You're listening to Heritage Radio Network. Hi,
everyone. Welcome to Pot Luck Food Talks. My name
is Eric. I'm not a chef. And I'm here today with
the president of the Michelin Guide fan club,
Michael Lin. How are you doing, man? Michael
Lindauer. It took me a moment to get there. Hey,
yeah, my name is Phil. I am a chef. We're here
to talk about food and stuff. If this is the
first episode you listened to, go back to the
beginning. See where it started. We had some
crazy comments on the last reels we had, especially
on the one where you're roasting allergic people,
which I think is very discriminatory from your
side. Wait, wait, wait, wait. Hold on. Don't
take the things that I say out of context. I
wasn't roasting allergic people. It's not their
fault for being allergic to something, but it
is their fault if they don't handle it in a good
way. There were some comments of people saying
like, well, if you say that or think like that,
you know nothing about hospitality. You're a
monster. Which made me think, what is hospitality
in the first place? What is your definition of
hospitality? What does it mean for you? What
does it mean to me? It's a very good question.
I mean, hospitality can be so many things, right?
exactly it's like one of these big words you
know like design define design there is not like
a single definition fine dining poetry you know
like these are these big words that have many
nuances and meanings and but yeah what could
be a valid definition or a set of definitions
for you yeah i mean eric you've you've known
me how long have we've known each other now a
long time 12 years something like that at least
more i think much much longer almost 20 years
i think You know, I'm not, you know, big words
aren't my thing. You know, I'm a simple man.
They confuse me. Hospitality. I think in terms
of cooking also in restaurants, right? What is
one of the most beautiful aspects of cooking?
It's nourishing people. It's an extension of
kindness and of care in a broad term, you know,
and that can mean many, many things. I think
it's a very, very beautiful thing. It is like
you come. into my space, and I welcome you. And
let me do something for you. Let me do something
for you, right? What that means can be very broad,
but I think that is the general thing. I think
it is, in its essence, a kindness and a type
of care. Okay, nice, nice, nice. What's yours?
It's not a common use word in... Do you say hospitalarian
in English? No, I don't think so. Not, right?
or also not in German, right? But in Spanish
you say hospitalario, which is something, and
you use it mostly only when you have guests.
You know, like when you have someone at your
home and you treat them right, you're hospitalario.
There's a German word for that. It's not the
hospitality industry as it is in English. Because
it's a big word, the word also embodies other
things. For example, there's a congress that
I go to in Madrid, the Hospitality Innovation
Planet is the name of the congress, the conference.
And there are stands, for example, for hospital
beds, which is also in that the word also encompasses
that because you're also welcoming guests and
taking care of them. Of course. Which is super
interesting. I wanted to get into the... the
beginning, the origin of this whole thing. So
I looked for the etymology of hospitality, right?
And it's very interesting because in archaic
Latin, which is the oldest origin of it, the
original word was hostis. And hostis was the
same word for both stranger and enemy. Because,
you know, like in very ancient times. Like hostile,
yeah. Somebody else, yeah. Or a hostage, and
you're the host. Oof, goddamn. And yeah, these
words are all related. The core meaning of hospitality
is loving the guest, and a host is the master
of the guest. And yeah, you mentioned hostility
is the fear of the stranger, of the enemy. And
a hostage is a control of the stranger. Or a
hospital is a place for guests, the sick and
the poor. So the hospitality word actually has
an origin in hospital because at the beginning,
hospitals were only, you know, like churches
that would take sick people and poor. Also hostel,
hotel. But yeah, I think the act of taking even,
and also for me, there is also that contradiction.
I read this quote from Jacques Derrida, a French
philosopher, and he says, the word hospitality
contains its opposite. The hostility in hostess
to welcome the other is to face the possibility
of danger and openness at once. I love that.
I love that, honestly. Which brings us back to,
you know. The art of hosting somebody who is
difficult. But at the end of the day, you can
always reject them. Saying, I'm not hosting you.
But I would say at the very core of hospitality,
you're taking even difficult guests. Of course,
there are limits. By default, as a standard procedure,
you will see how to fix whatever is going on.
And, you know, it's kind of like your vocation.
This is what you do, right? Well, that's really,
really interesting because like these two aspects
that you just described of sort of like I'm opening
a space for you. I'm putting myself out there
in a way. I'm letting you in. I'm also facing
the risk of you misusing that space. And there's
a duality to this, right? So the German word
for hospitalario is Gastgeber. Ah, yes, of course.
So it's a combination of two words. Gast means
guest and Geber. Guest giving. Yeah, like I am
giving something to my guest. I am the person
in the position of I am giving. Guest giver,
something like that, right? Guest giver. Yes,
I'm giving something. And giving things is a
very beautiful thing. It's very good. Like, I
mean, as children already, you know, in good
upbringings, we know that sharing and giving.
It's something very great, something very beautiful.
But the duality of this aspect is also kind of
like if you're on the opposite side, if you're
the receiver, how do you hold yourself in this
space of receiving? Are you grateful? Do you
take what you are given? Do you make demands?
Then it's a little bit of a back and forth. Is
the giver open to accommodating those demands,
you know? But obviously, it's an equilibrium.
If you demand too much, it's sort of like you
are stepping out of grace in your position as
the person receiving. And this, I think, personally
encapsulates this whole point of kind of like,
what mentality do you have? Do you go into a
space and you demand as if you have a right to
demand? And also on the opposite side, are you
in a position where you consciously open your
space and say, hey, I want to give? And people
come in, and you're very closed up. And you're
sort of like, this is what you can have or not.
It's a very, very interesting balance between
the two. Yeah, I wanted to, let me look for this
quickly. I wanted to read again this thing I
sent you yesterday, which also says a lot about
the expectations. And, you know, for example,
ARSAC. ARSAC here is an institution, is a restaurant
that has us. I mean, it was awarded best restaurant
in Spain in the year 68, okay? You know, like,
now Juan Mari's daughter is running the place.
And I remember that five years ago, this was
still top one on TripAdvisor. It was the one
with the best reviews on TripAdvisor. And just
recently, I came across a list of, it said, like,
I think... three Michelin -star restaurants that
have actually bad reviews or something like that,
and Arsac was there. And I've read bad reviews
of Arsac. I've never been to Arsac, something
I'm interested in nowadays. Maybe I would have
been interested 20 years ago. Yes. The thing
with... Arzages, I've heard a lot of people being
disappointed or those kind of things. I saw this
and I was like, let me check again five years
later if they're still number one on TripAdvisor.
And they went down to number 14, something like
that. And, you know, you're reading that and
you go along and let's look for the bad reviews.
I want to read the bad ones first to see what
people say. And I came across this one, which
I think is incredible. That's it. We booked with
months in advance a table at Arsac with all the
expectations in the world, organizing even a
trip around that experience. And what does this
restaurant do? This restaurant that presumes
international prestige, they cancel us the booking
with only one month in advance because they have
a very special event that day. That means that
our table... It's not important enough for them.
Is this respect for the client? Is this professionality
for a restaurant in this category? This is just
not serious, respect less. They have made us
feel secondary. One star. I mean, I get it. I
get it. I get both sides. Sometimes there are
situations like this. Dude, one month in advance.
One month in advance for you is not enough to
call a table off, even if it's a three -star.
You know, like, I don't get it. I think if this
motivates you to buy a bad review, you could
have used that energy to go in one month, you
find one table for sure in one of the other four
three -star restaurants that you have like a
20 -minute drive from Arsak, you know? No, that
is true. But I do understand the sentiment of
feeling secondary. you know like you like imagine
i mean there's no way the restaurant knows this
right that you planned a whole trip but i do
understand the sentiment of it and it's important
to understand the guests also you know because
like you have the situation sometimes where you're
like you have reservations like a long time in
advance for like whatever reason then suddenly
something happens you want to do a collaboration
or something like that you want to have a booking
you look at the bookings you're like i have two
tables that day Like maybe I can move something
around. There's ways of handling it. You call
the tables, you say, hey, can we offer you a
different day? Can we offer you like the day
before, the day after? Can we like do something
for you, right? To try to make it work. Like
it does happen. But I do understand also the
sentiment of feeling secondary. I get it. But
apart from that, Arzak. What's happened at Arzak
in the recent years? I mean, Arzak has lived
off... I don't want to talk trash. I mean, Arzak
is a legend. But they have lived off their reputation
that they've created, as you say, 20 years ago.
And until they've not moved on... 50 or 60 years
ago, their reputation goes that much back. Yeah,
but they have not... It's so important. We were
talking in the restaurant yesterday. about having
to move forward. You know, you can't just like
do what you do and then stick with it and never
evolve. That's not going to work. That's going
to work for maybe a couple of years. But in today's
world, you know, five months down the line, nobody
cares anymore. I know what you mean, but there
is something that maybe you don't know because
it's something that like not everybody knows.
And I think it's very interesting. You know,
Arzak was cooking classic until the year 99.
He was doing super classic cuisine. I know, I
know. And he actually met Ferran Adrián for that
reason. He said, oh, now I want to become avant
-garde. And he started doing this crazy avant
-garde, artistic, creative, food, playful, and
so on, which was the Arzak of the 2000s, which
I think is the Arzak most of us like the most.
Yes. I've never been a huge fan of Arzak, and
I can tell you why. I believe that Juan Maria
Azag must be an amazing chef, you know, especially
when it comes to like classic Basque cooking,
you know, Nouvelle Basque sort of cuisine. And
pivotal also like for that. periods and for the
location. For the Spanish avant -garde. Absolutely.
I mean, also later, yeah, and also earlier. Yeah,
he was a major figure in the two most important
movements in Spanish culinary, you know, Nouvelle
Basque and Spanish avant -garde. Yeah, but, you
know, then he incorporated things that, for me,
they're not my style, you know. They're a little
bit sensationalism. Like, hey, eat this seascape
and listen to sea sounds on your ears. It is,
while I feel like it is important for people
to explore this, you know, it's important to
explore for the sense of exploring and for the
sense of trying things out. I remember in 2013,
when I was at Mugarets, we went to a talk, like,
by the Basque Culinary Center, and Arzak was
showing a dish. And he had this, like, crystal
ball, he called it. One of his dishes is called
the crystal ball. Like, you know, this thing
that a soothsayer has, like, where she sees the
future in this crystal ball. And it was basically
like a big bowl of cotton candy with something
inside and he would put it on the plate and then
he would pour this like hot chocolate sauce on
top and it would like melt the whole bowl and
it was like something underneath. And I was sitting
there and I was like 20 years old, right? And
I was like, man, like I would hate to eat that.
I would absolutely hate to eat that. And you
still see, I mean, this is the thing also, like
just the other day I saw a dish. from a restaurant
today that were doing basically the same thing.
And that is cool that he did that and people
are still doing it today. So it's like cotton
candy, they pour sauce over it, it's gone, right?
But at the same time, I'm kind of like, well,
the idea is maybe like interesting and funny,
but like how is the actual eating of it? Because
do I want to eat, cotton candy is just sugar,
that's it, right? Do I want to eat an ultra mega
sweet like chocolate sugar soup? I don't think
so. And this is always the thing where the two
worlds, they never connected for me. You know,
with El Bui, when I see El Bui, I never went
to eat at El Bui, unfortunately. But I see dishes
and I'm sort of like, that is very interesting.
At the same time, it looks delicious, right?
I feel like it would be really nice. And that's
where the two worlds, they come together. But
there, I never really felt that. By the way,
we haven't talked about... Ooh. Yeah, tell me
about it. How was it? The collaboration? We should
remember that this is a podcast and people don't
see what you're showing. So Eric just held up
a menu from a collaboration dinner that you went
to between Josh Nylund, the fish wizard from
Australia, and another fish wizard, Elcano. Well,
first of all, Fernando called. He said, dude,
we have to go. It's next week. There are still
stables. Let's take one. So the Basque government
with the Basque Culinary Center, they organized
this. It's like a community to promote Basque
seafood cooking here that is called Talaya. And
they got also in the... you know, like in accordance
with the opening of the new building. They brought
like all these chefs from all over the world.
And among them was Josh Nyland, who's part of
the International Advisory Board. And as far
as I know, Susana Nieto organized a pop -up.
So suddenly you have a pop -up of Josh Nyland
cooking at Elcano. It's the second time ever
that someone that is not from Elcano cooks at
Elcano. What was the first time? He told us.
We asked him. He named someone that I didn't
know. But yeah, we asked. I told when we went.
So then we're going. We're organizing this. And
Fernando says... Hey, I have an extra table.
Can you find someone? And then I started calling
people, asking around. And then suddenly Sebas
from Kai Sushi Bar, he was going on his own because
he didn't have anyone. So he joined the table.
Amazing. So suddenly we have like the best sushi
chef in town with two fish wizards cooking for
us. It was really, I think. top three experiences
I've ever had in my life. And in that package,
I would say Echavarri and Noma are in that package.
And dude, it was incredible because you would
have dishes from Nyland and then from Elcano,
one after the other. As soon as we arrived, we
asked, I thought, like, how are you feeling?
And he was like, I'm so nervous, but I've never
been nervous. It's my own restaurant, you know?
That's so precious. Yeah, and that guy, you know,
he's so humble and so cool. I think since we're
talking about hospitality, I think he is hospitality
embodied in a person. Aitor? Aitor Arregui, yeah.
You see him serving the grilled fish and explaining.
you know, the currents, this fish swam in, the
nutrients they had. And they cooked basically
with what got in from the fisheries that day.
And they know, you know, they have, like, such
a close relationship with the fishermen. Like,
their main slogan is, to cook well, you have
to buy well. So their main... their main ambition
is to be the best buyers and to get the absolute
best fish money can buy. Yes. You know, and then
they just grill it. They grill it like, it really
has this, going there, it really has this connection
with primitive aspect of grilling. Primal. You
know, as you're walking into the restaurant,
the whole fish is the first thing you see because
they're leaving it outside to get temperature
before they throw it to the grill, which is the,
very traditional Basque way, you will see. And
then we walk into the restaurant. Also, everybody
was there, journalists, and, you know, a lot
of people didn't want to miss that dinner. There
were also even some dishes that were, I think,
the chipiron, that Nyland did the chipironas,
like a raw chipiron, and Elcano did the sauce,
and so they were mixed. But then some classic
of Elcano. One of my favorites was the bone marrow
from Mero. Mero is... How do you say mero in
English? I think it's a grouper. Mero. So they
call it bone mero. Nice. What I like about El
Cano is that this will be, you know, maybe...
Just the legs of the lobster or the parza that
most people will discard. That's what they serve
you. And they tell you how to eat it. And they
give you, you know, like this wet napkin so you
can eat with your hands. And really, that's what
I mean with the primitive aspect of eating grilled
and getting your hands dirty. I have my notes,
but I don't remember all the dishes. There was
one with seaweed that was amazing of Georgian
Island. Also, fish eye, fish liver. The fish
eye was amazing. I've had fish eye before, but
it's never ever something that I said that I
enjoyed or liked or said, oh, I would have this
again. There it was. really fine and subtle and
properly cooked. I have some videos I will share
them when we publish this episode of Aitor cutting
up the fish and explaining here is a, you know,
like he will explain you every single part, how
to eat it, what part of the fish is, what it
has that color, is it more bitter or more, and
then he breaks the whole fish apart, which is
the same thing Josh Nyland does back in the kitchen,
right? And maybe one of the most impressive things
of the dinner was dessert. Because I think we
talked about this two episodes ago when we were
talking about savory desserts. Like, are his
desserts fishy or not? And I really wanted to
solve this mystery. And that was the first time
he came out to talk with us. And he says, like,
well, what we did here, it was like a tartlet,
you know, like a shell full with berries. incredible
berries that are now in season. Like, really,
it has to be, like, tactile -wise, maybe the
best I've ever had. You know, like having a shell
with stuff inside. It was that and a bowl of
vanilla ice cream on top. And he comes and he
explains that if I'm cooking, there's fish. But
the vision here was not to do something that
bring fish flavors in a dessert, but... to use
the whole fish and all all its functionalities
for everything you can do so we what we did is
we took the collagen out of the fish i don't
know what they did but it doesn't taste fishy
and they use it as a protein to emulsify the
ice cream basically that's what they did so if
you think about it there are many gelatins that
are made out of fish not only of pork And they're
not fishy at all. So it was basically a vanilla
ice cream, not fishy, with the berries. And then
the funny part is Sebas from Kai Sushi, who for
him fish is his mother language as well, he was
eating and he started me like, dude, my brain
doesn't know what to do. You know, it's kind
of like one side and... I'm tasting the umami
of the fish in a very subtle way, but no, you're
not supposed to go there. It's supposed to be
sweet and dessert. And yeah, that was it. Like
an incredible experience. Also, the sommelier
gave us some incredible wines. It was really,
really nice. I really, really enjoyed it. We
should go to Elcano, man. Man, I really want
to. I have to. But hey, this is like, this again
brings me back to like hospitality because that
is also hospitality, you know, inviting somebody
else into your space and like the collaboration
because, you know, maybe this is something that
we need to add to the thing of hospitality. It's
the collaboration aspect. There is a collaboration
between host and guest, right? In the perfect
world, right? It's a giving and a taking from
both sides. And I don't mean product and money,
right? A sort of like experience and a feedback
and an exchange. And I think that is a really,
really important aspect. I mean, sort of like
Josh Schneider from literally the other side
of the world. Two people, Aitor, right? As humble
as he is, international reference for fish cooking.
I mean, amazing, right? Complete expert in what
he does. And Josh and Island, very, very different.
Same subject, right? Completely different part
of the world, different fish, but also an aspect.
And these two people collide. And Aitor, who
could be like very sort of like kind of, you
know, oh, this is what I do, blah, blah, blah,
opens himself up. And we're talking about a Basque
chef here. They're not the most open -minded
sort of people, right? opens his house, his home,
very receiving and being able to share also and
just being happy for that exchange, I think that
is a very, very crucial part of hospitality too.
And ideally, I feel like this would happen between
a restaurateur and the guests coming to a restaurant
also. When you make something, you say, hey,
because you're making yourself vulnerable. You
know, this is the hostility part also. You're
kind of like, I'm opening my space, but also
I'm giving you something from me. This is, I've
made this for you. There's part of me in it.
How do you receive it? And some people like take
it. How do they respond? What is the feedback
they give you? Ideally, it's very productive
and it's very beautiful, right? I think that's
maybe something to be taken away from that. Yeah,
also something very interesting is that they
cooked. He did cuts that they say, we've never
seen these fish cuts here. You know, like he's
saying that. And when we were talking, I was
like, dude, this guy is such an absolute next
level nerd. You know, like, I think that was
pretty cool. But yeah, amazing experience. That's
it for this week's episode of Potluck Food Talks.
If you like what we're doing, Make sure to subscribe
to the podcast so you never miss an episode.
You can also find us on Instagram and TikTok
as potluckfoodtalks. The show airs every Monday.