Where is Felipe?
Phil? Phil? Phil?
Ben?
What the fuck are you doing?
What?
Hi everyone, welcome to Potluck Food Talks.
I'm here with Phil aka Burned Toast Walther
and I'm Eric. Today we're going to talk about the bear season 3.
Am I late to the party again? I think this time I'm not late.
Nah, come on.
I still arrived at the party.
I mean, yeah.
You know what it is like? A party has been going on for 3 hours
and you arrive at hour number 3, you see how drunk everybody is
and you try to get as quickly on their level as possible.
And now you're hammered.
So, yeah. How did you enjoy the third season?
What happened in season 3? Like nothing happened, right?
What did happen, honestly? I mean, the restaurant ever closed, right?
So there was that whole thing, there was like some flashbacks of Karmie's cooking life.
I mean, it starts with the last episode, right?
From the season 2, which was an amazing episode by the way.
Like the one where he stags in the fridge and goes crazy and service goes to hell.
Oh yes, yeah. That was a great episode, yes.
Yeah, and he dumps his girlfriend because he's like a fucking maniac.
And then the first episode of season 3 is where he decides,
which that's funny because I think that's pretty realistic, right?
Like this chef that says, I want to get a star, no matter what.
Yes, absolutely.
And you know, like his business partner comes and says,
but you said that fuck stars and now you're obsessed with stars.
I've seen that a million times.
I've been there myself a million times. I feel like, fuck it.
Oh God, I really want it. I still don't have it. You know what, I don't need it.
Exactly, if you don't have it, you are like cool about it.
Like stars are not that important, blah, blah, blah.
But when you get one.
Exactly.
You're like, fuck.
But then one thing happens that I found so unrealistic.
I don't know how you feel about this because I think it's quite interesting
because we often have very opposites opinions about this.
So he breaks up with his girlfriend and he goes all manic and he's like,
okay, well, what feels like I'm just going to concentrate on this.
I'm just going to make this restaurant work.
I'm going to make it as good as possible. He gets obsessed, right?
You see these scenes where he focuses on these little details.
And I've been there, you know, I've been there where you step into a space
and you feel like you're so obsessed with everything that's going on
and you see these tiny details and you're kind of like, why does nobody see this?
Right? Like a smudge on a wall and you're like, what the fuck, you know?
Yeah. And re-fire and repeat and throwing dishes to the garbage all the time
because they're not perfect with this R&D.
Yeah.
And this idea of writing the whole menu fresh every day and all this kind of thing.
That's exactly what I was going to ask you.
I watched that, that he was like, yeah, new menu every day.
I'm like, that is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard.
No chef would ever do that.
I think French Laundry does that actually.
I mean, of course there are classics.
Well, or at least they used to because I, you know, I'm a big fan of Thomas Keller.
I've read his book many times and on his interviews and everything.
And I've read many times that they, at least they used to work like that.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I can kind of see it there when you do like small changes, you know,
but it makes zero sense.
Absolutely. Because like to make an outstanding dish, you need to perfection it.
Yeah.
You know, like find a sweet spot for everything.
You need to work on it.
And try it many times and try different versions until you have the right one.
And it's impossible to do that in one day.
It doesn't make any sense.
Yeah. You have to be a genius to make a dish.
And that is more than like meat mash and sauce, right?
Like if you have a dish with unusual components that is very fine and complex.
You know, once you're a decent chef, you know, you're probably going to make the first try.
And it's going to be like, it's not going to be bad.
Right. And I mean, we talked about that in the last episode.
We also talked about season two where I was like, you know,
that doesn't happen to halfway experienced chefs that they cook something and they try it.
And they're like, oh, this is disgusting.
Spit it out, throw it in the bin.
Yeah. That just doesn't happen.
But to really get it, to really nail it, it seems such a shame also to come up with something
and just like bin it straight away, you know.
And it's so like it's also not from a sustainability point of view, right?
In many aspects, but also for your staff, because a chef like Karmie
surely knows that this is not an ego show, right?
That your team needs to be on the same level as you every day
and that everybody needs to work together.
Because Karmie himself, he can't get his stuff.
That doesn't work like that.
No matter how good he is, his team needs to function, you know, and deliver every day.
And you are purposely putting a team into shit every single day.
Every single day.
Yeah. But I mean, that also happens a lot in restaurants.
I mean, I've seen this movie many times, like this chef that becomes obsessed
and then he starts having ideas that are kind of irrational.
And he drowns the whole team into his vortex of craziness.
And yeah, they all have to get along and there is no discussion, you know.
The only discussion is why are you not saying yes chef?
Sorry, sorry, sorry to interject, but you know what happened to me the other day.
You know what happened to me on Saturday.
I had a, I'm sorry, I just have to quickly throw this in because
I just love how you just said that.
That like, it's kind of like, why is there discussion?
The only thing that you know, you should say is yes chef.
I had a part-time waitress who helps out like once every two months, right?
And I gave her two desserts and I was like, can you please send this to this and this table?
And she was like, oh, but they're still getting something else.
I'm like, yeah, I know, but can you take this first?
And she was like, but this isn't everything that they ordered.
And I was like, look, please, can you just take this and then you get the rest afterwards?
You only have two hands.
And she looks at me and she's like, no.
And my apprentice who was working service with me, he like, he was doing, he was plating and he looked up and he was like, did she just say no?
And I was like, what do you mean?
No.
She's like, yeah, I'm not going to do it.
I was like, okay, thank you.
Bye.
See you later.
I've never seen something like that.
No, me neither.
It was like, it was comical.
Cause I was like, what do you mean?
No.
She's like, no, I'm not doing it.
I was like, okay, put the plates down.
See you later.
Anyway.
That's very funny.
Yeah.
And well, other things that happened and well, I love how in this season you start to really get to see the dynamics of a restaurant, you know, like back of house, front of house, how the dining room works, how the kitchen dynamic teams works.
Also the, the hierarchy dynamics of the chef, especially the conflicts between head chef and head waiter, you know, like car me and reaching out, getting their shit out all the time.
Honestly, man, if you, if you ever as a chef been in a situation like that, where you just have constant beef with the guy in charge of front of house, it's the worst.
It is the worst.
It is so stupid.
Nobody needs it.
And like, also I liked, I liked the aspects where like they ridiculed restaurant culture a little bit.
Like for example, it felt like that to me anyway, where like some of the dishes they're like, nobody would serve dishes like that.
Right.
It's like the, the mirepoix broth, you know, it's like, well, what the fuck is that?
Ah, yeah.
That's also very funny that you told me during season one that the dishes are like really shitty.
Yeah.
I mean, I talked about that on season two, but I really noticed when I saw season two, like, what is this?
What the fuck is this?
What's going on?
Like, yeah, this super, super advanced dish and it's like a fucking cube of gelatin, you know, it's hilarious.
Yeah, exactly.
It's like, yeah, you have the hazelnut oil, you have this and you have that and you're like, well, what is going on?
It looks like somebody is, okay, I'm not going to say it now.
It's just going to make BCC Joe.
So it looks like some very ill-advised, very young chef has made, but I kind of like how they weren't taking it so seriously.
Like, for example, when Matty Matheson, who is an absolute treasure, by the way, brings out the broth and he says to the, to the guy.
That's so funny.
So funny.
And he says to them, he's like, this is a broth from chef Carmi's mind and I'm going to pour it in front of you.
Thank you very much.
He brings it back.
And I was like, that's so good.
You know, like the saying from chef Carmi's mind.
These kind of things actually happen in real restaurants.
You know, like these kind of nonsensical situations where you, you're like, what did you just happen?
You know, what is going on?
Yeah.
Well, we talk about Thomas Keller and I really thought a lot about when we were in Copenhagen and, and Sander told us like this.
Evil chef that haunts Carmi, the one that is really like, you motherfucker.
You're nothing that talks to him like that while he's on the path.
Sander said that this chef is inspired on Thomas Keller, that he read that on some kind of reliable source.
What are your thoughts on that?
I don't believe it.
First of all, also because I think it's crazy that Thomas Keller is in the show and that this chef is meant to be Thomas Keller.
That's a double whammy.
Not like inspired or based on?
I don't, I don't believe so because like none of that screams Thomas Keller to me.
Like the fact that Thomas Keller surely has psychopathic tendencies, like as many driven chefs have.
Sure.
Like I don't want to, I don't want to challenge that.
I mean, like if, if you take away like the, the personal curses, you know, like the motherfucker, you piece of shit.
If you take that away and you leave like, you know, I can really picture him like, you know, this, because I've seen this, how to say this method many times where a chef is at the pass plating and the head chef is like whispering in his ear, adding pressure and pressure and pressure.
I've seen that many times and in many different restaurants.
And I guess that's some kind of old French tradition.
And that I can picture him.
And there is also another thing where he tells car me like, do the dish again and subtract and do it again.
And then he said, and you know what?
Remember this dish when we bring it out, I'm going to say it's mine.
That actually is something I read from life on the line from Grant Akats.
His biography where he worked at French laundry.
That's actually something Thomas Keller told him from one of his dishes, like a, a melon something dish that Grant Akats developed while in French laundry.
And I mean, like, like it inspiring a character on a real person doesn't mean that that is the real person.
It means you take features from that person and then you do your own thing.
You know?
Yeah.
I get almost that and I don't disagree with any of it.
I still feel like because of the way that this character is portrayed and that the kitchen is portrayed and stuff, I could see it being more close to other chefs.
You know, like I could see it being Daniel Humm, for example, it being New York and this clean kitchen and stuff like that.
You know, I could see that more, you know, I can see it be more Jean Georges or something like that.
Yeah.
But you know, who knows?
I mean, we all have seen, you know, and experienced firsthand chef's that in front of the camera, very lovely, but behind the camera, absolute psychopaths.
And that's fucked up, man.
That's so complicated because you see this chef that exactly they look like puppies when they're talking on the camera.
You're like, oh, so nice.
And then this fucking maniacs.
Yeah.
By the way, what are your thoughts on?
Because that's again, something I've seen more than once.
I won't say a million times, but a couple of times when Karmie confronts this chef in the last episode.
Oh, I thought it was a bit cringy.
Honestly, I was really looking forward to that scene because I saw a snippet of it and I thought that the idea was cool.
I thought that the acting was a little bit off, especially from the other guy, because he was like being really weird.
But I what I liked about it is that he just didn't give a fuck. You know, he was like, I don't give a fuck about you.
You know, I thought it was really like on brand.
He didn't even remember his name.
You know, okay.
Yeah, I think he did that on purpose, though.
Like it seemed like, you know, you know, you can't tell me that he doesn't remember the name of one of his head shafts.
You know, that's impossible.
But yeah, you know, I mean, this kind of thing where because Karmie is really obsessing over it and he's like traumatized and stuff.
I mean, I remember feeling like that, you know, I mean, this is not far from the truth.
What he explains to sort of like that, he's like, man, I have ulcers and, you know, like I have like panic attacks and stuff like that.
I mean, I still to this day, sometimes I get so stressed that I get like nervous ticks, you know, because it is it is very stressful.
Especially if you have somebody next to you. I mean, I don't have anybody next to me going like you fucking piece of shit do this.
You know, like I just give myself pressure and have like other things that are pressuring me, but I don't have somebody threatening me.
You know, but still, it's very hard. It's very tough.
And it's very difficult, I think, to imagine being in a situation like that if you haven't experienced it firsthand, because it's very, very surreal.
I mean, we've both been in situations like this.
I don't know how you feel about that, but if I remember, like if I remember times like that, it seems like a very far away reality.
Yeah, same, same, same. And it's something I for sure would not tolerate at this time in my life, you know, like not at all.
No, of course.
Have you seen like or have you yourself approached a chef to tell him to fuck off like afterwards or these kind of things?
Oh, like that? No, I mean, I have told him to fuck off, but not like that.
Nobody's ever. Nobody's traumatized me like that, that I wanted to seek them out.
You remember this chef we talk about here, the one with the stuffed pasta?
Oh, yes.
And one of the line episodes that that character.
Well, this guy, when he finished working at that restaurant, there was like, I don't know if it was his sous chef or something.
They were doing like this far well dinner for him.
His girlfriend was there, like all of the staff, everybody.
And suddenly in the middle of the dinner, the sous chef starts like, you know, like at the beginning, nobody was understanding what was going on.
And suddenly everybody turns and sees this guy was screaming at him from the other side of the table out of nowhere.
Like, you fucking fuck. You don't know how to cook. You don't know how to manage. You don't know shit. You cook like shit.
You're shit.
Wow.
And everybody was like quiet and OK, music louder shots of tequila and party goes on.
I mean, he's leaving already, you know, but I can.
But then again, I remember this guy like more than I should really.
I didn't spend a lot of time there.
He was like he had this way of just being a huge asshole.
Right.
He was his brother. Yeah, man. Like for free for no reason.
Yeah. For absolutely no reason.
Yeah. Hey, but that is a sign of inexperience.
Don't also. Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah. All right.
Anyway, so I thought it was kind of cool.
You know what I thought was kind of cool is because we see Chef Terry, the head chef of ever, which I mean, kind of reminds me of 11 Madison Park.
Right. For me anyway.
Well, you remember we were arguing if it was 11 Madison Park or Alinea or Perse or I don't know.
Yeah. Well, this restaurant ever really exists.
I just said the chef is Curtis Duffy.
It's a three star restaurant in Chicago. No. Yeah.
What? Curtis Duffy.
He appears in the last episode. Yeah.
There is a documentary about him on Netflix.
This guy had like a fucked up life like his dad killed himself in front of him.
Oh my God. I know this guy. Yeah.
Yeah. That's his restaurant.
Yeah. Oh, wow.
Well, he also had like he had like a crazy story with his previous restaurant.
He had a three star restaurant and yes.
And the owners fucked him.
They didn't allow him to cook for the next five years in Chicago for disclosure reason.
It was like a real crazy situation. Horrible.
I think Grace was his previous restaurant. Grace.
Exactly. There was a documentary about about him opening it.
I remember watching it. Yeah, exactly.
And also him trying to to visit Charlie Trotter's where he worked and he got kicked out.
Yes. He didn't get let in. Yeah. Yes. Exactly.
And he just wants to go like have dinner and Charlie Trotter is like, what the fuck are you doing here?
And he was like, really, really, chef. You got to be like this.
And Charlie Trotter was like, I'm absolutely good.
I'm from right here right now. Motherfucker.
I mean, that that's also like a crazy character.
Charlie Trotters. I mean, that guy like he was like self-taught.
He never worked like in any great restaurant.
And in the 90s, at least for a while, he had the best restaurant in the world.
No discussion about it. Like Charlie Trotter was highly influential.
You saw that Granacats is doing a next dinner on Charlie Trotters.
Oh, I did not. That has to be incredibly interesting.
I did not. But that's that's really cool. Yeah.
That's really, really cool.
Because he he himself also had like really strong experiences working on Charlie Trotters.
He tells that in his book on the line.
Crazy stories. You know, he would make things like if you would walk into his office, you had to to take your shoes off.
You know, this kind of mindfuck things just to establish a hierarchy, you know, like just to.
And that that's the way he would run his whole business.
But I mean, like not a fan of that. No, no, no, not at all.
Like I mean, the guy was a monster and everybody agrees on that.
But at the same time, I think his cooking was amazing.
Like his cookbooks are super cool.
And also his books on on service and this kind of things.
I remember having really enjoying reading them later.
I found out that exactly that this guy was like a big asshole, you know.
Yeah, I've actually never read any of his cookbooks or books.
I've heard that his like his books, I think you told me also the other day when we were in Copenhagen that they're really worth reading.
It's like excellence in hospitality or something like that. No.
Yeah. Lessons in X.
He had three books, Lessons in Excellence, Lessons in Service and Lessons in Wine Service.
Oh, yeah. I the last one I didn't read, but the other two are really good.
Yeah. Yeah. I heard it's really worthwhile reading.
I've never actually looked at any of his cookbooks.
I mean, nowadays, I mean, it's still nice cooking, but this was the nineties.
Of course. Of course.
Complete different world, complete different context.
Yeah, absolutely.
He was already doing like vegetable tasting menus back then, you know, like really ahead of his time.
Yeah, you know, like, I mean, that's a thing.
It's like worth looking at these sorts of things with like a different sort of lens.
There's this really great Instagram page is called Don't Read Before Eating, like the Anthony Bourdain article.
And they post a lot of cool old videos like cooking videos of like different stuff.
And there was the other day a video of Paul Lebron cooking and this guy Paul Lebron.
I was always like, oh, my God, he's so cringy, you know, like we talks like his whole character with like the messy hands, like the Jackson Pollock analogies all the time.
And like, he just, you know, he just like masturbates looking at himself in the mirror vicious viciously.
But yeah, he just fucking loves himself, you know, but I saw him cooking something.
And even though it was like very like, it's obviously very out of date, but you could see sort of like details.
We were like, ah, I see.
This guy can also really cook, you know, but we're getting really off track here.
Yeah, really.
Like, but you know why?
Because season three sucks.
Nothing fucking happens in the whole season.
You know, like it's kind of this always is stuffing season that you see in series like, ah, the show is going really well.
We're having like a good audience.
So let's make a boring season just to stretch it out.
You know, like let's make a whole episode about birth.
Let's make a whole episode about nothing interesting.
You know, like, and I say, Jesus, you know, oh, my God, did you just say let's make a whole episode about birth?
That is one of the things I hate the most in film and like in movie and series making ever.
Man, just get rid of birth scenes.
Birth scenes are way too long.
No, honestly, look, the giving birth is one of the most beautiful and amazing processes of humankind, of human nature.
You know, if you feel lucky enough to have been present during a birth, it is honestly one of the craziest, most emotional things I've ever experienced.
And I've been awestruck ever since.
Right.
But what I don't need is sitting in front of a screen.
And what is a birth scene?
It's basically just a woman screaming in your ears for a way too long time, way too long of a time.
You know, it's like, I get it.
I get it. She's suffering.
There's a human coming out of her.
Cut it in half.
Cut the time in half.
We don't need to see this.
This is not a good time.
Cut her in half.
Cut the scene in half.
Just cut the scene in half, man.
It's enough.
Yeah, what was he going to say?
Sorry, I got so angry about birth scenes that I...
Yeah, also something that I've seen a million times is this.
Well, the accountant starts to dig into the restaurant and ask questions and try to shorten here.
Do that there, you know, like, why are you using micro greens?
What the fuck is Orwellian butter?
A pastry chef, can we get rid of him?
You know, like this kind of mindset.
Oh my God.
That made me so angry, honestly.
Or is it, we pay him so much, blah, blah, blah.
Like the, okay, the Orwellian butter, that's like really stupid, you know.
That was kind of like, that is kind of also sort of like, if that's the way that it's run, it's like, yeah, sorry.
Like, what was it like $11,000 for butter from Vermont, you know?
And I was like, man, that's, I mean, that's ridiculous, honestly.
That's dystopian.
Yeah, it's dystopian.
And like nobody would do that, especially if they're in that situation, like you would keep it tight, you know what I'm saying?
But yeah, like also with the spoons, there's always like spoons missing.
It's like, get all the spoons, get all the spoons that you can find.
I thought that was really funny.
It's relatable for people who open restaurants before.
This is like, you see, you think you buy like, you buy 50 spoons for the kitchen, you think it's going to be enough.
It's like, ah, think again.
I have to, I can't finish this episode without having to ask you about your opinion on Sydney.
I don't know.
Like I would say the same as last season where I say, like, I think she plays like an important role on telling Carmie the stuff that no one else tells him.
And I think that's important.
I don't judge her for thinking about an opportunity to get to a different restaurant.
The ending of the series also, it's everything is open ended, you know, like you don't know if the review was good or bad.
You don't know if Sydney is going to take that job or not.
I hated that by the way.
What exactly?
That you don't know what the review was.
I was like, fuck you guys.
Yeah.
I mean, I expected, you know, because there are two options.
The review was good or bad.
If it was bad, then everything like the series will be about a struggle to, you know, to survive with low budget and everything.
If the review is good, it will be the story of a celebrity chef who travels all over the world and has like different types of problems, you know.
And I don't know why I expected to be option two, because otherwise it would show directly that the review was bad.
And otherwise it would show directly that Sydney took the job.
But that's my opinion.
Yeah.
What?
Yeah.
Yeah, for sure.
I mean, for me, it's like really bothered me that she was kind of like so torn because like, yeah, sure.
There's difficulties and stuff like that.
But also I don't think that she really deserves anything that she's getting given.
Like she had like two jobs before becoming a head chef and potential co-owner of a new restaurant opening.
You know, it's kind of and she's like, you know, just walking around like she deserves the world and I don't get it.
You know, it's kind of like, well, you know, car me the Hermes restaurant is car me money.
It's car me reputation and that and like, I don't know, it's a difficult question.
But one thing that also really bothered me is the uncle Jimmy.
Is it Jimmy?
You know, the uncle Cicero.
Oh, yeah, Cicero.
Because on one side, he's like, hey, I'm going to do this with you, but it needs to work out, which is fair enough.
Right.
But then suddenly he turns around and he gives them these weird ultimatums.
You know, and it happened in season two already.
He's like, hey, you have to get it started from the get go.
Otherwise, I'm going to I'm going to fucking, you know, sell the whole place.
And it's like, all right, well, yes and no.
Like, I get it, but at the same time, you've then invested a lot more money, like a quarter of a million over a quarter of a million dollars into this place.
Then, like, why would you do that and not give it time to progress?
Right.
Because nobody expects a restaurant to work straight away.
You give it like at least a year or two until it starts making money.
Nobody does restaurants like that.
That's just ridiculous.
And then with that review, you know, he tells them if this review is bad, we're going to close the restaurant.
And it's like, what the fuck are you talking about?
It's like, what's what kind of a way is that to do anything?
You know, it's like so eclectic.
You know, imagine being a restaurateur with that, you know, and you're like your investor comes to you and he's like, if this single review is bad, if this one person didn't like the food, I'm going to fuck your whole life over.
It's like, Jesus Christ, how are you meant to live like that?
Yeah, yeah.
No, I also wanted to mention about the appearances of famous chefs, because there are three notable ones.
And for me, it was quite crazy because I have somehow indirect things to do with this.
All of these three chefs like Daniel Boulou, Rainer Rezepi and Thomas Keller.
Like my first head chef of the first restaurant where I worked in my life was the CDC Daniels. So like the dish that he's teaching car me.
I cooked that dish hundreds of times.
This crisp poppiette of sea bass in Barolo sauce with the leeks.
And I was seeing it and it was like, I can't believe the way I actually talk about this dish in our episode of iconic dishes.
And it was like, you know, like really moving for me to see that they're like, what the fuck is this?
And also when the cameos of Noma appeared, I was on a plane going to Copenhagen to eat at Noma.
And I work in this restaurant in Bolivia that was opened by the same investor of Noma, Klaus Meyer.
And I was like, what the fuck?
And then Thomas Keller, you know, you have these appearances of Thomas Keller and special appearances of the book.
And I love that book so much that I got a tattoo of that book.
So like these are like the three main chefs that appear and I have some sort of connection with those three restaurants, which I think is pretty cool.
Yeah, yeah, totally. It is very cool though.
Like it is kind of cool to be part of this like weird international restaurant circle, right?
I mean, like at some point, like, you know, you work yourself up and you're part of this like, you know, professional circle of people that we're just everybody knows each other in a way, you know, and there's like legacies and things get passed on.
And it's kind of very special about our job, I think, you know, it's like, like when we went to Noma, you know, that I went to Noma because of my good friend, Kevin, who I worked with in Mugaritz.
It's like, it's like a kind of extended professional family.
And I've always that's always one thing that I really, really appreciate it about working in this job.
And I think that's kind of the vibe you feel in the last episode where you see all these chefs.
Wiley Dufresne, Granakets, Will Guidara, Rossi Sanchez, Cristina Tosi, all they're sitting around and eating and talking and telling their old battle stories that really, really depicts what you were just saying right now.
Right.
Because that's kind of our whole podcast, right?
It's just that.
Exactly.
Just over and over again.
That's it for this week's episode of Potluck Food Talks.