Gavin Kaysen: The Culinary Conductor

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I’m a stand-up comic, so there’s always, you know, bits or things that I do that are more for me than the audience. Do you have an equivalent to that as a
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chef? Like, is there like what’s the most selfish item you’ve ever put on a menu?
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You know, it’s funny. I think I think like well, we had it at Mara and it’ll come back because people loved it, but
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like saltrusted fish as an example is like technique-wise is like a really hard dish to do. Okay. So, I was like, ah, let’s do a salt baked bronzino.
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That’s a flex to show. Yeah. And it’s just like it’s like it’s a skill set thing and you’re like like tornado potatoes. Yeah. And you’re doing [ __ ]0:37
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and you’re doing 200 covers. You’re like, you know, so we just had it. But it was like definitely like, you know, hey,
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this is good for me. And then at some point I was like, “Guys, we got to take this [ __ ] off.” Then you’re like, it’s killing us. It’s killing us. Like what the whose idea was that? You know, like
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I’m like whose idea was that? You know, and everyone’s sitting in the room like, “Don’t tell him it’s his.” You know, are you idiots? Y know it takes a special
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track to do this. I’m on my be super fluid. It’s a chef. I’m here to remind y’all I’m sick with it. My name is
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ubiquitous. Meaning it’s one of the same, simple and plain. I’m all about my paper. The bacon gender and pain. Uh I got these lanes running for the border.
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The talent to miss the border. Keep it flowing like it’s water. But here we go.
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There we go. creeping to a low speed. Is it him and his friend sitting in the nose bleach playing cool? He ain’t special just cuz he’s on TV. Everybody’s
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hands up acting like they know we Welcome, welcome, welcome to another
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episode of the Taste Music Here Food Podcast Show. I am your host Ed Porter.
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This is the destination for food, music, and culture and how they all connect.
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Today we have an amazing guest. um someone. So, this is one of those guys that uh makes you feel like you know him
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without knowing him. That’s that’s an endearing quality. And I I’m an attempt to pay this gentleman the flowers he so
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gratefully deserves with this intro. So, here we go. Tonight’s guest is the maestro of Midwestern cuisine, a chef
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whose journey reads like a jazz composition, bold, improvisational, and masterfully orchestrated. From kitchens in New York City to the heartbeat of
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Minneapolis, he’s composed a culinary legacy rooted in excellence, mentorship, and rhythm. As the founder of Swany
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Hospitality Group, and the visionary behind restaurants like Spoon and Stable, Demi, and Mara, he’s turned his hometown into a stage of worldclass
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dining. He’s a James Beard award winner, a Buster coach, and a quiet architect of culture who knows that great food, like
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great music, moves people. Welcome to the Taste Music Here Food podcast show, Mr. Gavin Kase. Yo, listen. I want that.
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I want that intro for the rest of my life. Listen, so listen, this is out in the world now. So, yeah, that’s incredible. We can play that in intros.
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No, I I always say that so articulate.
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Yeah. Thank you. I um always say that I I you know, selfishly cherrypick all the guests that come through that threshold.
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So anybody that I that I have on this this podcast is someone that I truly have a reverence for and ultimate
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respect and I believe that the ultimate respect to show a person is to specifically creative because we’re horrible self-promoters. Um that’s why
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we have the that’s why you have the PR companies you have um because you’re just a doer, right? And so um that’s my way of paying homage to and I appreciate it.
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So there’s um the food industry, the culinary industry is a is a it’s a small I don’t want to use the word frater
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attorney because there’s a lot of there’s women involved.
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club. It’s a club that is, you know, it’s a universal language that that that industry people speak. And there’s a
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certain type of uh person it takes to be able to do this on any level. And then
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there’s the next levels, which is where you’re at.
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Let’s let’s talk about the you know the origins of and you’ve done plenty of interviews
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and podcasts about how you know how you started and this the subway from from let’s talk about what when was the
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actual what was the thing that that hit you to where like okay this is going to be my my voice to be able to to display
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to the world. There was two two times in my life that came to me um specifically
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that I recall as you asked the question and they both came to me at the right time but very very different where I was in my career. The first time I was in
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culinary school, so I was probably 20 years old. And I remember the uh chef
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instructor gave us a task, go study Xbook, read this many chapters, come back to class tomorrow with with with
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this type of result. And I was not a great student in in high school, certainly not in college either. Um, and
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so I just sort of like brushed it off like I did all of my schoolwork and was like, I’ll get it. I’ll figure it out.
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Like that’s kind of how I got through everything. I went to sleep that night and I woke up in like a cold sweat and
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all I remember hearing was if you don’t take this seriously and go after it, you’re throwing away your own gift. And
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I stayed up the rest of the night and I read the whole book cover to cover. Wow.
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And that was like my sort of moment of saying like, okay, if you really want to do this, if you really say you want to be a part of this, then do it. commit to
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it, but don’t sit here and say you want to do it and then don’t put in the work.
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The second time was when I was working in San Diego. I was the chef at a restaurant called Elvis Scoo and I was young. I was 25 years old and I was on
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the patio of my apartment and I was reading letters to a young chef by Danielle Belude. Great great book. Yeah.
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And I remember reading it and I turned to my wife and I said, “I have to work for this guy.” Like I just want to understand what is it like to work for the New York? like what’s it like to be
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with the Yankees, you know? What’s it like to be with the best team that’s ever played, you know, and and have the
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most championships? And there’s a reason for that. There’s a culture. There’s a historical culture there that makes that
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team be who they are. And I wanted to know what that was like to be with Danielle. And I remember specifically that moment being like, I have to work
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for him. So, I wrote him a letter and went and worked for him. Awesome. Yeah.
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Danielle, so this he’s a whole another level. Yeah, he’s he’s he’s somewhere else. That that I I remember walking
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into the restaurant and just felt there’s like it’s like a cathedral feeling. It’s very very spiritual. It’s weird. I know I sound like a geek, but
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No. And like you know, you walk into I was I was at his restaurant in New York a week and a half ago and um you know the way the the way the kitchen is built
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is you go like when I walk in I go through the back but you go into the kitchen you go up these very very sharp stair staircase straight up literally
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and it’s called the skybox. It’s his office. So it’s it’s him uh his two assistants or one assistant who’s ever
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on staff at the time. And then they have a little table kind of like this but it’s in a separate room. You can seat four guests there. or maybe squeeze in six if you’re really lucky. And uh
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there’s all these photos everywhere of Danielle with all these people, Andy Warhol, name the president, you know, whoever. All these But like you sit
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there, man, and you’re just like, “What am I doing here?” Yeah. It’s crazy. I like the flex that the the the subtle flex. I He You go through the back. So I
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Yeah, don’t go through the front. The front’s locked. I can’t even get in. I open the
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door, they’re like, “No, get in the back.” You know the code. That’s That’s crazy. That’s crazy. You know what?
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Let’s I I’d like to start um this off by playing a little game. Okay. Uh sort of
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like an icebreaker, even though there’s no ice to be broken. So, we’re going to play a little game called this or that.
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Okay. And this is going to be the classic snack food edition. I thought this would be I love it. A great one.
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Yeah. So, we’re going to play this or that right now. All right.
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Let’s go. All right. So, it’s very simple. Give you two options.
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Pick one. Okay. All right. So, this is all stuff for We’re in the same age bracket. Yeah, for sure. So, we So, All right. So, Squeeze It or Ecto-Cooler, but it has to be from the can, though.
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That’s That’s when High Sea was High Sea. Okay. So, I would take Squeeze It.
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Squeeze It. Okay. Okay. Any flavor in particular? I No, I Okay. Do you remember the Kool-Aid ones? 100%.
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This was like This was the original.
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This was the OG. This is like the post soccer game where you think you’re doing yourself a favor. Absolutely. You know, destroying everything you just burned on your hand. Yeah. There’s no juice in that, by the way. Not Not even a little.
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Actually, the the artificial flavor uh logo on there is actually bigger than what it probably should. Yeah. The chemical so Yeah. Yeah. It’s good for
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you. Okay. Next. McRib or McBT. You remember the MCLT? Yeah. Mc Rib. I still
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listen. I know. I know. It’s I know. We know it’s not ribs. We know. We know it’s mostly soy, but it’s still good. I know. It’s still good. And you have to
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think it’s ahead of its time. Okay. Way ahead of its time. And I get it without onions, though. I don’t like So, for some reason, the onions on the McRib,
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like normally, you know, McDonald’s, they they soak the uh the onions in water, so it takes But these onions are like They’re too sharp. They’re way too sharp. They’re way too sharp. Yeah. And
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the bread. I know. It’s like that forever.
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You remember that thing? Yes. Yes. It It didn’t last very long. No, because it it came out right before the styrofoam injection. So that’s why they killed it.
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It’s just it’s just a quarter pound with cheese. You want to hear something? We did this we did this competition. So at Buku Store, which we’ll talk about, right? But um we needed to come up with a flavor of tomato, the scent of tomato.
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We were like basically molecular gastronomy making a tomato. And there was a guy who I found in Wisconsin, a doctor who created the scent of fat for
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the Burger King or McDonald’s non-fat hamburger. So when you would go to bite it, you would you would smell like the grill and the fat marks and you would
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trick your brain and be like, “Oh, it’s juicy and it’s fat.” And it was nothing.
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So he created the smell of tomatoes for us. That’s sick. Yeah, it was crazy. The guy was nuts. Anyway, okay, next.
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Big leak chew or juice box. Do you remember? This is an easy one, but do you remember the juice box gums? Yeah, of course. Okay. All right. Yeah, I mean Big League. Big but for sure. I still
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have it. I I do, too. I mean, my kids have it. It’s like, so I introduced this to my my 10-year-old daughter and she’s hooked. But here’s the problem with Bigly Chew.
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There’s no off button when you start to, you know what I’m saying? Like the advantage of all the other gum coming in a rapper is you realize I’ve opened up
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one. I have to eat that one. If I open up two, you know, I’m I’m a glut I’m a glutton for punishment, right? Big you throw the whole thing in your mouth and
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you’re like, and well, here’s the also thing. So, and that’s smart marketing.
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There’s no there’s no zip lock. There’s no there’s no once you open this this you have to ingest the whole thing. And how much big big leak chew have you swallowed? Oh my god.
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So bad.
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Absolutely. Absolutely. Okay. Next. I love it. This one. Do you remember this?
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Oh yeah. Hostess fruit pies or pudding pies? There was a a chocolate and a vanilla one. This one has a This one has a 20 20 cent off uh coupon, but I never
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had I never had the chocolate pudding pie, but I love the vanilla pudding pie.
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I I didn’t mind the fruit pies, but I will tell you the only one I liked was apple. Apple was the only one that actually had fruit in it. Yeah. I didn’t like Exactly. I didn’t like any other
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ones. I would probably go with the vanilla pudding pie. Vanilla pudding pie was was was kickass and it had like some kind of like frosting on the outside.
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Yeah. Yeah. It was It was, you know, I mean, whatever it was, royal frosting effectively that would live through a gas station. For sure. For sure. Yeah.
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Okay. Next. Remember this? Are you a root beer guy?
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Rambling root beer. It was the root beer 100%. Yeah. I’m a root beer. Yeah, I’m a root beer guy. But that rambling root beer, I’ve been trying to find. So they don’t make it anymore, do they? So it’s
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the company um so this was a Coke product. Um the company uh was it was purchased by a uh Canadian company that
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still produces it, but in small quantities and the biggest place that they they distribute to is like some podunk town in like Kentucky. So I was
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trying to get some. It’s it makes the best root beer float. It really does. It really does. And I’m sure there’s 99,000 chemicals in it. But anyway, it’s great.
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And slice was good though. So slice. So there was there was there was cherry.
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There was obviously lemon lime which was uh then there’s apple and then um orange. Orange was good. Orange slice
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was the best orange soda. Orange slice was really good. Yeah. I liken it to orangeina which was Yeah, exactly. So all right that I love it. I love it.
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That’s been this and that. All right.
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So, let’s go into the reason why also I thought it was it was imperative that I had to have you on is because so this whole entire
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thing exists because in my humble opinion food and music are two of the
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superpowers and two of the most readily accessible universal languages that that can have. I think the easiest way to
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immerse yourself in any culture is to experience the music and experience the food. And it’s the two of the easiest
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ways to really have an appreciation and affinity for a person, who they are, and their culture. Also, I believe that it’s
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hard to have biases towards a person if you place and have reverence for the people that created such art. Yep.
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You’ve said that, and I 100% believe this and agree, that running a restaurant is like an organized
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symphony. Mh. And when I read that quote from you, I was like, “Okay, that’s I’ve always thought that way. I’ i’ve always been the weird kid that so I was I got
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into food to pay for studio time.” And I didn’t it didn’t click to me that they were one and the same. And it took some mentors of mine that saw, you know,
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talent in me when I didn’t see it in myself. And Marcus being one of those guys like he gave me a shot. I I clearly didn’t belong. Like it was I I shouldn’t
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have been in the room. But he saw in me the fact of some skill sets and talent
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that I didn’t see myself. How there’s a difference between running a restaurant and running
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a restaurant group. Mhm. And when you are on a the level that you’re on and you have so many this
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responsibility for for lives and how you take on that responsibility and you you
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do it with such dignity and diligence is is all inspiring. Can you just talk to what the weight of that is and and how
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what does that organized confusion look like? Yeah. So, um I mean there’s a lot there’s a lot there. I I would
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say, you know, when when I was when I was a line cook and as most line cooks
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are, they’re very focused on um how to get to the next station, right? So, if you’re on Garmig, you’re like, man, when
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do I get to fish? If you’re on fish, you’re like, “When do I get to meet?” Well, I always try to remind myself that when I was on that station of grammar or
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fish or meats or whatever it was, the single most exciting thing every day was to do the same thing every day. And you
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knew that you just had to sort of get better at it. But the best part was is that you could always wear blinders. You know, you could take them off and look at the station there and there if you
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wanted to, but you always had the excuse to be like, I’m just focusing on what I’m doing. When you become a sue chef, the blinders open up a little bit more.
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When you become the chef, they’re off.
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When you become the owner of the restaurant group, there’s no such thing.
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And so, you know, I often I very much rely on the team. I very much rely on their capabilities. It is my
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responsibility to make sure that they’re put in the right positions in order to achieve what it is. It doesn’t mean that they’re going to have challenge doesn’t mean that they will not have challenges
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and hardships and frustrations and all of that. But a close friend of mine who I’ve been working with the last 11 months, his name’s Priti. He’s in New
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York City. He’s the CEO for the Kent Hospitality Group now. But he had this really great um Danielle Danielle’s group used to say
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something very similar to it. But there sort of this great way of approaching this type of leadership which is when you’re sort of stuck in that mosh pit
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and that and that mess of everything, you have a really hard time seeing how to get out of it. If you just take a view from the balcony and you look down,
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you realize like, oh, if you just took a left and went straight, right, they’re out. You can see the maze from above.
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Exactly. So, I think sometimes that’s part of the process when you’re running a larger restaurant group or a smaller restaurant group is that if you want to
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chain and handcuff yourself to a stove because that’s what you believe in and that’s all you want to do and you just want to cook in that one restaurant that has 40 seats and that makes you happy,
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do it. Don’t let the outside noise push you to open up two or three or four restaurants. Do that and be the best at
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that. If you have the energy and the and the desire to open up more like what we what I’ve done and what we’ve done, then
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do that, right? You know, but but it also means that when you when when you create more of that, you’re going to create more
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um you’re going to create more opportunities to figure out how to solve problems because there are going to be more problems that happen as a result.
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There’s also going to be a larger risk. There’s going to be a larger reward.
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There’s all of that that’s possible. But honestly, I lean a lot on my mentors with stuff like this. I mean, I talked to Danielle. I talked to Tom I mean,
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Thomas Keller is a very very dear friend and very dear mentor of mine. I mean, I you know, we spoke yesterday for an hour, you know, and and I mean, he’s blowing up right now with all the
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Netflix stuff coming out. I I called I sent him a text. We’ve been playing phone tag for a week and I and he was finally in his car driving from one spot to another and called me and you know we
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had an hour hour to to to connect and you know it’s just it’s amazing when you take the time and you think about the
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amount of institutional knowledge that our mentors have that they can then pass down to us right you know you need to at
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those moments I catch myself saying just put everything down like put your phone away turn the computer off sit in a chair
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have this conversation, be present in the conversation because the knowledge being dropped right now is a valuable part of your growth, right? You know,
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and I mean like there was something that he said yesterday that actually kept ringing in my ears today. He was talking about something
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uh uh and he said he just simply said, “Even at my age, I’m still learning.” And I just thought to myself, like, you
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know, we all are. Yeah. But it’s different to say it, isn’t it? Yeah, it’s different to admit that. I um I had
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the the great fortune and Marcus set this up for me too to sit down for for
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two hours with Patrick Clark. Yeah. At Tavern on the Green and in the in the height. Yeah. And again, yeah, kid from the Bronx had no idea this was a big
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deal. He had me waiting for an hour and a half though. But but I I sat and talked to him and he was the reason why
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I decided to go to CIA. Amazing. And so he basically said to me
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that if you truly want this right, you have to commit to being a forever student. The minute you think you know
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it all, yeah, you’re [ __ ] dead because this is one of those industries where it’s ever evolving. And the you
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hit on something and now it all makes sense, too. And I knew some of this, but this hearing you say it again is is different. a lot of your approach to how
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you do what you do is a lot like Thomas Keller and and and Daniel. So they
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they’re they manage things from the inside out. Meaning, you know, Thomas Keller opened up ad hoc for his
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employees. That’s just because Yville was sleepy. So like, okay, I’m gonna have a restaurant for my staff to go to and eat at because there’s nowhere else to do.
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And one thing that that that struck me was where I knew like that he’s he’s the guy is during the pandemic um and I just
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moved back here like at the height of you know cuz I can pick you know. Yeah.
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Great timing. But anyway, the the video that you posted that was an urgent message to to the mayor and to the
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governor like on behalf of And you didn’t have to do that. That was you you did that. It wasn’t just that wasn’t for you. That was the sales tax. Exactly.
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That was about the industry. Like, dude, we’re we’re we’re dying, okay? As an industry, and in order for to keep this
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going the way we know it to be, we need some we need some help. And so, that to me spoke volumes about your character as
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a human. And a lot of times, you know, we we get roped into being thought of as a monolithic people. Um the industry is
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and it’s not that way at all. And yeah, and that was hard, too, you know, because I’d never really done anything like that. And I I still I mean I don’t that’s out of my comfort zone
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um to be quite honest, but I I I saw especially at that time like we needed to say and when I posted that um the
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mayor called me within 35 seconds and was like, “What’s going on?” And I talked to him and I said, “This is this is what we need. Like we just need you
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to default this payment for a month. We can all pay our employees this last paycheck that they’re going to get and we have no idea what’s going to happen.”
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And I’m like, what’s one month of default revenue for you guys on this sales and use tax or whatever, you know, whatever it was. And then it it it it
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passed through and everybody sort of got a bit of a bit of uh grace there and leeway. And, you know, the amount of
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messages that I received from people of of of gratitude um in in this industry, and our profession locally um was really
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overwhelming. And you know it it’s also like you know the difficulty when you stand up and say something like that is
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you get both the gratitude and then you get the hate. Right. Right. You know and and I think sometimes you know we take the hate personally but it’s it’s not
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it’s not personal you know there’s just sort of like maybe perhaps a lack of understanding of where everything’s going and what’s happening. And to be fair I had no none of us had any idea
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idea of what was happening. You know it was just like this might fix it for a week or two. It might not. Yeah. We didn’t Nobody knew what was going on day
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to day, but I don’t know if you were aware, but that what you did had ripples, not just here. Like that, you know, that caught fire. Yeah. Like um
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and it became the model of at least to let’s let’s put this band-aid on this bullet hole for for now, but we need to
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talk about how we’re going to go. Again, restaurants are cashbased businesses.
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No, no restaurant is set up to to have, you know, sitting on a year’s worth of
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cash flow to be able to sustain without some significant revenue coming in. So, that was that had to be done and I’m
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glad that um it came from, you know, for us by us and that’s that’s what made it so impactful, honestly. Um let’s talk
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about, you know, the Swany hospitality group. I believe and and and from talking about your ideals and just seeing things and how things are done,
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there’s a little bit of of you in every one of the the establishments.
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Same but different. And I and there’s there’s a skill set to that. So, how talk to me about, you know, the restaurants from, you know, Marian Spoon
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and then and how it all like Yeah, I mean Spoon, you know, Spoon was the first one. So now that’s a little over 10 years old and originally that was
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thanks brother. Yeah it’s incredible. So originally we were going to be called merchant and I always wanted spoon and stable to be and I and I and I I believe
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what we are we are progressing towards that positioning. Uh but I always wanted spoon to kind of be the restaurant that helps
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um elevate the way that we perceive and think about restaurants locally. You know, I coming from coming back home
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from New York City, there was always this energy around how great Minneapolis was, how great B market cities in general were. You know, you didn’t have
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to, you know, like at that time when I opened Spoon, like you didn’t have to only live in New York or Chicago or San Francisco or LA to be successful. Like you could take your knowledge and bring
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it home and find that success and translate it. But don’t be an [ __ ] about it, you know? Don’t be pompous about it. like don’t be arrogant, be
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respectful, be curious, but also teach people what’s going on. I always wanted Spoon to be that and I think it’s done a really great job especially seeing now
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the talent pool that has left Spoon and Stable in the last decade and opened up restaurants like Adam at Busheron Yia across the street you know Diane down
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the street you know and so on and so you know the um Joe and Lisa at Gia I mean all of these all of these people who have kind of come out of the Swany
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school um they deserve the credit that they that they deserve all the credit and all the awards that they’ve achieved. We were just simply sort of
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another stepping stone for them to get there, which was a huge stone for them to jump up and jump off of. News flash, which is massive. You’re the Yankees.
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Yeah, that’s right. That’s what it is.
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It’s like you got and and you have to be able to, you know, you want to be able to show and I wanted Spoon to be that.
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So, I wanted to be able to show people like you can do this, but let’s show you a little bit of a formula that works for us and then take what will work for you. Right.
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Demi was always meant to be and has become this 20 seat restaurant focused on restoration. The word restaurant
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comes from the word restoration to be restored. We as a culture are trained to think of restaurants as ratable experiences and not restorable
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experiences. So when we go out to eat, before we even go into the restaurant, we think to ourselves, what what am I going to like about this place? What am
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26 minutes
I going to not like about this place? I looked at the menu online. I already know what I’m going to order. So you’ve already sort of like removed this entire experience that we’re supposed to
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26 minutes, 9 seconds
provide. So Demi is all about that. And you know, Mara is all about sort of this exploration of Mediterranean cuisine on
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26 minutes, 16 seconds
the coast. You know, from the French Riviera to the Italian coast. Best hummus I’ve ever had. Best hummus, right? So good. You know, the pet is
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amazing. Yeah. I don’t know what. And it’s it’s like it’s like a whole wheat.
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It is. It’s delicious. Yeah. So, you know, we just we just sort of flipped the menu for spring and you know, we just put a new bara salad on today. It
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goes on today. You know, there there are dishes that I want that restaurant to really evoke. You know, what is a beautiful restaurant that Yes, I
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understand it’s inside of a hotel. I understand it’s inside of the Four Seasons. I understand that that’s in Minneapolis, but it’s a very it’s a busy
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restaurant that way and it’s been a lot of fun. And then Belor is, as I was, you know, explaining earlier, our French beast bakery. Gotcha. Gotcha. talk to me
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26 minutes, 58 seconds
about KZ provisions and what exactly you know you’re accomplishing
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what this what the goal was initially. I mean I we know what you’re accomplishing now but you’re going to speak to all of it about you know what the initial goal
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was um working with with Andrew and and and how it’s evolved from what the thought process was to the monster that
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is Yeah. So Andrew and I have always been in business together. He’s one of my partners in Swany. And so, um, he and
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I did a, um, a, um, concession stand at Viking Stadium when it opened. We had two of them together. Our names, his name was attached to it. My recipes were
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attached to it with him. So, anyways, I go to visit some friends who play for the Minnesota Wild. Jared Spurgeon, who’s now the captain, who’s a very dear
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friend of mine, and at the time, Jason Zucker, who doesn’t play for the Wild, he’s in Buffalo. I went to visit him at practice. We’re sitting around at a table like this, and they’re eating like
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fish stickicks. I’m like, “What are you guys eating?” You know, and they’re like, “Oh, it’s fish sticks. It’s Tuesday.” I’m like, “Okay, what’s Wednesday, right?” Oh, it’s burritos.
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What’s Thursday? I’m like, “Are you serious?” They’re like, “Yeah, they just cater in. They get it from six different places.” Not say these they were bad, but in my mind, I’m like, “You’re
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professional athletes. This is hundreds of millions of dollars of payroll. If I’m the CEO of a company that’s pushing out that much payroll, I want to make sure my athletes or my my my employees
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are eating the best that they can.” Putting regular gasoline in a in a sports car. Exactly. Well said. So I I
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said to them, I said, “What if I cooked for you guys?” And they’re like, “Yeah.” They joked and I said, “No, seriously.” So I went back, I wrote a business plan.
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I called Andrew and I said, “Hey, do you want to do this together? Here’s my idea.” I said, “You know a lot about nutrition. You know a lot about the way the body ticks, too. What do you think?”
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He’s like, “I love it.” Two weeks later, I had a meeting with Chuck Fletcher, who was the GM at the time, and he says, “Look, this really hasn’t been done in hockey before. Let’s give it a shot.” We
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signed a three-year deal with them. Now, we’re on our third three-year deal with The Wild. Uh we just signed our our deal with the Timberwolves and the Lyns.
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That’s five years, uh which is our second renewal contract with them. And and and really what the whole intention of that business was and still
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is, is how do we take the intentionality of hospitality that’s inside of restaurants and curate that for just the
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athletes that we’re cooking for? So, if I’m cooking for 20 plus hockey players or 15 plus basketball players, men and women, how do I make sure that they’re
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getting the best that they can get? And then during the games, we cook for all the families. Yeah. Right. So, all of the kids, the mothers, the cousins, the
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friends, etc. You know, how do we make sure to celebrate the 5-year-old birthday of the little of the little girl whose dad is out there on the
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court? Right. Yeah. Right. How do we do that? How do we make sure that that’s a special moment for her to make sure that the the dad or the mom who’s on the
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court is like KZ’s taking care of my family in the back. I’m good. You know, um sometimes we’ll meet him at the airfield when they land at 2 in the
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morning to give them a a warm thermos of broth so that that way I know they’re hungry, right? Um so it’s about intentionality and it’s about focusing
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all of that on those athletes and making them the best that they can be. There are already incredible specimens, right?
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The reason they are who they are is because of yes the god-given talent that they have, but their mentality, their focus on curio, their focus on perfection of their craft, right?
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They’re always curious on how to get better. Food’s never really been a part of that equation for for athletes in a way that that it can be now. And it’s
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the it’s crazy that that wasn’t thought of. Like again, I I liken it to to raceh horses, right? So the anybody who’s ever
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I I have some friends that were equestrian so I Yeah. For whatever real weird reason I I I thought about they this was brought up. Yeah. And so right
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before any competitions the horse goes on a heavy and then in in all the training goes on heavy alpha alpha
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sprout like uh uh focusing right. So any any meals alpha alpha sprouts was the
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because for the protein facts and if you’re not taking care of again your millions and millions of dollars of
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investment and you’re they’re basically these athletes were eating out of vending machines pretty much and that’s to me how that wasn’t even a thought.
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Well, you think about how we’re raised, right? Yeah. I mean, listen, I have three boys. My my 15-year-old plays baseball, my 13-year-old plays hockey, and then the little one’s too little to
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do anything right now. You know, it’s like my 13-year-old gets out of a hockey game. He stops by a vending machine.
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He’s like, “Dad, can I get something?” So, you do that. You do it, right?
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They’re six years old. You start doing it. You’re like, “Yeah, go ahead. Get some ruffles and some Oreos.” And, you know, like, “What the [ __ ] are you eating?” It’s insane. And then you
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expect to perform at an optimum level. I always use the I always use the car thing because it changed the way I think
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think about food and my relationship with food. And we know better, but yet we still we do all the like chefs are the worst.
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Yeah. As far as the diet, like I I’ll smash just a I’ll pour milk in a box of cocoa cocoa pebbles like it’s nothing and just smash it because it’s fast and
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and and I know what it is, right? And but to think about, you know, using a
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subpar fuel for optimal output is insane. Like it’s never it’s never going to happen. It’s never going to happen.
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So, I’m excited that that you that that’s the case. Let’s let’s talk about Synergy. Let’s talk about the book and then the process of how that came about.
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This is a project I’m super excited about. I pre-ordered a while ago and um I was hoping to have it so that you can sign it, but I I I’ll track you down.
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Yeah, I’ll get it.
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So let’s talk about about how that came about and then what that means to you because this is one of those and I’m I’m
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guessing series cuz I I see this continuing. How did it come about and then what that means to you? So the first synergy so the the intention of
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the synergy series when I did when I started it seven years ago well it’s longer because we took co off but anyways the idea was how do I bring in
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these chefs these friends and have them cook with our team and help educate and train our team both in the kitchen and
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the dining room and then provide the guests with a really amazing cool experience. Right. So the first year was all New York chefs because I just come from New York. So it was Danielle
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Belude, April Bloomfield, Michael White, Michael Anthony, right? Massive and second year I was like, “All right,
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let’s do creative like sort of hyper creative.” So it was Christopher Costau, Sean Brock, Dominic Kren, Gran Aett. And the list kept going on. Now people would
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say to me, “How do you get these people?” I’m like, “I text them. They’re friends. Like these are, you know, I just shoot them a text and they say yes or they say no and it’s all good.” But
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the idea of synergy series has always been rooted in education. Always. And so around after our third season, we
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realized, okay, the people coming to the dinner are usually high- netw worth individuals because it’s an expensive ticket, which I understand and it has to
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be. But I’m trying to communicate to our profession. I’m trying to communicate to the young cook, the young server, the
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34 minutes
young bartender about how Grant Ackets had to battle stage four cancer and get through that while his restaurant was
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deemed the best restaurant in the country and one of the top 10 in the world. How did he do that? You know, and so I really I really was frustrated because I wasn’t getting the profession,
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the industry to show up. And so we started this thing called the dialogue, which was like this, a fireside chat, one-on-one conversation. Allison North,
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who owns a company called Sultan Row, which is a leadership firm. She’s the moderator. I stay out of it. She’s great at that. I’m not. Maybe I am. She’s
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really good. Um, so, so she has these conversations with these chefs and we would host them either at Four Seasons, American Swedish Institute, the Glass
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House, etc. And it’s $10. And to be honest with you, we give away probably half the tickets. We call our industry friends and say, “Hey, we’re going to
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give you 20 tickets. Just show up.” And what we realized then after six years of doing this with 25 chefs is that not
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only did we have all the photography of every dinner that we own, we have every menu. Wow. They all they were all willing to donate a a recipe to the
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book, but we had all these stories. We had all this institutional knowledge, all this content, and as you know, more than anybody, content is king. It’s
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king. Yeah. And so I thought, how do I put all of this into a book so people don’t forget about what it is that this
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restaurant and these group of people who are all either still at Spoon or moved on did this at a time that was really special. So, we self-published the book.
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It took us a little over this past year to do it. It comes out, our publishing date is May 20th. Um, and so the book
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will start to ship. The coolest part in my opinion is that Bellank, who are dear friends and really, really great supporters, they underwrote the whole cost of the book and the production.
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Wow. Which then allows me to sell the book. Uh it’s $50 a book and a h 100% of the proceeds goes back to mentor the
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36 minutes
nonprofit charity that was created by Danielle and Thomas, myself and Jerome Bukus. I was gonna bring it up. So, you know, we’re able to donate the the money
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to them in in in a way that’s really important. Um but more so than that like we’re able to capture uh the knowledge
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that we have had for the last six years that and I also believe that doing this a book like this is sort of
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a a road map if you will. Um it’s it’s a one-stop shop. You can go to and get a book like this and have all of the
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knowledge of these phenomenal mentors. Yeah. And gain it
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all at one in one place. Yeah. And that that to me is, you know, it’s priceless to be to be able to do that. And you
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have a snapshot of time like the these this these dinners happen the and it’s you get into the reasons why and you of
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37 minutes
course you have the recipes and the and the the you know the images and all these things, but it’s more so about the mindset of the individual of how these
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things came to be. And I I think to me the stories are more impactful than anything else. Totally. And uh that to me is is
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is mind-blowing and how you have, you know, it’s it’s the all-star team basically. You have you have it’s it’s
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it’s you have it’s basically it’s you’re looking at you know the monstars if you will of the industry and all of the same mindset and and then for a great cause.
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That’s the other thing. And uh you know kudos to that. I I can’t wait to it.
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It’s I can’t wait to have it uh physically in my hands and it’s a beautiful beautifully laid out and and the story is more so that’s is from what
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I saw of the book is is it’s really rooted and the stories are the the glue.
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Yeah, totally. I mean it’s a story book, you know, and I mean it’s so funny like there are little things that are stories within the stories as you can imagine, right? So like when Thomas came and did
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37 minutes, 59 seconds
his oysters and pearls, the first time ever they’ve done that dish out of French Laundry. See, they’ve never done it out of TfL. That was day that was
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number one. And my oldest son, who has been fortunate enough to eat at TfL and had the oysters and pearls at the French
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Laundry and loved them, came down after school and made sure cuz he was like, “Dad, do you think I can have that dish tonight?” And I was like, “Yeah, sure.” He was like 13 at the time. He was 12.
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That’s Yeah, it’s a great So, you know, there’s a line out the door of people wanting to come into the restaurant for for TK’s dinner. And in the corner of
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the restaurant is TK sitting having a conversation with my oldest son, Emil, as he’s just crushing Oysters and
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Pearls. That’s great, you know. So, there’s all these like stories in the stories and it’s all in the book. It’s really cool. That’s so that’s so cool.
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[Music]38:48
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Um I I I would have to say that this this is one of those labor of love types of things. So, it’s great that that you had the least foresight. Like, we have all this we have all of this Yeah.
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documentation of an imagery and the let’s just do something with it. Yeah.
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Uh and that’s that’s sort of like this that’s that’s for the culture by the culture. So yeah, very cool. I believe
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39 minutes, 10 seconds
that going into the next stage of what it is that that you’re going to do like how how are
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39 minutes, 19 seconds
you how are you tying into everyday experience for not only the
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patrons but you know the the all of the talented individuals that work with you and for you. How is managing and
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cultivating that talent? How has that been? That has to be exciting to you know like you said see guys come into their own and have a I get that’s the
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hardest thing I believe for any creative specifically a chef to there’s you go through these stages of first mimicking
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and uh uh following and then there’s this creation and then you get a voice right and then when once that voice is developed what am I saying with this
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40 minutes, 1 second
voice and very few I would say very few master what it is that they’re saying and how they’re saying it and then it
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being a straight continuous through line.
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40 minutes, 13 seconds
What is the exploration of seeing that happen in real time? What is what does that feel like? Yeah, I mean I would say you know finding the voice no doubt is
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the hardest. Retaining it is done through stubbornness I think a lot of the way. Um meaning you’re focused and
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you know that this is your way to to go and so you want to stay that you want to stay on that course. you know, watching the chefs and the and the and the the
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40 minutes, 36 seconds
leadership team around us excel and and frankly, you know, be in a position where they’ve been with me for quite
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some time now. Um, and the retention has been wonderful to see. Now, it’s time for us to grow. Yeah. You know, and and to spread our wings a little bit. And
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we’ve been very intentional about with withholding that growth the last couple of years, mainly because I didn’t think
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41 minutes
we were ready for what that meant at the time. Um, you know, now we’ve just announced we’re going to open up down in Naples, Florida at the Four Seasons.
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Beat me through it. You know, so like that’s a part of growth. Um, you know, what is that going to look like? What is that going to feel like?
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um you know, how do we spread our wings beyond our state border and and still, you know, enact that Swany focus that’s
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down there in in in Florida and on the coast. So, that’s going to be fun. You know, we have um an announcement of of
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41 minutes, 32 seconds
Belor, which we’re we’re taking the the Belor brand out of all of the Cooks of Crocus Hills locations, which currently
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41 minutes, 40 seconds
there’s St. Paul, Minneapolis, and and Edina. the Ein store. We’re taking over the lease and we’re going to remake that into a Bellor bakery and cafe in the
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41 minutes, 49 seconds
North Loop store. We’re actually moving out of that. We’ve signed a lease on a new space around the corner from Spoon and Stable and we’re going to build a Bell Core bakery and cafe during the
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41 minutes, 56 seconds
day, French beastro at night. Again, there’s growth. What does that look like? How do we bring that brand back into a way that that that we see it in
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today’s world of 2025? you know, we closed the one in Weisetta during CO and we’ve we’ve lived within the Cooks brand the last 5 years which has been great.
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Now we’re ready to to to move on. So, you know, that type of growth, there’s going to be a lot of testing. Um, so I
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think part of my responsibility is making sure to remind everybody to like take the time that they need to be ready for what’s coming. I can handle it.
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Right. Right. I I see the marathon. I see the race. I see it. I see how long it’s going to take. I know how much how hard it’s going to be, but when people
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42 minutes, 38 seconds
haven’t been through this before, you know, I went through this with Danielle for a long time, but when people haven’t been through this before, they think, “Oh, if I just get around the” This is
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the most damaging thing I think I hear people say, especially my chefs sometimes. They’ll say, “If once once once this event gets over, then I’m good
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and then I can do this.” And I would say, you know, once that event’s over, there’s another one right after behind it. And then after that, so so what you can’t do is you can’t think that short,
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right? You got to think out what does your five months, what does six months, what does a year look like? And then start to plan it and realize that you’re going to hit all of these speed bumps
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along the way and it’s all good, but how are you going to go through them? How you going to navigate around them?
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43 minutes, 16 seconds
Because it’s never going to be once I open the restaurant, then I’m going to be in a good position. No, you’re not.
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Yeah. Once you open the restaurant, you got to run the restaurant. Absolutely.
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Yeah. And then all the idiosyncrasies and then the the X factors that come into play. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. That’s that’s insane.
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take me through how like for me I I just know I believe anytime you’re doing specifically
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mundane things, you know, whether that’s uh I don’t know, write writing a menu or or just anything that’s that you have on
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autopilot as far as mentally goes. What is the soundtrack in your head that is is is playing? Like to me for me music
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is such an important integral part of how and why I do things. So how and you know how I used to memorize recipes that
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I knew I had to have down. I used to make songs out of them in my head. And so that’s that’s just for me the the building structure of a recipe
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is the same as writing a song. It’s the structural integrity things. You can move them around. Sure. But they all the the usual suspects are at play. So yeah,
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this probably won’t come as a surprise to you. Um but I’ll listen to like physical I’ll listen to a lot of orchestra music. Y you know, I love I I
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44 minutes, 34 seconds
love um instruments. I love what they put off. I think it’s very similar to ingredients. I think it’s very similar to, you know, there’s four people
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playing the violin. There’s one through four in grading. Y doesn’t mean that anyone is worse or better than the other, but there is a sliver of better
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somewhere. Y um you know I was lucky enough when my wife and I were very young. So uh we were probably 21. So
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this is 24 years ago. We went to Vienna, Austria to watch the famous New Year’s
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Eve Symphony Orchestra ball. Okay. It was g like it’s in the space is insane.
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Everything’s gold. Like it’s unbelievable. So whatever. So we’re there. I don’t know how we got tickets, but we’re there and we we we watch the
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first act. They go to intermission and this guy walks up to us. We must have just looked like we were so out of place. But this gentleman walks up to us
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and says, “Where where are you two sitting?” And I said, ‘Oh, we’re there and there. And he says, “After intermission, come find me. I’m going to be at section X.” And I said, “Okay,
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45 minutes, 34 seconds
great.” So we go through intermission. I said to my wife, I’m like, “I wonder, are we in trouble? Like something, you know, what did we do? We not clap. Did we clap too hard? Like what happened?”
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45 minutes, 43 seconds
So he says, “I want you to see the orchestra from a different angle on the second half.” I said, ‘ Okay. We sat on stage. Wow. So, the violinist was
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sitting here. Wow. The the conductors in front of me, I will never to this day, I’ve told this story before to friends.
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45 minutes, 59 seconds
I will never I get chills. I will never forget his face. Yeah. The energy, the the the focus, the level of focus and
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46 minutes, 6 seconds
energy that he had was unlike anything I had ever seen outside of a kitchen.
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46 minutes, 11 seconds
It blew me away. I just posted a couple days ago a post where I have a conductor, an orchestra conductor
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46 minutes, 20 seconds
and a chef at the pass. It’s the same laser. It’s it’s it’s such and it’s so it’s one of those things that if you if
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46 minutes, 28 seconds
they’re so synonymous, but if you if you don’t know the world, right, you don’t understand it, right? And for sure a
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46 minutes, 37 seconds
kitchen runs like a perfectly constructed orchestra when it’s optimal. Yeah. If you’re the
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46 minutes, 44 seconds
chef and you’re standing there and you know you’re picking up certain dishes, you understand where the pans are going to come from, where they’re going to go, what’s going to go in them, how high the
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46 minutes, 52 seconds
fire should be, how far how how low that fire should be, why are they okay, now they’re whisking. You like you you see it all.
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47 minutes
Yeah. Same exact way. You know, it’s like he or she knows right this is how the instruments are going to roll out.
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47 minutes, 6 seconds
Absolutely. And you know the strengths, the weaknesses if there isn’t all of those different things and and that the that that that correlation I believe is
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47 minutes, 15 seconds
magical. Yeah. Because most people will never get it right. Well, it’s control and chaos. Yes. Right. And that’s the thing. I mean both both in in both of
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47 minutes, 24 seconds
that sets of environment you have this control and you have this chaos in which you’re just like you’re after it. Yeah.
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47 minutes, 30 seconds
Yeah. Yeah. It’s pretty incredible. It is it is very incredible. What’s what would you say to date first off all of
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47 minutes, 38 seconds
these things we’re talking about that are happening soon. Uh congratulations and happy early birthday. Thank you. You being a tourist like my wife. I have a
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few in my life. Um sorry Bulls man. This is a fact. This is a fact. I however I
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am a Scorpio and uh I am I am uh you can handle I yeah I’m built to last. So
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47 minutes, 58 seconds
let’s talk talk about you know what your proudest moment to date is as
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48 minutes, 6 seconds
far as coming into and your impact on the community here because I I I think you made a conscious effort to come back.
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48 minutes, 16 seconds
You could have gone anywhere let’s be honest you and it would play right. you made a concerted effort to not only to
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48 minutes, 24 seconds
come here and to make good on I’m probably see the the promises you made to yourself and do it in a way that is
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48 minutes, 31 seconds
is very much celebrating all that is the Twin Cities
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48 minutes, 38 seconds
but in a way that is very approachable yet all inspiring. I don’t know if that
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makes sense to to most to date. What is your proudest moment of that? Man, that’s uh that’s a
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big question because that means I have to pat myself on the back a little bit.
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You have to, you know, I mean, I would say certainly having Spoon hit its 10 year anniversary that’s major is an incredibly proud moment for myself
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personally, professionally, seeing the people who have come through our restaurant, seeing the restaurants that we’ve built from that one restaurant.
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49 minutes, 13 seconds
Um, you know, somebody said to me early on when I opened Spoon, I don’t remember who was interviewing me, but a a
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49 minutes, 21 seconds
reporter was interviewing me and they said, “Did you expect,” this is like maybe eight months after he opened Spoon. They said, “Did you ever expect Spoon and Sable to be this successful
49:29
49 minutes, 29 seconds
out of the gates?” And I said, “Yep.” And she was like, “Excuse me?” And I said, “Listen, LeBron James doesn’t take the
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49 minutes, 36 seconds
ball with two seconds left to shoot the three-pointer to win the game and not think it’s going to go in. Not one part of him. I’m not saying I’m LeBron James,
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but what I am saying is like that was always my mentality. My focus was always that I wanted it to be the best. I mean, I remember telling my team early on, I
49:53
49 minutes, 53 seconds
want this restaurant to be that when you travel outside of Minnesota and you say, where are you from? And somebody says, I live in Minnesota. Say, oh my god, you heard of this restaurant, Spoon and
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50 minutes, 1 second
Stable? That’s what I want to have happen. That’s not for me, right? I want that because I want people to start to talk about our city more as a culinary
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50 minutes, 10 seconds
town, right? And and I genuinely believe we are not in competition with each other. Everything that’s happening in Northeast is not a competition to North
50:17
50 minutes, 17 seconds
Loop. It’s a it it is a perfect relationship and and if it allows more people and more tourists and more people
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50 minutes, 26 seconds
from the suburbs to come down here to see what it is we are all doing, the better. Yeah. You know, so when Spoon
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hit its 10 year mark, I was like that’s major. That’s good. especially for for a restaurant. You know, that’s it’s it’s
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50 minutes, 40 seconds
not very it’s a major thing. You touched on a little bit, but I would love to hear your in your input on this.
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50 minutes, 49 seconds
Minneapolis, in my opinion, as as a person who’s traveled the world, is a
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bonafide food city, yet not on the radar. And for whatever
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51 minutes, 4 seconds
reason, if you talking to people outside of here, it’s hard to pinpoint what Minneapolis is known, what the Twin
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51 minutes, 10 seconds
Cities is known for. Why do I have my own opinions, but why do you think that is the case? Why why is because I
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51 minutes, 19 seconds
believe and as this is a fact, you can get pretty much the best of any cuisine I’ve had it here in unsuspecting places.
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51 minutes, 28 seconds
And why do you think that that knowledge doesn’t escape? So I I I think I think
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51 minutes, 35 seconds
it’s on the radar, but it’s definitely not near the center. And I believe a lot of it has to do with the fact that there
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needs to be more than one or two or three people advocating for it is with for it what it is we are doing.
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51 minutes, 49 seconds
Um it it takes a lot of time, it takes a lot of energy and it takes a lot of courage to go out there and promote yourself, your town, your colleagues.
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52 minutes, 1 second
And and when you do that, you know, you have to you have to be understanding that you’re doing it it for a reason that’s not just for you. It’s for a bigger part of it.
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52 minutes, 12 seconds
The truth is, what is the purpose of coming to Minneapolis and St. Paul, beyond arts and music and food and certain, you
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52 minutes, 21 seconds
know, out outdoor activities, there’s all of these things. Are those the same people that are the diners that are going, you know, you go to Napa Valley, you’re going there for a specific reason, right?
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52 minutes, 32 seconds
You’re going to New York City, you might be going for theater, but hey, I need to get pretheater dinner. There’s a bunch of great restaurants. You go, how else can we generate that energy here? Right.
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52 minutes, 41 seconds
I’ve always felt that we should push to get Michelin in the Twin Cities. This is not for me, right? This is not for my
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ego. I don’t I don’t need it, right? Uh I’ve been grateful to have run and established a one-star Michelin restaurant in New York City. This is for
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52 minutes, 59 seconds
a a purpose that there’s Bib Gourmand, right? Think about this. You remember the Zaget Guide. There is no Zaget Guide. Yeah. It’s gone. Okay. As a
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53 minutes, 7 seconds
result, you know, I’m gonna ask where do you eat in Houston? I don’t know. I gotta Google it, right? Where do I go in Austin? I can name one or two
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53 minutes, 15 seconds
restaurants. Now, you and I can name a lot more, but I’m talking if you’re just talking to somebody off the street. It’s different. Before you say, I just look at the Zaget guy and I can get my spot.
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53 minutes, 23 seconds
That’s why I think Michelin should come here because we want to push to get the Bib Gourmand. Of course, there’s going to be a one star. Hopefully, there is a two star. Hopefully, someday we push for
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53 minutes, 32 seconds
three star. You know, this idea that Michelin changes the way a
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53 minutes, 39 seconds
restaurant cooks or serves or charges people is simply untrue. Right. Right. Because we all have to have a profit.
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53 minutes, 47 seconds
And if we change our model because of this one thing and we see no profit, we’re going to change it back. Right.
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53 minutes, 53 seconds
Right. Demi is a relay and chateau property. It’s the only relay chateau property in our state. It’s the only here in Canoe Bay and Wisconsin are the
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54 minutes, 1 second
only two in the five-state region. We’re the only independent restaurant here. We were the only independent restaurant in the world besides one other one to get
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54 minutes, 9 seconds
inducted the year we got inducted in the world. Wow. Okay. Didn’t we didn’t change the price at Demi. We didn’t go up. We actually went down. I said, “Hey,
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54 minutes, 17 seconds
let’s get more people in.” Right. Maybe it’s too expensive. Just take $5 off.
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54 minutes, 21 seconds
Take $10 off. Let’s shift this. Change it. It’s the the purpose of what what I think the Twin Cities needs to focus on
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54 minutes, 30 seconds
um in terms of food and beverage and and and yelling from the mountain tops that it is an incredible food city is just to
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54 minutes, 37 seconds
keep promoting it, right? Keep going out there and doing things like what you’re doing, getting this news out there to people that it is a great food town. At
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54 minutes, 45 seconds
some point, we need to top stop telling the story and somebody needs to tell it for us. Yeah. So that’s so that’s the key. So that’s that’s my So I I believe
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54 minutes, 52 seconds
that creatives are they’re just horrible self-promoters. Like nobody nobody that’s in the in in the weeds doing the work has time to say, “Hey, look at me.”
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55 minutes, 1 second
Yeah. You know, it’s it’s uh and these these stories have to be told in a manner in which that are approachable.
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55 minutes, 9 seconds
Yeah. So I I believe that was the that was the down side for for photography when it came
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55 minutes, 16 seconds
like when I I remember when we had our industry night and we had they we flew in all the seafood and shellfish from
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55 minutes, 23 seconds
from from back east and we threw about 95% of it in the garbage. Oh my god. Cuz the research wasn’t done that this at that point in time this was a buffet
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55 minutes, 32 seconds
meat and potato town, right? And it wasn’t ready for it. And uh but we had that okay we’re bringing New York to
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55 minutes, 40 seconds
Minneapolis mentality which was the wrong mindset. Uh like we’re you know so I think that the knowledge of knowing
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55 minutes, 48 seconds
that that’s not how that’s not the approach that needs to be taken. It’s more so about exposure.
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55 minutes, 55 seconds
And look we we we can hold our own with just about anything any place you can go. And and it’s a cool place to be.
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56 minutes, 3 seconds
That’s the other thing. Exactly. And and then like most things, Prince included, Prince had to go to LA to become Prince.
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56 minutes, 12 seconds
Y and then Okay, now that’s one of our own. Yeah. So that the the the cosign was that okay, he went to somewhere no
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56 minutes, 20 seconds
different than you. Yeah. and and then uh you know kind of cut your teeth in New York. But okay, now I’m I’m back to
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56 minutes, 27 seconds
to uplift what we do here in a manner that is very complimentary to the region. Yeah. Now and you know now we’re starting to get these pockets. Yeah.
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56 minutes, 38 seconds
Right. Northeast. Yeah. This is you know you just look at all these little like neighborhood pockets that are starting to open up restaurants
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56 minutes, 46 seconds
multiple. Right. you know, because to us, the restaurant across the street isn’t the competition, it’s gravity. You know, we’re pulling and pushing from
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56 minutes, 54 seconds
each other. We’re both getting that business and and it helps the neighborhood tremendously, right? Um and those types I mean, you see suburban
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57 minutes, 2 seconds
pockets, right, which is great for people that live out there, but city I mean it’s similar to like New York, like if you live in if you live in the Lower East Side, you’re never going to go eat
57:11
57 minutes, 11 seconds
on the upper east side. No, I mean Bronx, forget about we’re staying right there. There’s no way, you know. So, if you live on the upper east, you’re not going down to the lower east side unless
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57 minutes, 19 seconds
there’s a gala. Yeah. Right. And then, okay, fine. I’ll eat somewhere. But it’s no different here. You know, it’s like there’s all these little pockets. You’re you’re starting to see these
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57 minutes, 27 seconds
neighborhoods get developed. We’re still in this phase where, you know, we know who we are. We know what we’re able to
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57 minutes, 34 seconds
create. Everybody’s kind of catching up to it a little bit now, which is awesome to see. Um, it’s just a matter where, you know, you just got to keep going
57:42
57 minutes, 42 seconds
after it. The peak will come. And listen, when it peaks, then it falls away for a little bit because they got to go somewhere else and pay attention to something else. That doesn’t mean
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57 minutes, 50 seconds
slow down. Absolutely. Absolutely. Okay, before I let you go, Yeah. we have to do a little thing I call the lightning round, which is a word
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57 minutes, 59 seconds
association, fastpaced. I’m going to give you a word and or phrase, okay? And you just spit out the first thing that
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58 minutes, 6 seconds
comes to mind. So, okay. No pressure. No pressure. All right.
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58 minutes, 12 seconds
First concert you ever went to? Uh, Billy Joel. Billy Joel. So, okay.
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58 minutes, 21 seconds
Billy Joel was the first concert at Shay Stadium to open it up in the Re. Wow. So, he did.
58:32
58 minutes, 32 seconds
So, and I went I So, I went to the last one. Yeah. But yeah, he so he opened up Shay and then before they tore it down, he was the last. Yeah. Billy Joe was one of them. Yeah. He was amazing. Hey, I
58:41
58 minutes, 41 seconds
love Billy Jo. Yeah, my mom was a huge fan and so my mom and I went. She’s like, “You want?” Yeah, sure. Let’s I love Billy. He’s so quintessentially New York, too. That’s my guy. All right.
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58 minutes, 50 seconds
Secret guilty pleasure snack. Cheetos. Cheetos. Which one? Puffy or crunchy?
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58 minutes, 55 seconds
No. Um I’ll do both, but I prefer crunchy. Okay. Okay. But I can’t eat them anymore. Like tear the top of your roof. Yeah, but I can’t I can’t You know, you eat You start eating one and
59:04
59 minutes, 4 seconds
they’re so good, man. And you just Have you had the jalapeno ones? I have. Oh, I know. It’s got a little bit of cracking.
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59 minutes, 11 seconds
All right. Okay. Uh, last great meal you didn’t cook. This should be an easy one because you just told me you just came
59:19
59 minutes, 19 seconds
from Yeah. I mean, I just I just came I just came from New York. I mean, I was I was just there. Um, so I had a great meal at Lat, which was Danielle’s new
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59 minutes, 27 seconds
steakhouse. It was delicious. It was really delicious. What’d you have? Well, we had a lot. Um, we had prime rib. He
59:35
59 minutes, 35 seconds
sent out a kotof. We had a couple salad, couple crudeos. Uh the sundae though, the vanilla chocolate swirl sundae.
59:44
59 minutes, 44 seconds
Listen, he had like the seven months, sprinkles, brownies, marshmallows, but like everything’s made by hand. It was
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59 minutes, 51 seconds
so good. He made sprinkles, dude. Yeah, it was so good. I’m jealous. Dream collab with an artist or musician that
1:00:00
1 hour
you would love to cook with, not for, with? Um, I would like to cook with John Legend. Okay. Because, you know, he
1:00:10
1 hour, 10 seconds
um, anybody that can play the piano like that and sing like that, I just think it’s pretty wild. Yeah, that’d be fun. I
1:00:17
1 hour, 17 seconds
got a got a cool John Legend story. So, when I was in the Bay Area, uh, I was the executive chef of uh, Willie Maybox
1:00:25
1 hour, 25 seconds
Lounge, and he did a whole radio thing when he was putting out his first album.
1:00:29
1 hour, 29 seconds
And he came in and, uh, the kitchen wasn’t even open. They were doing this whole radio thing on stage because the place used to be a old jazz club called
1:00:37
1 hour, 37 seconds
Kimble’s East and uh I was like, “Hey, I got to meet him like like like you you know, are you hungry?” Like, “Yeah, yeah.” He like I said, “What would you
1:00:45
1 hour, 45 seconds
like?” He’s like, “I really just want some eggs.” Now, we know that every single person walking on this planet is a bonafide egg
1:00:54
1 hour, 54 seconds
expert. Of course, how they like it, of course. Right. So, it’s I It’s one of the hardest things to cook for somebody because everybody has a way that they
1:01:01
1 hour, 1 minute, 1 second
like it. So like, “Okay, dude. How do how do you like your eggs? You want them scrambled, but you want them soft scrambled.” Like, “Okay.” Which makes
1:01:08
1 hour, 1 minute, 8 seconds
sense cuz like five years later, him and his wife did a they were doing the cooking show and he did this whole thing
1:01:16
1 hour, 1 minute, 16 seconds
about slowcooked custardy eggs with tons of butter. And you like I taught him that. Yeah. I was like, I made him eggs
1:01:25
1 hour, 1 minute, 25 seconds
just like that. Yeah. Again, that’s awesome. Yeah. A little bit of Florida cell.
1:01:29
1 hour, 1 minute, 29 seconds
Um, one kitchen rule that should never be broken. Messy station, messy mind. Hell yeah. Yeah. Yep. Keep it clean.
1:01:37
1 hour, 1 minute, 37 seconds
Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, dude, Gavin, it’s been this has been amazing.
1:01:43
1 hour, 1 minute, 43 seconds
Um, thank you for coming. Thank you for being uh the the ambassador to the industry and to the cities that you are.
1:01:53
1 hour, 1 minute, 53 seconds
Um, it’s amazing to to to be able to talk to, you know, a person of your
1:02:01
1 hour, 2 minutes, 1 second
caliber and the industry. And, you know, it’s a lot how I I like to say how no
1:02:09
1 hour, 2 minutes, 9 seconds
reservations. Well, the reason why that worked to me is that Tony spoke to cooks about the back of the house stuff in a
1:02:16
1 hour, 2 minutes, 16 seconds
manner that we all related to. And then you basically you got to you got to view into the kitchen. Yeah. From a cook’s perspective. Y and you do that in a
1:02:25
1 hour, 2 minutes, 25 seconds
seamless way. Thank you. And it’s it’s an amazing thing to watch. I appreciate it. Thanks for having me on. No, for sure. For sure. Again, tell all of the
1:02:34
1 hour, 2 minutes, 34 seconds
viewers and people that are watching, how can they follow what you have going on? And it’s a lot. Yeah. I mean,
1:02:42
1 hour, 2 minutes, 42 seconds
easiest way is Gavin Kasein is is is Instagram. So, we we throw a bunch of stuff up there. Um there’s
1:02:50
1 hour, 2 minutes, 50 seconds
gavancase.com uh which then leads to our website stayswuanier.com which has everything on the restaurants.
1:02:55
1 hour, 2 minutes, 55 seconds
Everything’s on Swany. So if you have not, this is what I’m saying. If you have not, you need to go to if you’re in
1:03:02
1 hour, 3 minutes, 2 seconds
town local or not, Spoon and Stable, start there. There’s probably we got to figure what is the what is what’s the natural progression? How should they do
1:03:10
1 hour, 3 minutes, 10 seconds
this? It’s sort of like watching uh Star Wars movies. How how should they how should they I I think you come to Spoon first, right? Like that that’s the OG.
1:03:17
1 hour, 3 minutes, 17 seconds
you come there, you know, and then when you’re ready, you know, come to Spoon.
1:03:21
1 hour, 3 minutes, 21 seconds
Um then then do Demi. Listen, Mara for dinner is amazing. Mara for for brunch
1:03:28
1 hour, 3 minutes, 28 seconds
is also amazing. Um you know, come see us over there and just start the progression slowly. Absolutely. Yeah.
1:03:35
1 hour, 3 minutes, 35 seconds
How how really quick, how many how many spoons have you stolen from restaurants?
1:03:39
1 hour, 3 minutes, 39 seconds
Like, and would you say I’m north of a thousand?
1:03:44
1 hour, 3 minutes, 44 seconds
I’m a I’m a question is how many spoons have people stolen from me? And that’s north of 5,000. Yeah. Yeah. I’m a Yeah, you have the number on that. I’m a I’m a
1:03:52
1 hour, 3 minutes, 52 seconds
sauce cup guy. I I don’t know what it is. It’s something like I got to take that. It’s shiny. I know.
1:03:58
1 hour, 3 minutes, 58 seconds
Okay. Thank you again. This has been the Taste Music Here Food Podcast Show. I am Ed Porter. Till next time, take care.