Herzlich willkommen bei Pot Luck Food Talks, der ultimativen Sendung über die Welt hinter den Kulissen
der Gastronomie. Heute bin ich hier mit meinem treuen Begleiter Phil Schnübelmeister Walte.
Wow, I'm amazed. I'm very, very impressed. I knew German was good. I haven't heard you speak
German for such a long time.
Yeah, me neither.
Incredible.
It's been a while.
I kind of think that we should make this the default intro now.
Yeah, really?
That's how good it was.
Okay, okay. Thank you.
Thank you.
How are you doing?
Good man. Good, good, good.
It's been a hectic week.
Like most of them, you know, work, tours.
But nice, fun.
So listen, I wanted to talk to you about something we talked when we were at Poppel, the Nohmas
Burger Place in Copenhagen.
When we were having this conversation about, first of all, we started talking about Ray
Gunn Rachel, this viral Be-Girl in the Olympics from Australia that opened like a huge debate
about, first of all, if Breakdance should be in the Olympics and about her performance
and this kind of thing.
So you shared some thoughts about that.
What did you exactly say back then?
I mean, I think it was a bit, I don't really remember what I said in that instance.
You know, the thing with me is that I sometimes say very impulsive things, right?
I get like a very strong opinion and I kind of defend it to the death.
And then when somebody asked me about it later, I'm kind of like, oh, I said that, well, I don't
see it that strongly anymore.
But like, I think it was the first time that Breakdance was in the Olympics, right?
Yeah, and apparently the last time as well.
Like, man, do it again.
It seems like it.
I mean, that's pretty crazy.
And I mean, since that happened, there have been so many details about this whole incident
coming up, you know, it's kind of like people sort of like, well, did she scam it?
Did she scam it the way into it?
But then came out that she was a Breakdancer and her boyfriend's like a Breakdance Instructor.
And when you see him Breakdance, it's like very similar style to her.
So it's kind of like, was it on purpose?
What I mean, come on, you know, it's like, I don't know, you know, I feel like it's such
a shame that there's like, because Breakdancing can be such an intense sport, that I feel like
it's such a shame that it got so misrepresented with now the repercussion.
So it's not going to be included in the Olympics, which I don't think is that big of a problem.
Because for me, I don't know, like, I'm sorry, maybe it's just not my scene, but I don't
think Breakdancing should be in the Olympics.
Like I'm all for Breakdancing competitions.
But like, the Olympics are the Olympics, you know, it's like something steeped in tradition.
And I don't know, I don't really see Breakdancing there.
How do you feel?
And now I agree with you.
And in my opinion, you know, I've been following hip hop culture for the last 20, 25 years
since I was like a little kid.
And especially rap battles, not so much Breakdance battles.
But I think that they're kind of like in the same family of competitions.
And for me, there is always a place for this outcast, for these outsiders that have like
a completely different style and do things that are against the rules and things the way
they shouldn't be done.
And I understand like in a hip hop context that makes sense.
But maybe not in an Olympic context.
You know, like, I think, I mean, this woman is like a respected big girl in the urban
dance community because her style and the way she does things.
But I understand you can't bring that to an Olympic context, is that there are different
rules and like a different frame.
And that's my opinion about it.
But then when we were talking about this, then you also mentioned that for you, martial
arts shouldn't be in the Olympics.
Why was your opinion on that?
Well, that's like a whole topic, right?
I mean, it's not like I don't think that martial arts shouldn't be in the Olympics.
I very much enjoy watching martial art contests, but it is also a very old discussion whether
putting a martial art into a contest environment is changing and morphing the martial art itself
in its practice, because it is something different.
For example, if you take judo, right, which is, I mean, one of the grappling and judo and
stuff like that, is like one of the oldest grappling for sure.
Roman Greco grappling, yeah, is one of the original categories in the Olympics, right?
And like Gigo Rokano, the founder of judo, wrote like a sort of manifest when he made
judo what it is, because judo just kind of like jiu-jitsu, it got derived from a more
sort of like larger martial art, that was, you know, the Japanese general martial art.
And he made the judo out of it by stripping weight unnecessary, just focusing on the throwing
and the neu-waza and stuff like that.
And he said that it should, in this manifest, he said that it should never be used in a contest
environment, because then you start, instead of starting to think about self-defense and
efficiency in that, in the martial art, you start thinking about how to score points,
how to hold points, how to stay ahead with points, rather than your opponent.
And the idea of a martial art, then gets lost, right?
And that is the whole idea, that's why it's like a controversial topic, whether you should
practice a martial art in a competitive environment or not.
On the other side, right, if you look at what in jiu-jitsu, if you look at jiu-jitsu practitioners,
people who compete in jiu-jitsu, they usually a lot better than people who don't compete,
just in general, because it's a completely different environment being in a competition
state and going against people than to be in practice.
In jiu-jitsu practice, you can spar against people full on, right?
It's not like you're just kind of making movements and stuff, you go full steam ahead.
But it's still different being in a dojo than being in a competition hall with fucking
20 different people ready to kill you, right?
Und then basically push yourself in a completely different way, it's very, very intense.
Anybody who's experienced it, it's a really, I feel like it's a really reality altering
experience, because you as a modern person are never in that environment, really.
Of course, yeah, yeah.
And the reason I'm asking this question, so we're not starting here like a sports podcast.
I'm digging it, though.
So how would you extrapolate this into the culinary profession?
Do you think getting into competitions or getting obsessed about getting some prizes or some recognitions
or these kind of things, do you think this somehow corrupts your culinary Bushido or
something like that?
Oh, that's a very intense question, I think.
Because the first thing when you ask this question that comes to mind is obviously what is the
most well-known prize out there is Michelin Stars, right?
Also, we've all, I mean, both you and me, we've seen kitchens that just cook what they
want to cook.
And I've also, I'm pretty sure we've both also seen kitchens that cook to get Michelin
Stars, right?
And it is obviously, if you're really strict, it is not an honest expression of what you
want to do.
If you were just cooking, right, without keeping in mind any sort of rewards or anything, you
know, you would have a completely different expression.
But so many of the things that we do, maybe even subconsciously, are dictated by a very
certain pattern that we think we need to fall into in order to please a certain someone.
All right?
And you don't like what I've, for example, I used to work with this chef relatively briefly,
but I took a lot out of it called Junior Yamasaki.
And he was a Japanese chef in, well, he is a Japanese chef.
He was in London back then, Yorban Koya, which was first an Udon Noodle Bar.
And then later became much, much more well-known for his daily specials, his Blackboard specials,
because he would cook very creative dishes with British ingredients using Japanese technique
and the Japanese mindset.
And it was fucking crazy.
Like it was so good.
And he just did what he found aesthetic and nice.
And he very much didn't want any fancy shit, any blah, he didn't want to please anybody.
He just wanted to make really authentically good food.
And it was some of the most creative and cool food that I've seen at that time.
I think that's the highest position a chef can aspire.
But at the same time, it's a most difficult one, because to get there, you need to be in
a context where you don't have owners pushing you to work under some kind of frame.
Or it could be owners, it could be the style of the restaurant you're working.
So in that case, it has to be you.
And your restaurant is your dojo, and you're able to do whatever your search is, your path,
your expression of cooking.
Yeah, absolutely.
Right?
Absolutely.
The more I think about it, I'm definitely not doing that.
I'm definitely not at a point where I can, not that I think about it consciously, but
now kind of looking at what I'm doing right now, I can definitely not go off certain
Stigmas and parameters concerning food.
I think maybe that is a topic for deeper meditation, really, because kind of letting
go of how you feel things need to be.
And really, really stepping out of the picture and kind of thinking about, well, what is
the most important, what is the sensation?
I know a couple of chefs who cook like that.
For example, my friend Norbert, he often cooks like that, where you can see it's completely
not directed to be in any sort of frame, of fine dining, not fine dining, or French cooking,
or this cooking, or whatever.
Fuck that, it's just ingredient and craft and personal expression.
Yeah, and I also think another factor in that puzzle is your team, because sometimes you
want to do whatever the fuck you want, but you have like a sous chef or some other chefs,
they also have like their own views and opinions, and you're like working in a music band.
And in that context is also not okay to be the eccentric artist that wants everybody to
follow, right?
So that also plays a role.
So there are also these very mystical restaurants where there is only one chef working and
doing everything and doing whatever he wants, but that's also very, very difficult to find
and to do at the same time.
Yeah, definitely.
In like what you said earlier, it's like really difficult, depending on the environment
that you're in.
So, you have a small, like if you're starting out doing this, right, and you just want to
do what you want to do, you need a small restaurant where you can cook by yourself or like with
one or two more people.
And then you can really just kind of like, but that is a big risk also, right?
It's like, if you want to take that risk, it's crazy.
And then when people come and say, hey, what kind of food do you do?
What do you say?
Do you say, hey, oh, you know, I just do whatever I feel, you know, like that's bullshit.
People can't work.
People function like that, people need a label.
Absolutely.
Yeah, that's something very important.
And that's something I learned when I was starting design.
It's, well, that this is what a brand teacher will tell you.
He will tell you that you can never do that.
You know, you can never like say what you just said, I do whatever I want, how I feel.
So people need to have like a label, as you say, of what you're doing.
And it comes to mind, for example, Lola, which is a restaurant in Copenhagen from Camila
Seidler.
And I haven't followed the restaurant so much, but when they opened and when I asked what
it is about, that's exactly what they would say.
It's like, it's a result of the travels we've had across the world.
You know, like, and that, if you say that for someone is very difficult to picture what
that is.
That's all a matter of marketing and communication and brand communication.
I don't think if we see food as art, which I think it is, at least in this context and
other contexts, it's not, then you should be able to do whatever you want.
There are no rules, right?
But at the same time, you need to find somehow a way to communicate efficiently what you're
doing.
And that's very difficult.
Yeah, absolutely.
I totally agree.
And I think what you just said is really important because often we don't, we like chefs, we forget
about that part.
We think of this like creative expression and blah and this and that, but it's like as much
part of your job as this creative expression and the ideas and the culinary, like the idea
development and stuff like that.
You're in the end cooking for a customer.
And your job is that to provide it in a way.
It's just as important for you to be able to express yourselves creatively as it is for
you to put it in a context where it works for the customer and where people understand
your concept and people like it.
And people want to come in all the time so that you have enough customers to fill the
restaurant to pay your staff to pay for the ingredients so that you can keep doing the
thing that you're expressing yourself with creatively.
And a lot of times I feel like people take this creative expression as an excuse for
things not working out.
Right?
I'm doing this, I'm doing that.
It's kind of like, yeah, well, if you're not doing it in a way, it's great if you have
these like crazy ideas and it's like fulfilling you.
But the idea of a restaurant is not an ego man show.
You know, it's a, it's a organism that lives off each other.
Right?
Like, if you imagine these like little suckerfish that clean off the like the skin of a shark,
right?
If these little suckerfish would, instead of just eating like the impurities on the
skin, eat the fucking shark, there would be no shark left, right?
So it's like, and vice versa, if the shark would eat the fish, you'd have nothing to
clean skin.
Right?
So it's like a, like an organism.
It needs to be in balance.
You can't just go crazy with your creative expression and do whatever the fuck you want.
You can, as long, like, as long as you keep pushing the boundaries of what you can sell,
how you can sell it, how you can market it, riding that wave, you know, like, for example,
like a take, I don't know, like, you know, El Buí, right?
When they started pushing it, you know, they were able to draw enough attention to keep
doing this and to get more customers in to keep.
Because like, if they would have just gone fucking full metaljacket and committed to
all the shit that they wanted to do straight away, like, without caring about how it was
perceived, right?
And it's okay to shock to a certain point.
But if you have no customers coming in, then you have no canvas to paint on anymore.
El Buí is a very interesting example, because have you seen the posts lately from El Buí Foundation?
They've been posting, like, chronologically, the dishes they developed from the early 90s until
now.
My favorite epoch was when it was still Nouvelle Cuisine Catalan, somehow it was 92, 93.
And then you can see a very clear line starting in 94, which is where the first Buñecatalogue
starts.
And from then on, it's really very hard to define what it is, you know, because they
became very technical, but at the same time, they really were doing whatever the fuck they
wanted, you know, like, they could mix recipes and elaborations from all over the world,
combinations of flavor that were never combined before.
But you know, I would say there's also like a parallel between what El Buí was doing
and what was happening in other disciplines at the moment worldwide, like architecture
or graphic design, where everything got digitalized.
Und for that reason, there was like an overcharge of everything, everything was more and more
overloaded of elements and these kind of things.
And I think that's reflected on that cuisine.
But I mean, if you ask anyone about what El Buí is, it's very hard to define what it
is.
And for that reason, some smart journalists came up with the idea of molecular gastronomy,
that's what it is.
And that stuck.
And it stuck really well, because a lot of people, that's what they define about it.
Especially in Germany, people talk about molecular cuisine and there's a specific idea behind
that.
But I think El Buí is much, much more than that.
But at the end, you need to have that anchor for the audience to understand what it is
about or at least to have a reference to understand what you're approaching, what it is.
You know, again, Mugarets started using the label, they define themselves as techno-emotional.
So it's technical and emotional.
Emotional doesn't necessarily mean positive.
They can also give you negative emotions as part of the experience.
Mostly.
Which is controversial in itself.
But I would say pretty much the technical side is what makes them so interesting, especially
for chefs.
Yeah, for sure.
And it's kind of like, it's interesting, like thinking about that.
It's kind of like, oh yeah, somebody coined the term molecular gastronomy and suddenly
you had something that people could fantasize about what that means, right?
And like if you think about it, people really are like sheep in a way, you know?
You need to give them something that they can like follow, you know, in like a direction.
And I think the most elegant way, and probably also the most, like the nicest way, is if
you can give the broad majority of people, like how do I want to say this?
You can give them a general direction that's very shallow, right?
Where they can kind of delve in to what you're doing and be happy with it and enjoy it and
feel like, oh, I understand what this is.
But then there is some people who go a little bit more in depth because they're interested
in food or because the food kind of resonates with them.
And they kind of, because sometimes you have guests, they come and they just kind of understand
what you're trying to do, right?
And those are the best guests, right?
Those are the guys that we want to have.
Not that we don't want to have the other ones, but they're really kind of who understand
what we want to do more and more.
And if you have this like general sort of like direction that people can go in and be happy
with and come to your restaurant and eat and enjoy it and leave, but you give the possibility
for those people who kind of really understand and resonate with what you're doing to go
more in depth, the sort of chosen few.
I think that's the ideal scenario, because if you're just sort of like, hey, either you
get it or you don't get it, that's also not very hospitable.
And hospitality, the sense of what hospitality is, I feel like often gets lost in these very
ego driven ideas of especially chefs, you know.
But going again to the very beginning where we were talking about the Olympics and martial
arts and what I wanted to debate here around is the nature of competition among chefs or
restaurants, be it internally in a restaurant or between restaurants.
Do you think that there is a healthy point to that or getting away from that is the healthiest
or even to develop?
I do think when I work in very demanding environments, these restaurants were really,
really pushing.
I mean, one of the things we talked about when we were at Noma and one of the most impressive
things that you would see in the, you would see everybody was really pushing hard every
second.
Was no one looking around, not knowing what to do.
Everybody had like a specific task that you could see.
It required a lot of attention and they were executing calmly, but without stopping, right?
And I think putting yourself in those situations that makes you do things that you thought you
weren't able to achieve is what makes you better as a chef.
In my opinion, answering the question myself, I do think a healthy point of tension and
competition is necessary to grow as a chef.
100% agree.
I think there needs to be, it depends how you look at competition.
If we imagine competition being a very angry and spiteful environment where chefs are trying
to be better than the next in a way, that's sort of like, oh, I'm going to show this person,
blah, blah, blah.
But I don't see that when I think about competition, especially in the kitchen environment.
I think it's crucial for growth.
I think it needs to be an environment of positive reinforcement of inspiring each other in between
the team and pushing each other to be a better version of themselves every day.
Because there has to be a certain amount of friction for that to be changed.
And I don't mean friction in any negative sort of way.
It doesn't have to be negative.
It doesn't have to be sort of like, oh, what the fuck is this?
You need to be faster, blah, blah, blah.
I don't mean that kind of friction.
I mean positive friction of sort of like, hey, look, what about this?
We can do this like this, blah.
Yeah, it's going to take a little bit more work.
Look, you can do it like this, blah, blah.
And then when people kind of see the outcome of these things, some of them, some people
will not want that.
And that's totally fine.
Not everybody wants to be in a state of constant improvement, because it takes friction, it
takes work, and it takes energy.
For me, it's the only way that I can work, because otherwise I get fucking depressed.
Otherwise I'd have an office job or something.
It doesn't have to be a huge step that you take every day.
And it doesn't have to be a huge expenditure of energy.
But there should be a slow and steady progress.
And the only way that I really like to work, I get really grumpy when it's like this also.
The only way that I really like to work is I have people around me that I can talk to.
I can look at things, I can say like, hey, how's the beef at the mall?
The beef, you mean like a competition beef?
No, no, no, no, the actual beef.
The actual beef.
How's the beef?
Who's killing who today?
No, but you know like this, how are the onions?
You know, just last week they were really spicy.
How are they today?
Is it still affecting the sauce, et cetera?
Hey, what's coming from the garden?
This and that.
And just a constant environment of sort of like, let's take the subject of cooking and
really look at it and keep looking at it and looking at it and making it better and better
and better.
And it's crazy, even sort of like the chef de parties that I have.
Right?
They're doing a decent job, but there's always something that you can look at and say, hey,
look, if we make the meringue a little bit different, instead of doing this, do it like
that, and just reduce the sugar a little bit and whip it a little bit less.
And then you see, then when you take the canal off the meringue, you have much smoother edges,
which means when you press the iron onto it, it kind of spreads in a more even way and
it's like these tiny details that make at the end of the day a really big difference.
If we're talking about competition, what are your thoughts on losing?
Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.
What about losing?
Eric, there's no losing in my dojo.
There's only winning in my dojo.
I mean my kitchen.
We kill losers.
I mean, what do we define as losing?
I mean, I was once in a business, in a meeting in a restaurant, you know, where they were
like the chef parties and, you know, and I don't remember what happened, but it was
definitely a situation where we lost.
And I remember me saying, like, it's also important to know how to lose properly.
And the owner of the restaurant was like, no, we never lose.
And they said that.
And I really think like embracing the feats when they come and learning how to learn from
them and how to improve from them, I think it's crucial.
And denying it is just denial.
You know, it's like Donald Trump denying losing the elections, like a little two-year-old kid.
And yeah, I think that's also part of growing.
And it also comes to mind the relationship between the bear, Karmie, and this guy, I don't
remember the name, the guy that was like a pastry chef in Copenhagen training Marcus,
that guy.
Oh yeah.
And he said that he was kind of like the best in the kitchen until he met Karmie.
And he saw that this other person was more, more, much better than him.
I know like this ability to recognize when the guy next to you is better than you and
be able to learn from him.
I think it's vital for your development.
And denying that and just thinking you did better even if you didn't.
That's just fooling yourself, you know.
Absolutely, you are missing out on an opportunity to learn basically if you don't accept losing.
Because that's the thing, right?
It's kind of like how do you think about losing?
You think about losing as like a final thing?
I've lost, that's it, right?
Or is it just a step along the way?
A difficult step, a small period of more friction than before.
Where it's uncomfortable, friction is uncomfortable, pressure is uncomfortable.
But through that you do go through a process.
And losing in whatever way this is, whether this is a bad service.
I feel like I've lost when I had a bad service.
And I also struggle with dealing with it.
Like sometimes I go home and I'm like fuck everything.
Fuck all of this.
But what do you do with it?
That is the most important thing.
Because anything can happen, right?
But it is how you approach that very thing that makes the difference.
The circumstance is not the thing that dictates what is happening to you and what you take out
of it.
You are the person dictating that.
And you have the choice of either benefiting from that situation or letting yourself get
swept away and not taking anything from it.
And if you look at it like that, very emotionally detached, you're like, well, of course I'm
going to take something away from it.
And it's like, okay, well, then do that.
But then you have to also live it.
And like you said, it's kind of like, it sucks, right?
Just like if you go back to the martial art thing, it sucks when you get, I don't know,
I train your jits.
And if you get caught on the submission, you know, it sucks getting, you know, the shit
squeezed out of your neck and having to tap.
It doesn't feel good, but you learn from it, right?
And you can either say, fuck this, I'm never going to train again.
It's like, well, you're never going to get better and you're always going to get choked
out.
Or you just continue on and you leave this little moment of pressure behind and you grow
out of it.
That's it for this week's episode of Puttlog Food Talks.
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