, this conversation gets into it honestly, no spin.

Chef Steven Fretz has spent more than two decades in some of the country’s most respected kitchens, from San Francisco’s Fifth Floor to the Michael Mina Group, with stops working alongside David Burke and running his own restaurant, Church Key, in LA. He co-founded Coast Range, a Michelin recognized steakhouse in Solvang, California, and now he is home in Utah as culinary director and partner at South Hill, opening two new restaurants, Montbleu and Charlay, on the Wasatch Back. This is a DC food podcast that goes wherever the best chefs are, and this week that is Midway, Utah, talking Michelin Guide Utah steakhouse with Chef Steven Fretz.

Key Takeaways

• Steven Fretz got the email announcing his Michelin recognition and assumed it was spam before he believed it was real.
• He calls himself a resting chef, searing and resting a steak up to ten times before it ever reaches the plate.
• Cooking is the easy part for Steven, hospitality is what actually separates a good restaurant from a great one.
• His new steakhouse at South Hill in Midway, Utah will use one hundred percent locally sourced product from ranchers and farmers he has met since moving there in February.
• Steven sees Michelin’s first Southwest guide as validation for a hospitality industry that is more educated and more skeptical of accolades than ever.
• Steven Fretz said, “Cooking’s easy. Hospitality is the hardest part.”
• Steven Fretz said, “Your steak’s not supposed to be hot. I’m a resting chef.”

Timestamps

00:00 Nycci opens with the Roasted series and this week’s guest
03:20 Chef Steven Fretz joins the show
03:31 From skiing in Park City to his first kitchen job
06:32 Learning the standard of perfection under George Morone
10:23 Working with Michael Mina and the Mina family of chefs
13:06 How Coast Range in Solvang came together during Covid
16:03 The move back home to Utah and the South Hill project
19:56 Inside Montbleu and Charlay, opening at South Hill
21:03 Sourcing locally on a three month Wasatch Back growing season
23:50 What kind of steakhouse Charlay will actually be
26:47 Why Steven calls himself a resting chef
31:52 What Michelin, James Beard, and World’s 50 Best really mean to chefs
39:35 Cooking is easy, hospitality is hard
41:53 Where to find Montbleu and rapid fire questions

Connect with Steven Fretz

Website: montbleu.com
Instagram: instagram.com/montbleu.com

Inside the empire behind Rasika, Bombay Club, and now Malabar.

He told me he gets high without taking any drugs, just from walking into his own restaurants every night. After 35 years and ten restaurants, he still means it, and that is the whole story in one sentence.

This week I sat down with two people who basically invented modern Indian dining in America, on location at their newest restaurant, Malabar. If you have ever wondered how one person builds a ten restaurant empire, survives a pandemic downtown, and still shows up in person every single night, this conversation has the real answer.

Ashok Bajaj is the founder and CEO of Knightsbridge Restaurant Group, the man Forbes calls DC’s gastronomic power broker, the guy behind Rasika, Bombay Club, Bindaas, Sababa, Rosselli, and now Malabar. He opened the Bombay Club in 1988 and changed how this country understands Indian food. Alongside him is Chef Vikram Sunderam, his partner of two decades, a James Beard Award winning chef who ran London’s Bombay Brasserie before opening Rasika with Ashok in 2005. This is a DC food podcast conversation about Ashok Bajaj, Vikram Sunderam, and the Indian restaurant scene in Washington DC, thirty five years in the making.

Key Takeaways

• Ashok Bajaj has run ten plus restaurants in Washington DC for over three decades and still visits several of them in person every single night.
• Malabar exists because Ashok tore down a struggling concept called Rosedale and rebuilt it from scratch, his philosophy is stop, rethink, and flip when something isn’t working.
• Chef Vikram Sunderam has partnered with Ashok for over twenty years since opening Rasika together in 2005, earning a James Beard Award along the way.
• Ashok is candid about downtown DC’s post pandemic struggles, including a real conversation with a landlord about a building that dropped from 140 million dollars to 40 million in value.
• Vikram explains the mastery behind dishes like the palak chaat, where getting the oil temperature exactly right matters more than any other single step.Ashok Bajaj said, “I get high without taking any drugs on these things.”
• Chef Vikram Sunderam said, “We’ve got a gastronomic bromance, you would say.”

Timestamps

00:00 Nycci opens at Malabar and introduces Ashok Bajaj’s story
02:51 Ashok Bajaj joins the show
03:15 Growing up in India and choosing hospitality over commerce
05:09 Opening the Bombay Brasserie in London in the 1980s
11:36 Starting Knightsbridge Restaurant Group after a deal fell through in Sydney
12:03 Why Washington DC became home in 1987
20:09 How Rasika came together after a trip to Paris
24:08 Ten restaurants later, and the pivot that became Malabar
33:54 Downtown DC’s changing economics and the landlord conversation
38:31 Chef Vikram Sunderam joins the conversation
42:16 How Ashok and Vikram partnered to open Rasika in 2005
49:37 What makes Malabar’s coastal Indian menu different
55:12 Rapid fire questions and one word for DC’s next chapter

Connect with Ashok Bajaj and Chef Vikram Sunderam

Ashok Bajaj Website: knightsbridgerestaurantgroup.com
Ashok Bajaj Instagram: instagram.com/ashokbajaj_dc
Ashok Bajaj LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/ashok-bajaj-ab01b716

Chef Vikram Sunderam Instagram: instagram.com/chefvikramsunderam
Chef Vikram Sunderam LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/vikram-sunderam-a5226446

Malabar: malabar-dc.com

Gus Constantellis lost his mother, Julia, and four days later he posted a video making the first thing she ever taught him to cook. That video is the reason a cookbook exists.

Industry Night is Heartcast Media's DC food podcast, hosted by Washington DC restaurant insider Nycci Nellis, and once in a while the guest isn't a chef at all. Gus Constantellis, the Greek Mom cookbook comedian, is the Greek American stand up comic and writer behind the viral videos where he becomes his mother on camera with more love than most tributes manage. His new book, My Greek Mom's Recipes, carries the tagline she died, I wrote this cookbook, and it reads as much like a memoir as a collection of recipes.

Nycci talks with Gus about the pandemic video that made Greek Mom go viral, the forty years his mother spent in America without learning English, and the meatball recipe that became the first page of a book he never planned to write alone. This hospitality industry podcast conversation is really about food as the language that outlasts the person who spoke it.

Key Takeaways

• Gus Constantellis built the viral Greek Mom character on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube by impersonating his mother, Julia, and the videos took off during the pandemic in April 2020.
• Julia never learned English in forty years in America, and cooking became her way of communicating what words could not.
• Four days after his mother died, Gus posted a video making her meatball recipe, and that video is what led him to write My Greek Mom's Recipes.
• The cookbook is built around Greek Easter traditions and regional flavors heavy on cinnamon, cloves, and cumin, with recipes gathered from his aunt, his mother's own recipe books, and his brother.
• Gus says the easiest recipes for a beginner are the meatballs, the fasolakia green beans, and the lazy cheese pie.QuotesGus Constantellis said, "It was the only thing that was keeping me going, because I felt really lost."Gus Constantellis said, "When I die, you are all going to starve."

Timestamps

00:00 Nycci opens from her home office, no restaurant today
00:41 Meet Gus Constantellis and the viral Greek Mom videos
02:20 Fresh off ten days in Greece with his boyfriend
04:10 How Gus got into stand up comedy
05:38 Julia was the original material
07:05 The pandemic video that made Greek Mom go viral
09:04 The unfiltered, off camera side of Julia
12:38 Forty years in America without learning English
16:09 Growing up in the kitchen with his mom
20:21 The cookbook that grief made him write
23:17 The recipes that had to make the book
25:03 The regional flavors behind Greek Mom's cooking
28:07 Building the Easter chapter
30:40 Easy recipes for a weeknight
31:50 What Julia would say about the finished book

Connect with Gus Constantellis

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/constantlygus/
Website: https://www.constantlygus.com/

Tacos, steak, and the reviews chefs never want to read out loud.

I made a grown man put on his readers and get roasted, live, at his own restaurant. That is where we start today, back at Taco Bamba in City Ridge with my old friend Victor Albisu.

This is exactly the kind of DC food podcast conversation I live for. Victor Albisu has been feeding this city for twenty years, from fine dining to fast casual to his brand new anti-steakhouse, and today he finally reads the internet's harshest reviews of his own restaurants out loud.

Victor Albisu is the chef behind Taco Bamba, the fast casual taco chain he built from one Falls Church location into seventeen restaurants across the Mid-Atlantic and Nashville, after fine dining runs at Del Campo and Poca Madre. He is opening Electric Bull, a butcher shop and steakhouse, in his hometown of Vienna, Virginia. Later in the show, Karen Harris, the vocalist, vocal coach, and rock frontwoman who curates City Ridge's Friday night music series, joins to talk about booking local musicians. Episode keyword: Victor Albisu Taco Bamba chef Washington DC.

Key Takeaways

• Victor Albisu built Taco Bamba from one location in Falls Church into seventeen restaurants across the Mid-Atlantic and Nashville.
• Victor Albisu is opening Electric Bull, a butcher shop and steakhouse, in his hometown of Vienna, Virginia.
• On this DC food podcast episode, Victor debuts Roasted, a new segment where he reads and responds to his own restaurants' harshest reviews live.
• Victor Albisu said talent is the smallest piece of the formula behind success, and that passion only carries a person so far without purpose behind it.
• Karen Harris, a working vocalist and vocal coach, explains how she curates the local musicians who play City Ridge's Friday night happy hour series.
• Victor Albisu said, "Passion gets you started, purpose carries you forward."
• Victor Albisu said, "Burnt. You're welcome."

Timestamps

00:00 Nycci opens at Taco Bamba in City Ridge
00:51 Introducing today's guests and the new Roasted segment
02:08 Victor Albisu joins, twenty years since BLT Steak
03:05 From Del Campo and Poca Madre to Taco Bamba's seventeenth location
05:19 Growing up in Falls Church, his mother's Latin market, and learning butchery
06:15 Anxiety, a moment of clarity, and moving to Paris at twenty four
09:24 Finding Latin inspired cooking and the chefs who shaped him
15:25 Twenty years since BLT Steak and what Del Campo taught him about fire
19:34 What Victor calls his biggest failure as a young chef
21:27 Taco Bamba's origin and outrunning the fast casual boom
28:30 The Tighty Whitey breakfast burrito
30:23 Taco Bamba Bethesda and the road to Electric Bull
34:08 Building the anti-steakhouse and sourcing Argentinian beef
38:22 Nycci on gendered steak sizes and the petite filet
40:22 Rapid fire, fast casual versus fine dining and how he likes his steak
46:23 Roasted, Victor reads his harshest reviews live
49:31 Karen Harris joins on the patio at City Ridge
50:22 What curating City Ridge's Friday night music series looks like
51:48 How Karen books a lineup with no cheering audience
54:26 Why developments should invest in local musicians
54:53 What's coming this fall, September on the Lawn and more
56:57 Nycci wraps at City Ridge

Connect with Victor Albisu and Karen Harris

Victor Albisu Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chefvictoralbisu/
Victor Albisu Website: http://victoralbisu.com/8vohgc4383v1p2j63o05sl4vfs79ab
Karen Harris Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/karen.h.harris.98
Karen Harris LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/karen-hopfl-harris-a100671/
City Ridge Website: https://www.cityridgedc.com/