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#5 Graham Campbell - F***ing believe in yourself!
57 Plays4 months ago
On today's episode, we have the opportunity to speak to Graham Capmbell! Graham has had a variety of experiences in the industry, from being the youngest chef in Scotland to earn a Michelin star, to be on the Great British Menu and then the Final Table on Netflix. Graham shares with us the rollercoaster of being in Mexico with less than £1 in his bank account and feeling like his life was over, to running multiple restaurants and then opening his bistro. Grahams journey is one of trials and triumph.
Please enjoy, Graham Campbell.
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Transcript
Introduction: Graeme Campbell's Journey
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome, welcome back to the Check On podcast and on today's check we have someone who you're probably pretty familiar with. Graham Campbell is known for an array of different successes including being the youngest chef to earn a Michelin star in Scotland, getting onto the great British menu and also being on the Netflix competition The Final Table.
00:00:20
Speaker
Today Graeme shares with us his struggles with mental health, what his views are on the current state of the industry and what the competition was like on the final table. So please enjoy Graeme Campbell.
Social Media Challenges
00:00:41
Speaker
Hi Graeme, you're right. Yes, I'm very well. How are you? yeah let's say like Nice to finally meet you. And put a face to the to the Instagram messages yeah i know that I've been harassing you with to try and get on this podcast for me. The joys of social media. Wonderful. I'm only just discovering them. I'm still a baby. oh yeah The social media is fun. It's fun. ah It's a bit of a minefield, if I'm honest. i um I've got no idea what I'm doing.
00:01:09
Speaker
that Same as me. You just kind of just, if somebody messaged you, you reply, but then sometimes it goes a bit crazy. I mean, the messages that I've got off some people have been disgusting.
00:01:24
Speaker
and I think the weirdest one I had was someone asking me for photos of my feet and they were going to pay me an extreme amount of money for it. They were actually from Texas by June. Why didn't you do it? Oh, just like everyone said. I wish people would pay for my feet.
00:01:39
Speaker
I think if they stole them, they'd be disappointed. Hey, it doesn't matter. Money's money. They were from Texas. You might know them. I doubt it. Texas is massive.
Cultural Shifts: Scotland to Texas
00:01:50
Speaker
It's crazy big over here. I've never actually been. What's it like over there? Hot. Where I am is... I, obviously, originally, I'm from the UK, from Scotland, a place called Oban. I've done my whole career idea to get over here, which we'll go into later.
00:02:08
Speaker
but
00:02:11
Speaker
it's kind of a culture shock coming to the biggest, well, one of the biggest States in in in um in the United States. It's, I think it's like five times the size of the whole of the UK over here. So crazy yeah. So like, like driving to like Dallas, Dallas is nine hours a away. And that's just, and that people will do that daily. It's yeah, it's, it's, it's crazy how massive the place is.
00:02:38
Speaker
And everything is just, it's just super flat. And where I am, I'm in a place called McAllen, my restaurant's in Edinburgh, Texas. And it's basically desert. So it's like super hot. Like last summer we had where we're up at like 50s, 50s. Yeah. So it was like 120 for the working Fahrenheit over here, which is funny. ah So it's like 120. And it's just stupid hot. This year wasn't too bad. It was about 95. We touched 100 a couple of days.
00:03:07
Speaker
But it is just, you go outside, it's just hot, hot, hot. And then they go, oh, it's cold tomorrow. And I go outside, it's like 70s. And they're like, this is cold. like This is hot from the UK, you know? Especially from Scotland as well. I sort of googled where you're from. It's quite sort of up in the middle north of Scotland, isn't it? Yeah, it's quite remote where I'm from. Yeah, but look, 1,000 population. ah Yeah, like 5,000. Yeah, 5,000, 8,000.
00:03:34
Speaker
to come to the United States, which is the 191 million. it says It's crazy. It's crazy. Where I grew up, it didn't quite get to 50 degrees. It got to about 45 degrees. It was a good day in summer, but not 50. I think that's what I should bet. It's stupid. me It's good because we've got like a pool outside, so we can go in the pool. yeah like all All the pools out there, they're not even heated. You don't need to heat them. It's just always hot.
00:03:59
Speaker
always hot. And then nobody goes to the pool in the winter when they call it the winter, which is like October. I don't even think because like even last year it was like October, I went to like fifties and then November it was back up to a hundred. I don't know Fahrenheit. You sound like you fully converted to the whole Fahrenheit. yeah'm glad that used to So that's like, so what's 50, 50 is like 20.
00:04:26
Speaker
Oh, that's not too bad. That's like, I know. um'm ah And they're like, it's cold. So they get, they get, they get, they call it sweater weather. So they all get their their sweaters out and their jackets out. And it's like, guys, I'm still, and I'm still in a t-shirt. It's not. you know It's stupid. It's stupid. Do you feel like you fully acclimatized now? though I think so. I think so. Cause even like this summer, I wasn't, I wasn't too bothered by the heat. I mean, it was hot, but ah I was like, well, it's not as hot last year, but you kind of get used to it, but I'm also super white. So.
00:04:56
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. You kind of stick out like a sore thumb. So I feel like that's what it's like for me here. Like I'm, I'm used to what summer and winter is here, but I still get bloody cold in the winter. I am not used to it. Even after but nearly six years of not living in Australia, but in the UK it's cold, you know, it's freezing. It's cold. It does get cold. Uh, I went to Canada once. That was minus 35 services. That was super cold. Uh,
00:05:26
Speaker
But here it's just, it's just like hot or, I like it like 80s. When it gets to the 80s, which is, what's that? Like 31, 32, around all of that. is It's good, it's good. But anything above that is just like stupid. I used to say when I first got here, you would go to work, go to go to your house, go to your car, and you just run between the AC. That's it. The AC is just constantly on all the time. Yeah. You know?
00:05:55
Speaker
That's crazy. um When did you move to America?
Culinary Adventures in Mexico
00:05:58
Speaker
I originally came over here 2019. That's when it started. i But that started with the tour of Mexico. So I was in contact with these a culinary school in Mexico after the whole final table thing came out. And I want to take you over and do like an event here with or with our students or something like a thousand students came to this event.
00:06:21
Speaker
and Netflix the file table was was just out so it was like culinary in Mexico is crazy like um I couldn't believe how crazy it was everybody's like like chefs are like rock stars in Mexico so if anybody ever wants to break into a country Mexico is the country to break into because it is crazy over there like I was When ah went I went over there, I was just hounded by people wanting autographs. i was They're like, can you hold my baby? Can you sign my ass? Can you sign my boobs? I'm like, what the fuck? and is like This is like rock star shit. And I'm just a chef. But in Mexico, like the culinary scene is huge, huge. that So that's that's when 2019 went there. Then they decided that they wanted to open a restaurant.
00:07:13
Speaker
And this was, I was going to go back in the October. So like, we want to open a restaurant in Dallas. So, i like okay, perfect. So we get over there, back over there, get on his private jet. So I've flown over Mexico, the US in a private jet. Uh, we go to, to Dallas, he sings a contract in Dallas and then on the way back, he's like, we're going to stop in Macallan. Like, I don't even know where Macallan was. So a lot of Mexicans live in Macallan. It's about 80%, maybe more than 90%. Uh,
00:07:43
Speaker
Mexican where I am right now So I say I've been white you kind of stand out like a sore thumb, you know There's not there's not many white people here. There's all Mexican which is good. It's good. I I love the Mexican culture and the way they are and the way the act and the way the made my wife my wife makes good, you know, she's Mexican-american, so It's It's so it kind of started all 2019 then obviously the whole cold would think him in ah They stopped construction in, in Dallas, like nobody was working the whole 2020, 2021, 2022 trying to get back to normal shit. yeah So they stopped construction in Dallas, but they kept construction here. So they still worked here. like right So it took them a year to develop the restaurant here. I was back and forth, back and forth, back
Immigration Struggles in the US
00:08:33
Speaker
and forth. Uh, when I was allowed to, uh, they were sorting out my visa, sorting out my, my work permits, all that type of stuff. But same again, because of COVID.
00:08:43
Speaker
All the consulates shut shut down, like the embassies all shut down. They weren't processing any of the applications, so it was taken forever. Then February 2021,
00:08:59
Speaker
february twenty january twenty twenty one I came back in to the to the US and I got stopped in customs in Houston. and I don't know if you've ever been stopped in customs. I was in customs in Houston for 10 hours.
00:09:13
Speaker
Oh my God. Yeah, they were going to port me. So they were like, they took my phones off me, took my laptops off me, took all my stuff off me, the whole lot. Uh, and they're like, you're working. I said, I'm not working. Look, I've got my application. I have my application in my bag. I was like, this is my application. We're doing this. I'm coming back over here. I can sump right now, uh, until my application process because of COVID and all that. It's, it's taken a fucking long time. You know, uh, it's all right to swear on this. Yeah.
00:09:42
Speaker
Oh, that's just fine. That's perfect. Perfect. So, so stuck in, in customs in Houston, uh, they fed me a bottle of water and I didn't go with some peanuts or something. It was terrible. And I was just sat there on a chair and everybody else around me was Mexican. Yeah. And me, and me. So the, then we went through all the process. Like I'm not working. Here's my, here's my work visa, the whole lot.
00:10:10
Speaker
Okay, you've got two weeks. So you can go into the country for two weeks, then you have to leave, right? And you're not allowed back in the country until your visa's passed. I was like, fuck, okay. So came here, met some menu stuff, done that. I was like, look, I can't do anything because they watch the social media, they watch everything that you do to see if you're working, you know? So two weeks passed and then I had to leave. I nearly missed my flight.
00:10:38
Speaker
I got to the flight desk at 55 minutes before the flight left off and they're like, we're closing the gate. I'm like, what the fuck? I was like, I've got to leave. So they, they looked my name up on the system and said, yeah, you have to be, you have to leave. So we'll let you through. I had to like, I couldn't check any luggage in. So I had to take all my like toiletries and everything out my bag and have all my knives out my bag and take everything that's carry on luggage. So then I went,
00:11:07
Speaker
I left him here. I just left there. all Everything I couldn't get on, I just left here. ah Because I thought it wasn't going to be for that long. Yeah. So after that, I was like, what did I do? So the people that I was working with then, they're like, I'll go to Mexico. So change the the appointment in the embassy in the UK and change it to the that British embassy in Mexico City. So I was like, do that. OK, fine. So went to Mexico. I was like, where am I going to live? Right. So I decided to go to Puerto Vallarta. So Puerto Vallarta is nice to the beach. It's like a paradise place to go in Mexico. It's got everything in it. It's safe. I mean, all of Mexico is pretty much safe unless you deal with all that side of bullshit, all this shit that they put in the media that is is dangerous and you'll die and you'll get kidnapped. It's all utter bullshit, right? There is stuff that happens, but... But just like everywhere. Yeah, like everywhere.
00:12:06
Speaker
but if you fuck with that side of the shit, then yes, you're going to be involved in it. If you keep yourself to yourself, it's different. Uh, more people in the United States carry guns than in Mexico. Okay. but doesn't surprise me Yeah. the The gun, the gun culture over here is stupid, but I'll touch on that as well. That's fucking crazy. Uh, so you landed in paradise basically.
Overcoming Depression and Professional Growth
00:12:31
Speaker
Yeah, pretty much. Then I was there for like two weeks. I was just living in the Airbnb's. I was like, okay, what's happening? Talking back to both of the people that I was working with. Then they cut me off. Yeah. So I found out that they were talking to other chefs and and people from Mexico and they wanted to basically use my name to open the restaurant and then get rid of me. Oh shit. Yeah. So me and my, my ex who's got my two daughters in Scotland, we kind of, we broke up in the December.
00:13:00
Speaker
I came back here in January and by February I was living in Mexico with no restaurant, no house, no money. I'd lost everything. Oh my gosh. Everything. Yeah. I had no money. I've got to the point that I had. I don't know if you know the peso. So the peso is, it used to be 32 or 33 pesos to the pound. I had nine pesos.
00:13:29
Speaker
to my name i could even buy water that's how much money i had so i was like fuck so i went through the whole depression stage and wanting to fucking end myself and all that bullshit uh so that was that ah yeah it was it was crazy it was crazy uh but then oh my son's just waking up but then uh i started talking to other people at restaurants in mexico yeah So by the whole being down and wanting to fucking end my life and all the bullshit, four weeks later, I was running three restaurants. So I was managing three restaurants as a consultant. I was making about $8,000 a month. I was flying all over the Mexico. And then I go back into the United States because there was a guy here, we'd done a dinner. So he's like, do a dinner, come in the United States. And this is me coming back in after all the, I want to get the port, I want to get all the bullshit.
00:14:29
Speaker
I was like, fuck it, let's try it. So I flew to Denver. So I flew in from Mexico to Denver rather than going through Texas. Stayed away from Texas. Fuck that. Flew to Denver. And the airport that I get in, you actually check in. There's no customs. So you check in yourself and you do the passport and the computer says yes or no. If it says no, you go to secondary. ah If it says yes, you go in. So it says no. I was like,
00:14:59
Speaker
fuck so hidden I go I go to secondary I'm only there for five minutes I was like the guy said oh yeah Evans fine paperwork's fine you're going here for I was going for like 10 days you're going here for 10 days and you go I was like fucking thank fucking you back in the United States because once you get if you get if you get kicked out from the United States you you can get a complete ban, you're not allowed back in for like 10 years. Really? Depending on what you've done. Yeah, they can see, but like I said, you're, you're revoked. You're not, you're not allowed back in here for 10 years. Wow. sort of So that, so that fucked everything up. That was a huge risk then. Yes. Yes. It would be, it would be not very good. Would you come back to England if it, if it didn't let like, hypothetically, let's say, no, I think I stayed in Mexico. it Yeah. Yeah. I think I just stayed in Mexico. Uh, the thing with the UK is there's,
00:15:52
Speaker
Apart from my two kids, there's not much there for me. yeah The whole culinary scene in in the UK is very small compared to over here. Like over here, especially like in the in the and the United States, it's it's so vast, it's so huge, right? There's so many different cultures and different I mean, I always say that immigrants make the United States because there's so many different things in here. It's just like a big mad mixing pot of everything. Yeah, to to go back to the UK, I don't think I'd be where I am now. If I did, I think I'd probably have fell back into depression and I it probably wouldn't even be here right now. you know It was that bad.
00:16:41
Speaker
so how did you how did you pull yourself out of that though like i can't even i've been in some tight spots and i've been in some pretty shitty situations but i don't think i've ever quite been like that far away from home and no one to lean on and nothing in my bank account like yeah how do you how do you even drag yourself out of that to then be running three restaurants i don't know is being fucking stupid i don't know ae just So I've got a sign about my my my past right now and in the direction that we've got. So the direction I've got right now is but let me just finish deciding that and then I'll tell you the whole process and where
Adapting Culinary Styles in Texas
00:17:24
Speaker
I am now. It's kind of the journey's fucking weird. So came here, had done that dinner, came back. I knew people in Florida that I'd worked with before. They're like come to Florida. So went back to Mexico for like a week. Flew back, went to
00:17:41
Speaker
flew into Florida, they let me in, we'd done a dinner, or they're like, oh, we want to, it was like a Irish pub. They wanted to change it up and they were struggling a little bit. They went on that bar rescue and all that shit. So they've done all this. ah The business is shut because the husband and wife didn't get one. Basically that was the that was the issue from day one. It's hard to be in business with your partner, just so you know, it's it's fucking hard. you know Even like, like, like my wife, she does like, she does all like the social media side of it. She does, uh, organizing events. So she does all that side of it and we still argue a little fuck. yeah It's just this industry is just, it's fucking crazy and stressful. Uh, so I went to Florida, we done that. And then my know wife, we, we got together and,
00:18:34
Speaker
start talking and I moved to Macallan. So she's like, come live here. I'm like, okay. So okay here I uh, lived in like, uh, one of these fucking what's it called? so You know, these long state hotels, it's like a thousand dollars a month. He's like a shitty little room that stinks of cigarette smoke. So moved in there for a month. Uh, and they kind of reached out to people that, okay, whats what's next? What's next? So I took over like an executive chef role at a restaurant, which had three restaurants, turned that business around from making 15,000 a week to making 30,000 a week. ah They were going to open another restaurant. Then the guy was never fucking happy. So we get a part of ways. And now to like recently, two years we've been open to the restaurant here. The restaurant I've got here Castle Hill Bistro is
00:19:26
Speaker
Nothing like I'm used to cooking. We do nachos. We do chicken wings. We do fucking burgers We do one steak we do pasta dishes It is a relaxed dining every fucking day restaurant, right? fine dining If I was open a fine dining hardcore fine dining restaurant here, I would have been out of business fucking about year and a half ago Yeah, it just does not work It's not the it's not that the day the culture just doesn't want it because where I am you've got the border from Mexico but then you've also got a checkpoint which is about an hour's drive from here so this is the same the whole of Mexico border from then from California all the way over to Texas there's a there's another checkpoint so the people that are stuck in between if they get over from Mexico illegally and they can't get over they're stuck in between this little area which is like a like probably about
00:20:21
Speaker
40, 50 miles all the way across all the border towns. So it's 80%, 70% illegal immigrants or first generation immigrants who don't have papers, who don't have nothing, who are kind of stuck here. So they can't go to Mexico because if they go to Mexico, they're not allowed back and they can't leave their little hometown because if they leave, they can't get back or they'll get caught and get deported. So The whole food scene where I am right now is like 10 years ago. And it's always been 10 years behind everybody else. You know, and this is fucking like 80% tacos. If it's fucking tacos, tacos, tacos. You could drive it on one street and there's probably about six or seven taco restaurants in this one street in every single street. It's an overpriced fucking tacos. It's not like tacos in Mexico. All this Tex mix crap.
00:21:18
Speaker
so ah So I'm like, OK, how do I adjust to cooking what people want? you know my My whole, right, I must do fine dining. I want to go for another Michelin star. I want to do this. i want That was all out of window. It's like, you want to open something here? You want to make money? You've got to give the people what they want. So it kind of humbled me a little bit to be like, OK, where I've come from, the fine dining, the Netflix, the final table, the Michelin star, the resets, the this, this, this.
00:21:47
Speaker
to be like, my fuck, I gotta cook burgers, for goting naturals you know I I gotta get chicken fillets and put it on the thing and and fucking cut it up and mix it through nachos with some fucking grated cheese and guacamole and fucking cream. And I'm like, fuck it, but I'll do it, but I'm gonna not reinvent the wheel, I'm gonna do it to a level that people still understand, but it gives them something a little bit different.
00:22:15
Speaker
yeah so like we do the nachos but instead of just being like nachos and guacamole and dry as fuck we put tartar sauce on there we put uh uh i do an ancho chili smoked ancho chili uh not like like a like a sauce it's like a almost like a jam oh that sounds good uh so it's like smoky and sweet and and and uh a little bit spicy but then we fuck on top of that and habanero jam So it's like, it's like smokey and super spicy and, and then it all kind of comes together, uh, rather than just fucking dry ass nachos, you know? So the chicken wings, our chicken wings, we pre comfy them before we fry them. We don't just fry fucking raw wings because you try raw wings and fry them for 15 minutes. They're as hard as fuck. So it's not reinventing anything. It's just doing it a little bit better than everybody else.
00:23:10
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. And that is the whole idea of Castle Hill Bistro. It's a fun, like we'll blacklight out the restaurant sometimes. We've got different color neon lights all throughout the whole restaurant. We've got deer heads on the wall. It's blue. It looks like a, it looks like almost like a castle inside. There's like a little fake fireplace with wood underneath it. And and a it's just like giving a little bit of Scotland, but it's still got the Mexican influence in the The food is still up to a standard that I'm happy with. You know, it's not fine dining. Pivoting from fine dining. No, I fucking miss it. a message I miss it. I miss it bad because the reason that I like fine dining is it, it challenges people, right? It challenges chefs. It challenges customers. and And that's, that's the fun in it. It's like you go in it.
00:24:06
Speaker
at six, seven in the morning and you don't start service till six o'clock at night, but you've got all that prep to do because everything's so small and footery and in the sauces and everything's got to be done right. And all, and all that the, the, the mise en place and everything, where does this restaurant, it's like, my boys come in at four o'clock, we open at five. You know, it's, it's a completely different culture, you know, but not only that over here, like if, if, if my guys work 40 hours, anything over that is double time.
00:24:36
Speaker
or time and a half time and a half. And that is the law. Yeah. Like I can't be like, so a lot of people have got like three and four jobs because nobody pays overtime. Like I pay my boys $12 an hour. So you think time and a half like $19 an hour. Fuck you. Yeah. That's a lot. And then, and then I'm charging like $15 for a burger and charging $10 for chicken wings and you're paying this get not even that I've got so we run with on a Saturday. We're on with five bodies When I first don't we used to run with seven, but now we're on with five Don't you imagine five guys on nineteen fucking dollars an hour? Absolutely and And then for the first two hours, you do nobody because nobody comes out to eat till seven o'clock. Yeah, so there's 200 bucks gone before you even start it's just sos so it's like we've got kind of adapting in in
00:25:31
Speaker
the whole culture in the UK where people, well chefs, they they'll go in at six in the morning and work till two in the morning, seven days a week, does not happen over here. It does not happen. And then with all these guys, we're doing four days, like sat beans are not introduced to four day work week and stuff. You still can't even do that over here. It's like 40 hours, anything over that, it's over time. There's no optout contract over there.
00:25:59
Speaker
Yeah, you can opt out of it. You have to by law, if they work 41 hours, that one hour is over time. By law. It's crazy, but they don't get any holidays. Don't they? No, no holidays. You have to work for a year before you even to get a week unpaid. I feel like that sucks for the employer and for the employee. Yeah, well, it's good and bad.
Work Culture: US vs UK
00:26:28
Speaker
It's good because I don't have to pee people not to work because there's no like, no, the the government in the UK, they take a certain percentage every, every check to to cover holidays. and They don't do that here. Yeah. Uh, my waiting staff, my serving staff, they're paid $2 15 an hour plus tips. Uh, the whole tip culture here. I can't touch tips. I can't mean there's, there's restaurants and there was a restaurant in San Antonio three months ago or four months ago. They actually got sued for like $30,000 because the manager, which was the owner, was taking a percentage of the tips and paying themself. So we had to pay all that back to all these employees. Yeah. The tip culture over here is fucking stupid, but it's $2.50 an hour plus tips. But when we first opened my restaurant, my servers were making $1,000 a week. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. So they can make a shit ton of money, but then they'll go some weeks and make 200 bucks. But, but if they really, really good servers can make $1,000 a week over here.
00:27:27
Speaker
That's intense. Like hands down, no problem. As long as you work in a decent restaurant, that's because tables of six, anything over six is 20% automatic tip. You know, it's already on the bill. It's just automatic automatic. And then they tip on top. So some of my server, yeah, some of my servers are getting 45% tips. Wow. Yeah. And I don't get 45% profit. You're looking like a 5% profit. So a server, if you're a good server, you can work two days, three days a week.
00:27:57
Speaker
and earn $600, $700, no problem. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. It's crazy. That's kind of, I don't know though. I don't know how I feel about the whole 40 hour a week thing. Like I know, I know a lot of people probably enjoy that, but surely there are some people that want to be earning more money, but they know that their boss is going to say no, cause they can't afford to pay them time. and enough So what they do is they have two jobs. So they actually want only per job.
00:28:25
Speaker
Yes, so it's 40 hours per job. It's not even that, it's 40 hours per employer. So like if I had three businesses, okay and it was all under the one LLC, it's same if they worked in the three businesses and they'd done 41 hours, I still have to pay overtime. Whereas if I have different business partners and different LLCs, like I've got the food trucks and they're a different LLC, the new restaurant, it's a different truck, I tell you all about that too.
00:28:54
Speaker
So if as long as it's under a different management, you don't have to pay overtime. So there's ways around it. But the problem is is is like but we only open for dinner. I don't open them for lunch. Waste of fucking time. It's too fucking hot. Everybody goes to Starbucks. They love drive-throughs over here. Drive-throughs make so much fucking money. like McDonald's, I think and think in like a mild radius, I've got like seven or eight McDonald's.
00:29:17
Speaker
No way. Yeah, it's like there's like one on the corner, the tent, and there's like two next to the restaurant. It's like they're everywhere. Like fast food drive-throughs make so much fucking money over here. Nobody wants to go out the car. They want to order shit on a app. They want to drive to pick up the coffee. They want to then drive to work. They go out the car, they go to work, they come back in the car. They want to drive, pick up the food on the way home, eat their food in their car. They want to, none of that, we could drive in movies. So you go to the movies, you say, you can't watch a fucking movie.
00:29:47
Speaker
The whole drive everywhere to see everything culture over here is crazy, crazy. McDonald's makes fucking so much fucking money over here, it's unbelievable. That's insane. Because it's all drive-thru. I mean, even though there's a new restaurant company, not a restaurant, sorry, coffee shop that opened. And I think they've been open like six months. They've already got, ah that I know of, they've got three locations already. Really? Because it's just constant, constant.
00:30:13
Speaker
Coffee's absolute fucking shite. I was going to ask that. No, it's absolute shit. It's fucking terrible. It's terrible. See, I've got like ah i've got a little routine. I've got quite bad ADHD. Okay. So I've got to have myself in a routine and do stuff at certain times and do stuff in certain ways. Otherwise it like completely fucking fucks up my whole day. So like I go, I don't know if you've been to Dunkin Donuts.
00:30:43
Speaker
No, I haven't. No. So I go to Dunkin Donuts every single day. yeah Yeah. I order the exact same thing. I get my, my, uh, my cold brew with sweet cold foam and I get my, my bagel with bacon. It comes with bacon, egg, and cheese. I'd say to the egg, all cause it tastes like shit. I just want sausage, bacon, and cheese on a bagel. And I eat that. And that's how I start my day. Every single day. And it cost me like 10 bucks.
00:31:12
Speaker
I feel like that's a lot. No, 10 bucks is about eight dollars ah about eight pounds. So that's the coffee is like this. It's like a fucking jug. It's huge. Everything seems so big. Like when you watch American TV shows, everything's huge. And I didn't know if that was just like a random... food The people... mean theres There is some big fucking people over here. Like Jesus fucking Christ.
00:31:40
Speaker
But I think the issue is not the food. So this is my theory on this, why people are are so obese and so fat in the United States, is the people that are obese and fat, it's usually the people with no money. So what they have to do is they have to buy cheaper food. But because the United States is so fucking huge, to feed that many people,
00:32:04
Speaker
things need to grow a lot faster. So they pump all the meat with fucking steroids and antibiotics to make them bigger. I think all that shit that they put in there in the cheap meat is then transferring over to humans and making people fucking super fat. I don't think it's because they eat a lot or they they have a lot of sugar. I think it's all this shit that they put in the cheap stuff to make them grow faster is making people fat over here. Do you think the food system over there is so broken?
00:32:34
Speaker
I don't think it's broken, but it's just, it's so vast. There's so many people and and there's so many people that want, they want stuff now. They don't want to wait for shit, right? Like if they come to the restaurant, I've i've got a system and in the restaurant that if they order appetizers, which I had to start call appetizers, they're the starters. It was fucking hard. that That was a hard transition because I'm like, what they happened for starters? And they're like, my staff just look at me like, what the fuck are you talking about?
00:33:04
Speaker
And I'm like, fuck appetizers, appetizers. But the whole... I've lost my funeral thought, sorry. People want things fast. Yeah, so what was I saying a minute ago? People want things fast. Yeah, so the whole, they'll come to the restaurant, I've got I say like five to 10 minutes appetizers on a table, 15 minutes max entrees, main courses are on the table. Uh, but you I'll drive past like water burger or McDonald's and some of these people may have it. I've done it. I've sat in a line for an hour nom waiting for a year for an hour. And it's like, it's not just me. It's it's two lines all the way. And the people that wait an hour for the fucking to go, but but because they're setting their car,
00:33:56
Speaker
It's not an issue. That's so bizarre. Yeah. But if they're sat in a restaurant, it's like I've ordered. I want it now. I want it now. So this whole, I want it right now culture is, is fucking huge over here. It's massive. I don't know if I could deal with that. You have to adjust. You have to adjust that.
Gun Ownership: A Cultural Comparison
00:34:15
Speaker
But I prefer the people in living over here that I do in the UK. Yeah. Yes. I think it has the, the both have,
00:34:26
Speaker
They both have good points and bad points. All the bullshit that you hear on the news of America and Mexicans and all this shit, it's all bullshit, right? It's all bullshit. I've lived in Mexico, I've lived in the United States. I mean, yes, we'll touch on the whole gun culture here. I mean, everybody outside the US thinks, well, they've all got guns. They all want to shoot up schools, and they want to do this. But if you look at it from a different point of view, so when I first came, I was like, I'd never get a fucking gun. I'd never get the gun. I'd never get it. I still don't have a gun.
00:34:57
Speaker
But I would buy a gun. Yeah? Yeah, I would buy a gun. But the simple fact is, imagine you're out in a restaurant with your partner and you're having a nice evening and some fucking maniac comes in and just starts fucking shooting everybody. I take my gun out, I shoot a gun. You can't do that in the UK. If somebody comes into the UK and starts shooting, you fuck, you're dead.
00:35:21
Speaker
So I see, no, I see the whole, I mean, there's fucking idiots everywhere. I mean, the whole, the whole shooting up in the school in Dublin and Scotland in the eighties, it kind of fucking right. That's it. Guns are banned and all this shit. I see the bad and I also see the good, you know, because what's the last night? If you were out with your partner and somebody came in and, or you're on a beach and somebody just starts fucking shooting somebody, would you not pull your gun out and just shoot the fucker? and That's it done. I think you've already had one.
00:35:49
Speaker
Exactly. So there's good points and bad points. It's strange. There's fucking idiots everywhere. You know what I mean? Like the whole knife crime in the UK is massive because it's huge. It's huge. It's fucking crazy. But would I own a gun? Yes, I fucking would. For the simple fact is if somebody, and it could be anybody,
00:36:18
Speaker
just went fucking low paying because everybody's got guns over here and just started fucking shooting then yeah I would pull out a gun and fucking shoot them to protect myself. Do you feel like that just because people have one though like I imagine you never felt like that in England? No no because because they have them in the UK they have people have guns in the UK gangs and people have guns in the UK if somebody wants to shoot you with a gun they'll shoot you yeah it's just not
00:36:47
Speaker
it's not as much as it is over here because they're so readily available. I think the whole culture of how to buy a gun needs to change, but but I would own one. But they just don't scream hard enough to people who are mentally unstable or If you keep the money out of your house, yes, it should be in a gun cabinet, but some people just put them in the drawers. That's where kids pick them up and kids fucking kill people. So I think the media kind of pushes it on the the negative side of all. I know it's kind of what a shit fucking short talk show. We're talking about guns, because it's the United States. But I think you guys need to know, you need to know, when your your listeners and your youre you're youre followers and everything who have never been to the United States, the gun culture.
00:37:38
Speaker
has good points and bad points but the only focus on the bad like i think i've been here like i don't know three or four schools have been shut up since i've i've moved here yeah but you remember there's 390 fucking million people living here ah yes absolutely you know and these the places that these happen are their little back neck fucking
00:38:04
Speaker
I'm not gonna say uneducated but they're uneducated in a way because they're so uneducated you know and I think the education system needs to adapt and needs to change before anything else is going to change and that's the whole world the whole world you know but yeah so guns are they're good and bad so we'll leave it at that To sum that up, guns are good and bad.
Behind the Scenes of The Final Table
00:38:32
Speaker
yeah um I wanted to ask a little bit, I know you're probably sick of talking about it, but I wanted to ask a little bit about your experience um on the final table with Netflix, because that's definitely how I discovered you. um I know I'm a little bit sort of behind the curb. I'm sure everybody else watched it well before me, but I definitely do not watch a lot of TV. So what how did you how did you start that process? How did you get onto it?
00:38:56
Speaker
So the final table, of the the production company hit me up in 2017, no, 2016. 2016, we started talking. They wanted to make this new show that's going to be the biggest and the most fucking expensive colour ratio ever made in the entire world. They wanted chefs from all over the world, they wanted guests from all over the world. Like to put it in perspective, this show, they spent Then it was just shy of $40 million dollars to make this show. So it's 4 million, 10 episodes, $4 million dollars an episode.
00:39:31
Speaker
feel yeah it's it's an and MasterChef for the whole the whole lot costs like a couple of hundred thousand. yeah So to our perspective, this show is fucking huge. It's a huge budget. Huge, huge. i my i mean So I know they were they were talking to like, and they're talking like tens of thousands of chefs. Like everybody who was anybody who was ever a chef,
00:39:53
Speaker
they spoke to. I'm sure you probably know people that were spoken to or heard of people from the UK that were spoken to. They were speaking to fucking everybody. ah So you go through the whole process. They contacted me on Instagram. I thought it was a joke. I was like, OK, fair enough. yeah Because I thought it was a scam. right No, no, it's not a scam. So we done you do the whole Zoom calls. You do the whole background checks. you do i think I've done like four Zoom calls back and forth. I'm setting it up.
00:40:21
Speaker
time in the UK was two in the morning. I was still in the yeah UK at this point. So they were doing, I'm doing, I'm just sitting there and I thought, right, fuck it. I'm sitting there just a chef jacket in this interview. Nothing else on. I thought, fuck it. I may as well make it fun. So obviously they couldn't see that part. So I thought for like three and four producers, uh, people that were spearing up for talent, it was just fucking crazy. Uh, and then they said, right, you're in.
00:40:50
Speaker
I was like, okay, we're gonna fly to LA. Right, okay, fair enough. And they actually set me up with a ah completely different partner. So my partner, yeah, it was a completely different guy. He was from the Congo. He was French. He was as black as well. This guy was like black as fuck, six foot seven fucking muscles like this. He was a monster of a guy, right? Yeah.
00:41:17
Speaker
He was a chef, he was a private chef. He'd worked all over like the Congo and the UK and France and stuff. So he it was he was quite a good chef for who he was. Never known the guy, never met the guy they set us up. Three days before I was to fly to LA, he phoned me. He's like, I can't go for granny. Something happens to his granny or something. So he couldn't go. I was like, fuck. So I contacted the the production team. They're like, no, fly over.
00:41:47
Speaker
I was like, fuck it, well, my ticket's booked, I may as well just go. So I flew over, got there, there's 48 different chefs. I mean, I'm talking chefs with like one, two, and three Michelin stars, fucking hats, fucking guys that have been in the business for like 40 years. And I thought these guys were like culinary icons that like like mark best at people all they look up to. And they're like, and then there's me. I'm like, what the fuck is going on here?
00:42:14
Speaker
well So Aaron, who was, eventually became my partner on the show, he worked Cafe Boulud. He was mission star. I had mission star for like, and Cafe Boulud was like 10 years running. He worked his way through up. He was executive chef there for, and he held it for like four or five years. It could be wrong, could be more. I was like, right, okay. But the whole culinary world is, it doesn't matter where you are. It's so fucking small, right? It's so vast, but it's so small.
00:42:46
Speaker
and And you either you're French trained, you're Italian trained, you're Japanese. So me and him were French trained. So the techniques that I knew, he knew. And the techniques that he knew, I knew. So it's like, I've never cooked with this guy ever in my entire life. But I say, I'm going to make pasta. I make pasta this way. He knows what I'm doing. If he's making a mousse, I know how he's making that. you know So we kind of gelled and worked together as a team.
00:43:16
Speaker
really well for people who didn't know each other. How much time did you have to get to know each other before it started filming? Three days.
00:43:26
Speaker
Three days. I got there, they're like, oh yeah, Aaron's in the lobby. I went down and he's like, you sat there and he's got his legs crossed and he's like, he's quite like precise. And you know what I mean? He's from, he's, he's living in New York for fucking years. You know what I mean? He's an American, a proper white American, you know?
00:43:45
Speaker
ah
00:43:48
Speaker
But his career had had taken him to, like, he'd worked with some of the best chefs in the United States. You know, Kathy Boulud, which is Daniel Boulud, who's, I mean, the first French chef to ever get a Michelin star in the United States. You know, his caliber is, is fucking up there. Yeah. And then there's me, you know? So it's like, it's like my, he's been taught by all these chefs and I'm like, but fuck, I'm self-taught, you know?
00:44:13
Speaker
So I didn't, I didn't work with high caliber chefs. I worked with one chef when I worked in ah Paul Heathcote's restaurant in Longridge, who came from Claddages, who was like, he was a Ramsey boy. But I don't know, I worked with him for nine months. Yeah. Everything else that I've done to get the star, to get my results, to get my awards, to get everything is all self-taught.
00:44:35
Speaker
you know, 100% self-talk. I've got the basics and then I just adapted and learned new things and pushed myself and pushed myself. Like I was working like, I was working like a hundred hours a week, you know, in the theatre seat at a restaurant, you know, for four years. Did you feel a little bit of imposter syndrome then when you sort of met him and knew where he'd come from? No, because I don't give a fuck. I'm one of these people that I don't really follow other people.
00:45:04
Speaker
So like, if people are like, Oh my God, Brad Pitts, I give a fuck. I don't care. You know, I'm not going to be like, I need to go and speak to him. I need to go and touch people. I mean, I'm not like that. I'm like, yeah everybody's got a place in their industry for, whether it's chefs or actors or actors or and that's their job. You know, so as, as a chef, it's, yeah, it's your job, you know? So you just take what you can from other people to learn new things. And this is where,
00:45:34
Speaker
where I think a lot of chefs go wrong is they they all want to be fucking superstars. Yeah. And I've been there and I've touched it and I've done TV shows and don't pay no money. right There's not a lot of Gordon Ramsay's out there and Jamie Oliver's who makes so much fucking money. This, this industry, there's fucking millions and millions of chefs and cooks who just love to cook, but they get minimum wage or they get shit money.
00:46:03
Speaker
yeah But that's that's why you get into this industry. you Don't enter this industry if you want to be a fucking celebrity because it's not going to fucking happen. That is it. It does not. You might get a little break. and I mean, i've got I've got a few TV shows coming out this year and next year. But it's it's how I use them TV shows to then bring me business in my restaurant. That's what it's about. It's not it's not about, oh, I'm going to go and do a TV show and they're going to pay me millions of dollars a year. Don't fucking happen.
00:46:33
Speaker
It didn't happen. You don't make any pocket money, but it's how you use that publicity and how you use that to then drive how you make sales in your restaurant and how you perceive, how you, how you come across to people, how you, how you make your life better from a little tiny me little blip in your life that you've done something, you know, like you, like you've done master chef. Yeah. You know,
00:47:03
Speaker
They don't pay you fucking money. A MasterChef is its fucking hard with it, you know? ah Did they take your phones off you and everything? You're not allowed to speak to people? Did they do all that? Yeah, I mean, we're all in a room together, but they take your phones off you. It's all very secretive. And yeah it and then you can't say nothing. You've got to sign shit. it's it It's not a glamorous life. But when it comes out and it explodes and you write, OK, how the fuck can I use it? Because I want you to film it like six months, a year prior.
00:47:32
Speaker
ah Yeah, that's six months. Yeah, we finished filming end of July So six months prior you filmed all you can't say fuck all you can't do nothing <unk> was so hard yeah The final out table it took a year a whole year So we finished filming in the in 2017 with I went out I was there for six weeks in filming. Yeah six weeks filming the boy the the ones who were there for the final they said seven weeks and They paid us $50 a day. Nice. The food was fucking terrible. You'd have to go up at six in the morning, and you were still filming at two in the morning, like six days a week. That's crazy. Yeah, it was crazy. The first episode took three days to film. Wow. And then when they've done done episode one when they're judging, and you see that the the judge, the three the three judges, well, three celebrities, not fucking judges, three celebrities.
00:48:32
Speaker
walk down. That took about nine to ten hours to film. Why? Because it's 12 stations up to 24 chefs in 12 stations and they've got to film, right, we want this angle and that angle, we want this from that, from here, from there. See that again, see this again. yeah So you've got, but you've got to stand there and wait your turn and then when it goes somewhere, you've got to stand the same just in case you come in the shot. So yeah, it was But it's not definitely not as glamorous as people think it is, is it? No, but it's how you use it. Yeah. So the main thing is you've got to make it work for yourself because mean even like like like like the whole MasterChef, who won MasterChef 2012? I have no idea. Exactly. So you've got such a small timeframe to use it. So yes, they show these shows are are great, but they're also bad.
00:49:26
Speaker
Yeah. These shows are great because when you're on, even if you're on the show for one episode, it is better than being on for no episodes. Absolutely. You know, it it lifts your career. It gives you people, people then get to see you and see how you come across and how you act and how you present yourself. The cooking doesn't really fucking matter.
00:49:45
Speaker
I mean, it does matter for the competition, but for the people, for the the the audience watching you on the TV show, it's how you talk, it's how you act, it's how you perceive, because they're either going to like you or they're going to fucking hate you. Exactly. They're like, well, why the fuck did you do that? Why did you do that? Like, if I was on that show, I would do it this week. Oh, I got a lot of that. It's like, mate, all right, I'm your expert. Calm down. yeah it
00:50:13
Speaker
sorry That's all right. The whole sitting at home watching somebody on TV and think, I can do better, full of shit. When you're on there and you've got six cameras. in mean I mean, I done Great British Men. You buy way back in 2015. So that was my first big TV show. And even that, you you fuck up stuff. You fuck up so much stuff that you think, why the fuck did I fuck that up? the But because the pressure is it's not like cooking in your own kitchen. Absolutely not.
00:50:45
Speaker
And you don't know what you've got to do. Whereas if you go, no, I'm going to design a new dish. I'm going to take like a week. I'm going to go through it. Okay. We'll try it. this youll try it's like nope This is what you got to do. Do it. Yeah. You've got 10 minutes to think about it. And then you've got, yeah you know, maybe an hour to execute it. and Have fun. yeah was Yes, it doesn't. It's, it's all good. And if I need to sit there and go, I could fucking do better. And bro, you can't. It's, it's, it's what you've got to do at that moment. But I see the cooking doesn't matter. It's how you,
00:51:15
Speaker
how you come across on the show to people who want entertained and then you do a tv show you do it you do have that to be entertained you know you want to watch something because you enjoy watch you're not going to watch it go i'm gonna pick up some tips on how to cook how to make this and how to just not put it's part you want to see people fuck up you want to see people get like cut the self you want to see people ruin something and then come back and fix it because it's entertaining.
00:51:45
Speaker
um thanks leave me mess up don't worry and well i I've got a show coming out next year and I win it. It's a massive fucking huge TV show. This has been running. I've not even announced it yet because I'm not allowed, but this TV show has been running for about 20 years and it comes out in March and about it I filmed it like six months ago and I win it, but I fuck up my fish and I fuck up my meat. ah that Yeah. I under cook my fish and I overcook my meat. Uh, and I'm not saying the TV show it is, but they give you a box and it's a load of fucking weird ingredients and you've got to kind of bring it together and make something in 20 minutes. So that's coming out next year. Uh, we'll talk about it when I stop recording. Yeah. But that's, that's, that's a fucking, that's a cool show to be on. That's kind of like the ultimate
00:52:37
Speaker
If you want to be on a show in the United States, you've got to be on this channel. And the one that's coming out in the 27th of September, 24th of September, I've got one coming out. I didn't do very well. from going From the final table to this, I did not do very well at all. ah But i was I was cooking with chefs that had been on this TV channel for a minimum of 10 years. These guys have done multiple shows like Beat Bobby Flay, they've done great Guy's Grocery Grahams, they've done Chopped, they've done i <unk> done a lot of high profile shows yep and then they brought me into the mix. So these guys all know how to do shit and I'm just like, what the fuck am I gonna do here? This is like this is like this is my first
00:53:29
Speaker
basically one of my first cooking shows that i've done since the final table but it got my foot in the door it got my foot in the door which i planned to do i didn't win it uh but that's not the point i got my foot in the door i got my character out because you gotta have a character either way and you got what you wanted out of it yeah i know it's going to lead to bigger things even although i fucked up so people are going to watch me like ah this guy's a fucking idiot
00:53:56
Speaker
but it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. You get to see my faces on the TV. It's on Food Network and Max. It's up there with the biggest, the biggest culinary TV channel in the United States. Millions of people watch this show. It's not as big as Netflix and Netflix all over the world, but as a culinary producer, like show producer in the United States, I've got my foot in the door and that's what I wanted. That's massive. I know, so that's that's cool. So that's coming out, it's called Last Bite Hotel. It's got a comedian, he's the he's the the hotel manager, it's very spooky, very Halloween based, it's very
00:54:43
Speaker
It's very out there. It should be shot in Yonkers in New York. I don't know if you've ever seen the series The Witcher, or The Watcher, sorry, The Watcher. So they use the same set as The Watcher. So it's that house, so it's very old and spooky and creaky and ghosts.
00:55:04
Speaker
you get 13 items in this box and like you've come out of the middle of nowhere and it's it's like you've got 13 items and you've got to cook for these special guests yeah you know but you're only allowed to use what you've brought so like if you didn't bring salt you got salt if you didn't bring eggs you got eggs oh my god i would be useless it's what you've got uh so i didn't do very well on that one but i did it you know but I would forget the main ingredient, 100%. Well, one of the chefs didn't even bring a protein. Oh, no. and she And she's like, I didn't bring a protein. And I'm like, what the fuck? If I've got beans and stuff, and I'm like, ah, fuck. She's not better than me. Oh, I can relate to that girl. That'd be me, 100%. So it's very, you can you can sit at home and be like, you can judge people. but
00:56:00
Speaker
until you actually do these shows it's it's it's fucking hard work. Oh mate it's so stressful like when I walked in for my skills test I like pretty much forgot how to make an anglaise sauce like in that moment you're like I've got 20 minutes to make a fucking apple tartata and a calvros anglaise sauce and then you just you just freeze and you're like oh fuck how do I make an anglaise?
00:56:22
Speaker
Like I've made non glaze a million times and I like, don't get me wrong. I made it and I did okay. But in that moment, you're like, Oh my God. And before, before I'd ever done anything on TV, I remember like binge watching some previous seasons just to make sure I knew what happened. And I saw this poor guy forget how to make a hollandaise. And in that moment, you're just like, how do you forget how to make a hollandaise?
00:56:44
Speaker
And then you get on there and you're like, oh yeah, that's how you forget how to make a holiday. Exactly. So so the way that you the way that you used say, the how did you do that? You're watching people. That's how people, that's how the viewing audience opinionate to you. But a lot of people then, they take their opinions and then they attack you. And they send shit to you on social media and it's like, fuck off, bro.
00:57:04
Speaker
I think you have to be ready for that though, if you're going to do anything on TV. You've got to take the good and the bad. There's nothing you can do. I don't give a fuck. People can say whatever they want to be. I don't care. I just delete them. I don't care. If somebody writes a comment, it's like, oh my God, you're a dick. Yeah, bro, I'm a dick. My staff think I'm a dick. I don't care. I'm not here to be your friend. I'm not here to be your friend. I'm here to do a job and I'm here to work and build a business and make money and look after my family. And that's it. I don't give a flying fuck what you say. I don't care.
00:57:35
Speaker
But let them see it, let them have their two minutes. It's fine, you know. Did you have an overall good experience on the final table then? You glad you did it? Yeah. Loved it. I mean, it opened so many doors and that was the idea. It wasn't about the winning. It was, it was like, I was one of 24 chefs in the entire fucking world on this. The ultimate, ultimate culinary TV show ever made. You know, I don't even think they're making another one.
00:58:01
Speaker
You know, um that's because i say the same production crew, they they do the master shape over here. They do all that over here. to say It's the same company, but they've not gone back to do it because it's cost so much money. that' kind theys afford Netflix was the only platform that could buy it. yeah And if Netflix weren't like, these guys didn't even like, they're making it, but Netflix might buy it. They might not buy it.
00:58:28
Speaker
so they don't know but then they won they won emmys for it they won loads of awards for it i mean it's like but i say they do all these culinary do all the cultures they say they do the master chef they do that it's the same production crew it's the same culinary crew as it's everything for all the shows that you see these guys do it all you know whether it's because he's subcontracted okay we sell to netflix we sell to max we sell the food network we sell to this one we sell the fox we do but it's the same people you know uh but there were the people that There was five executives up in the box all filming and there was, I must have been about 150 or 200 staff. Jesus. Yeah. When you walked in, it was the third biggest lock in Sony Studios. So we filmed at Sony and it's the same studio they shot Spider-Man in. So it's like a huge, lot huge massive. And you walk in, did you walk in? They didn't let us see the
00:59:28
Speaker
the actual stage until we walked in on the first time. So when you walk in, when you walk in on episode one, when it's me and Aaron first to walk in, which is fucking awesome. So you walk in on episode one, that is our first time seeing this stage. And it's just fucking crazy. I bet it was mind bowing. It was huge, huge. And then on episode one, we weren't allowed to use Thermomix because they never paid to be in the show. They're like, yeah, we've got them, but you cannot use them. Like, OK? Cheers. I think they paid like a million dollars just to to have their product line on there. Fair enough. Fair enough. It's fucking, it's just mind-blowing, mind-blowing how expensive it is. But it was cool. It was fun. Do you still talk to the people that you met on there? I think um ah I was talking to Mark West, Mark Best, like,
01:00:26
Speaker
last week, who takes a couple of bits. But everybody's just so busy, you know, that's the problem. It's like, it's like um he's got three restaurants now in Houston, Mark's traveling. A lot of people have like open restaurants, closed restaurants, travel, living in the UK now from South Africa or living in Amsterdam. But you know how it is, everybody's just super fucking em busy. I mean, even like me, like ah I came here, I've got a restaurant, and I did mention earlier, I took on a food truck.
01:00:55
Speaker
Yeah, we'll get into that. I'm excited to hear about that. Yeah. But everybody's just everybody's just so busy. Yeah. And that's it. It's not as good. I mean, it's good to be busy. But it's it's hard as a chef to like step back and be like, right, I need to relax. Because you just can't relax. You just constantly, what's next? What's next? What's next? What's next? Always. Always. Yeah. I don't think we'll ever learn. No, I think I'll do it till the day I would die on the pass.
01:01:25
Speaker
I don't want to. my my My idea is to build my my empire up till I'm 50. I'm 41 now. So nine years, build up this empire and then sell the fucker for like hundreds of millions, sell it all, or tens of millions, whatever the fuck, and then just retire. Where are you going to retire? I don't fucking know. I don't know. That's nine years away problem. Yeah, I know. And I'll get to nine years and be like, wow, I'm still here.
New Ventures: Food Truck and Creativity
01:01:57
Speaker
So tell me about your food truck. What's going on with that? That sounds really exciting. So we bought a food truck probably about two weeks ago, a week ago. So I've just bought it. It's 2005. It's got everything in inside. I'm wrapping it all and making it look fucking cool. So we, my wife, who does all the the social media sites, she actually got in contact with, they do like a lot of big haunted houses over here.
01:02:25
Speaker
So there's a haunted house caught and it's this year they're doing Texas Chainsaw Massacre. So you're talking 30, 6, 7, 1,000 people come to this haunted house. Wow. Yeah. The haunted house, like the whole Halloween scene in the United States is fucking massive. They've got decorations up in their lawns right now.
01:02:48
Speaker
No, really? Yeah, right now, yeah. There's people with fucking skeletons and scary shit in their fucking gardens right now. Halloween in the United States is a huge business, huge, huge. So they've got this, these guys bought this house, it's all this fuck i down a dark lane, there's no lights, there's no fuck all turned into this haunted house. So they do, they bring in actors and they, it's all spooky and scary and and they're like,
01:03:18
Speaker
we need somebody to do food. So the contact, my missus contacted them last year. She, they then got contacted this year and they're like, okay, we want you to do it. I was like, fuck, how do we do it? How do you get a food truck? So we the beauty of it, the amount of money that it's going to make for the event is going to pay for the food truck. So that's the plan. So it's like, I've got an investor who's,
01:03:46
Speaker
We're actually looking to open it another restaurant. As that looked, we've been approached by this. Do you want to use some of the money for the restaurant to buy a food truck? We'll get it back in a month. We'll spend 30, 35 grand on it. Get it all done back. Get the money back. Get it back in the bank. We've got another business and of course there's nothing. It's a month of hard work. He's like, yep, let's go. So we've done that. I bought the truck. I'm going to do that up. It's nearly furnished.
01:04:14
Speaker
It's fucking cool. It's basically a kitchen on fucking wheels. It's got the extraction. It's got the fire. It's got a fucking flat top. It had a four burner. It's gonna have a fryer in it. It's got a three compartment sink. It's got a hand wash sink. It's got fridges and freezers. It's basically a fucking mobile kitchen. That's it. And you drive it. It's 27 feet long.
01:04:35
Speaker
so it's ah It's a big boy. It's a big one. ah But it's fucking cool.
01:04:43
Speaker
What are you going to do out of it? So I'm going to do street food. Keep it basic. You know, I'm going to do Mexican street corn. I'm going to do hot dogs, but we're going to turn it into like a, we're going to make it all spooky. So the hot dogs are going to have like fucking glow in the dark cheese on top. You know, the big the dark cheese, food coloring and lasers.
01:05:05
Speaker
yeah So we we got, she went and bought like a smoke machine that does, it's like a bubble smoke machine. So we're going to put it outside the truck and we'll bought lasers outside. So then you put the the smoke through a, through like a nice chest. It keeps the smoke low. So it's like you're walking through the swamp and stuff. So, and then my black lights and that outside, so everything glows in the dark and shit. So, so we're making it kind of, it's a whole different,
01:05:33
Speaker
fucking idea but it needs to work we're gonna get like they get they they call them we call them Chris they call them chips and then they'll put like the nacho cheese sauce in there and like fucking chamoy or fucking tahine or something in it we'll go do all that all street food that's it I'm just do street food super fucking easy you come up you order you get your order you go away you eat that's it yeah I'm not fucking about wait 15 minutes. No, that's it. This is what it is. Oh, get it or get the fuck. That's it. You can't do it with that many people anyway. yeah It needs to be super fast. It's going to be me. One of the boys in the kitchen have a wife. That's it. Three of us, five, 600 people a day need to be fucking back. But I'm also going to put my little twists on it. Yeah. You know, so it's going to be the sauce is going to be made right. The tortilla chips are going to be fucking cooked there and then rather than buy the bags.
01:06:25
Speaker
it's It's just elevating what they know to make it a little bit better. Yeah, it's still keeping it approachable though, because like you you don't want to, like you said, reinvent the wheel. It needs to be something that people know and people don't want to order, but it doesn't mean it doesn't have to be done well. Exactly, exactly. And that's how it is. If you go do a burger, do a fucking good burger.
01:06:46
Speaker
Don't just, oh, I'm gonna make burgers and fucking you shit meat and shit and don't season it and don't put any love into it and just be like, oh, fuck it, there you go. That's that's not what it's about. Cooking, when I was touring Mexico, I always i always said to to to the students, it doesn't matter what the fuck you cook. They're all like, but I want to be on TV and I don't want to be finding it. I said, that doesn't fucking matter. I said, look at the tackle guy on the street. I said, if he sells shit tacos, are you going to buy them? No.
01:07:15
Speaker
but you do buy them because they're good because he gives a fuck. So it doesn't matter whether it's tacos or burgers or fucking turbot or fucking caviar or fucking lobster or whatever the fuck. Cook it That's it. Cook it right. And that's all you got to do. You don't need to go and chase fucking Michelin stars and all this bullshit. I mean, yeah, they're great and they're they've got a place and they've got a purpose and it's fucking awesome to get one.
01:07:45
Speaker
But I could tell you right now, there's restaurants out there that don't have a Michelin star that are far fucking busier and make fucking so much more money than restaurants or Michelin stars. Absolutely. I think it's a bit of a trap that sometimes people fall into. this sir Because your overhead costs are fucking huge. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, can you tell me right now what is the one of the most successful food businesses in the entire world? McDonald's. McDonald's.
01:08:14
Speaker
They make like five million dollars a minute. Yeah. A fucking minute. So they all can. They all can turn around. They eat. My dad's like fucking McDonald's. It's shit. Yeah, it's shit. But it has a place. Absolutely. Everything has a place. Finding the restaurants have a place. Fast food restaurants have a place. Taco restaurants. Everything has a place. Because people want a diverse of everything. But you're not going to eat a fucking five hundred dollar meal every single day of the week. No.
01:08:44
Speaker
You might go once every six months. You might go once every six months, but everything's got its place. So to say something shit is, is I think it's wrong. I hate, I hate fucking Yelp. I hate TripAdvisor. I hate all these fucking stupid. I'm going to write a customer review fucking apps. They are the worst fucking things that have ever been invented for our industry. It it turns people into fucking food critics. Yes, I agree. And all these, well, I have an influencer because I like to eat. Fuck you. ah How the fuck have you got an opinion that's like, I've seen, I've seen trip advisors and influencers who go to like three Michelin star restaurants and they're like, it wasn't that good. Fuck you. A Michelin inspector has granted that guy three Michelin fucking star. It is the pinnacle of
01:09:39
Speaker
every fucking accolade in the entire fucking world. And you're like, well, I don't like it. Fuck off! Fuck off. Keep your opinion to yourself. I just think platforms like that can sometimes be really, really damaging. um And you know people people read them before they go out to yeah to go for a meal. And people who maybe don't know that much about restaurants, they use that platform to see what other people think. And I think that sometimes when people put their unsolicited opinion on there, they might have just been having a bad day. It might not have been anything about the meal, but they don't even know that. It's really damaging.
01:10:16
Speaker
exactly you know and it's I think it's wrong and I think all these trip advisors and Yelp but I mean I fell out with Yelp here because they were putting reviews up on people that never even been to the restaurant I had a I had a one-star review on Yelp because we had this guy coming for a trial shift and we didn't give him a fucking job so he put a one-star review because we didn't hire him because he was shit Can you contest that? Yeah, but it's it's up to them whether they take it down or not because it's the whole free speech. That's really tough. They just need to to make it.
01:11:00
Speaker
Yes, it is good for people that go and and if you want to go to and it's like, oh, it's fucking amazing and you tell everybody, oh, yeah, it's amazing. But people don't. People like to complain. We like to say, say, oh, shit, I'm going to tell everybody we fucking shit. But if it's good, we keep our mouth shut. And that's the problem. It's so down. I don't even look at my reviews anymore. I don't give a fuck. You go on and write a review. I go look at it.
Stories of Customer Encounters
01:11:27
Speaker
I actually had one guy when we opened a restaurant. I had a restaurant when I first came here called Rosemani.
01:11:33
Speaker
And he was a fucking billhead, like total billhead. And he came in and they they booked the chefs. We had like a chef's table. It was like 10 seats, but they booked for like 12 or 15. And so we couldn't accommodate it. And he's like, I'm going to write a Yelp review. So I like, fuck it. You know what? I'm going to, I'm going to fucking work on this guy a little bit here.
01:11:52
Speaker
gave him like a fucking house bottle of champagne, and of course it was like fucking 10 bucks, set up at 60. You know, so we gave him a bottle of house champagne, he's drinking it, he's having fun, I went over and spoke to him, hi, how you getting on? I said, look, I know we had all this shit in that. Put it all behind you, he'd done the 10 course tasting menu. End of it, he's like, oh, I fucking loved it, it was so good, it was amazing. I said, good, I said, are you gonna write a yelp review? He's like, yeah, I said, good, because I'll never fucking read it. And I walked out of the restaurant. Because I just don't care.
01:12:22
Speaker
I don't give a fuck, you know? But in that same week, I had a woman that brought, she had, she came in for three days and brought me 20 odd fucking people from our family. And they all had the 10 course tasting menu for three days at $200 a person. Oh my God. Yeah. So and like I've got my regulars at the restaurant, right? I've got this guy that comes in all the time, right? And he, he orders scallops and a burger. He'll have that four days a week, scallops and a burger. I know it's a bit strange how a restaurant sells scallops and they sell a burger, but this kind of what we do. So a lot of scallops have calamari and a burger. This guy drives $200,000 cars. yeah yeah He has got so much fucking money. He doesn't have to eat a $15 burger. He doesn't have to eat
01:13:11
Speaker
fuck Our calamari is insanely good though. Nobody can do any better than my calamari. We charge 16 bucks for it. We cook it for 45 seconds. It's super fucking crispy. It's soft in the middle. It's fucking awesome. Comes with tartar sauce. Super simple but super good. like like Nobody can touch it. no I hate when you go out and it's like it's like fucking chewy. yeah and and horrible and cooked to the fucking end of his life. He could get 45 seconds to drop it, 30 seconds to lift it up, then it's set for 15 seconds, back down for 15 seconds, send it. That's how we do it. People fucking love it. That's fucking awesome. But it's simple. It's just simple food done right. So I said, this guy comes in, he's fucking loaded, right? he just I just seen him on the idea. He's like, oh, good to see him. I kind of stepped away from the restaurant to do other stuff.
01:14:04
Speaker
He's like, I'm not seeing you. I was like, you bought a new car. He's saying, these brand new Porsche. It must be like 180 grand, this car. And I was like, like my new my new car attacked my food truck. I got this old fucking beat up 2005 food truck. He's like, ah, it's fucking cool. But he's just a normal guy. yeah So money, I think money is just, it kind of changes people sometimes. But then sometimes you get the odd good ones that come in and they like to just have good food it done right and doesn't matter about the price.
01:14:32
Speaker
you know Yeah. I think that's what we love the most as chefs though, isn't it? Just people that love food. Like we don't care if you're the wealthiest person around. We just want you to enjoy it. Yes. That's it. That's it. I had this philosophy and I was in the fine dining. I had this philosophy, which I thought was quite cool. So.
01:14:53
Speaker
the the The diners, they usually work nine to five. They don't work in the industry. People that go out to eat do not work in the industry because we don't fucking go out to eat. right It's very rare that we go out to eat because we just don't have the time. And then we've got time off. We just sit and do fuck all or watch TV or relax or if you even get a chance. So the people go out at nine to five. So the way I see it is they go, they get up in the morning, they might fucking argue with their partner or whatever.
01:15:21
Speaker
And they come out, they go to work, they've got a shit day at work because working 95 is fucking dumb shit. I don't know why anybody does it. Just work 24 hours, that's the best way to do it. ah So they they'd get home, they find a shit day, their boss has been at them, they've all fallen out or whatever. They come out to the restaurant. And it's like the rest of their life doesn't exist. So they come in from the moment they walk through that door until they leave.
01:15:53
Speaker
their problems are gone, their worries. It's just like, how can I put it? It's like they're in a different world. And that's the way I see when I've done the whole find. Even the restaurant I've got right now, they come out for that two hours or three hours or however long they're there, they can forget about their shit.
Challenges and Joys of the Culinary World
01:16:13
Speaker
And by the time they leave, this is funny, by the time they leave, they wanna go home and fuck each other.
01:16:21
Speaker
You know, because the experience, it kind of, you forget all the shit and all the problems and all the worries. and that's the way I see cook it. I think there's something very special about it though don't you think like you come out you're trusting somebody with your money that they're gonna look after you you've got waiters you've got similiars you've got bartenders you've got chefs behind there you've got all of these people looking after you all of these people bringing you exactly what you've asked for you know and I think it's a very very
01:16:53
Speaker
sort of It's a very privileged and unique experience when you really think about it to be able to take somebody out of their world for a little bit, regardless of whether it's a three Michelin star restaurant or a bistro or whatever. like We're all doing the same thing essentially. We're giving people that little reprieve and Literally, they get exactly what they ask for, hopefully. um And it just takes their mind off everything else for a little while. They relax. yeah You physically see people's shoulders drop and you see them relax into it. And it's, I just think there's something really magical about it. That's good. Yeah, exactly. That's it. You know, you want to kind of forget your problems and be like, fuck this shit. They should have wine and food and top shit for two hours. Yeah.
01:17:37
Speaker
you We need to do that more.
Cooking at Home: Love or Hate?
01:17:40
Speaker
We have to do that more as chefs, right? Fuck me, I wish. Fuck I eat, I'm like, I'm finished, let's go.
01:17:48
Speaker
yeah She's like, I'm just starting, I'm like, I'm done. It's probably half cold by the time you get to it as well. Yeah, I know, I know, it's crazy. I hate cooking at home as well. Oh really? I hate it. I'm the opposite, I love it. The spies, the spies cooking at home. Because then you go like, and the I don't fucking have any. I've got loads of shit. I don't have what I need. you know I think I'm the officer. I like to cook at home because, you know, like you're cooking all day and there's so much time pressure and you're always in the shit and you're always trying to make sure everything's ready for somebody else. And then on the odd occasion, when I get to cook at home, like, mate, I'll take fucking four hours to make a bolognese sauce. I take my time. I love it. i love then My phone just blows up and I've got like 16 staff and they're just constant.
Kitchen Dynamics: Teamwork and Respect
01:18:37
Speaker
but yeah it said But the whole industry side of it, the cooking and kitchens and that is, I fucking love it. I love the buzz and I love the excitement and I love ah just love fucking shouting at people. you know there's something There's something crazy when you're in this shit and everybody's fucking like, hurry the fuck up. you know And i don't I don't take any shit from anybody. like my staff like My staff have all been with me now.
01:19:05
Speaker
One guy, he's a year. We've been doing it for a year. Other ones are like six months, seven months. We stick with me for a while. We weed out the dickheads. There's a lot of fucking dickheads in this industry that come in and they think, they're like, yes, I'm an executive chef because I've just left culinary school. Nah, bro, you don't know what the fuck you're doing. Go wash your dishes. That's it. Even my dishwasher, I respect the fuck out my dishwasher. Absolutely. My dishwasher, he will power through fucking 130 cover fucking service in four hours by himself. You know, the guys like immense. So the
Restaurant Management Realities
01:19:40
Speaker
dishwasher deserve as much respect as the fucking executive chef or whoever the fuck ah they deserve so much fucking respect because if that guy doesn't show up, I got to do the fucking dishes and I do the fucking dishes. So this guy, we we pay him good. We, we look after him. He
01:19:57
Speaker
and wait if we do I've got a thing if we do over, if we do over a certain amount of money and on service, I'll give all the boys a beer, so it's, they graft their ass off, you know? And they understand the ups and the downs and the slow season and fucking, and the fucking tax man's on your fucking ass or fucking rents on your ass and you're like fucking juggling money to try and pee everybody in fucking shit.
01:20:20
Speaker
Don't open a restaurant. I feel like this whole this whole episode is just saying don't open a restaurant. Nah, it's good, but it's not the lavish lifestyle that everybody thinks when you're just a chef. When you're just a chef, you've got to worry about your section, whereas you own the fucker. You've got to worry about, is there money to pay everybody? Has anybody paid? I think I paid. Oh, I can't come in today because my dog's sick. in the So I've got no bartend. Who the fuck's going to be the bartender?
01:20:52
Speaker
Then you walk in, he plays his shit all night. Why the fuck have you not tidied up? Sorry, he didn't mean to. What the fuck? It's constant management, isn't it? Oh, it's consistent. I'm consistently kicking my chefs and my fucking manager's ass every fucking day. you know Because they're quite young. My my chef's 23 and my manager's 19. Yeah, it's a young team. it's My team is very young. I'm the oldest.
01:21:23
Speaker
they're all younger than me. so ah But I like that. I like young people in the kitchen yeah because they can take a little bit of shit. so This new generation can't, but the guys that I've got, they can't. And they just kind of get used to me. and And go back to when we were talking about when I was in Mexico and I had no money in everything so and And I mentioned I've got like a sign above my pass and the sign says, fucking believe in yourself. Right.
01:21:50
Speaker
It's it's five foot by four feet in fucking neon letters blue neon and fucking orange
Cultural Sensitivity and Language Perception
01:21:56
Speaker
neons. This is fucking believing yourself and the amount of people that take photos of My sign when they come in It's unbelievable. Yeah, but then you also get there ah I'll tell you a funny story about that saying actually so last week I had had a customer come in right they were white and Just putting it out there, I fucking hate white people. ah Okay, coming from me. So, we came in and they seemed a little bit funny. I was i was walking outside in the food truck and they seemed a little bit funny. like She was wearing, one of the the women, she was wearing like a church dress and the other one was wearing like white leggings. They were an older couple.
01:22:45
Speaker
thought they were quite well to do. So they came in, ordered a bottle of wine, and then my staff came out. I'm like, oh, fuck. My manager and I sit, and they run outside. Oh, they're complaining. They want to speak to you. I'm like, oh, fuck. I'm covering oil and grease and for loads of shit, you know? yeah So I was like, fuck it, right. So when I wash my hands, I'm going, hi, I'm Graham. How's the media? Nice to meet you. what What seems to be the problem? We find your sign offensive.
01:23:15
Speaker
who I was like, okay, so I took the whole back, I was like, you know what, this is this is why I have the word fucking believing yourself above my kitchen, the whole story about Mexico and everything that I'd done, and I and was sat on a beach and I had nothing, and I was like, I want to fucking end everything, birthday and I was, and I said, you should fucking believe in yourself, because if you don't, who does? Well, why can't I just say believe in yourself? I said, because where I'm from in Scotland, fuck is the word for everything, right?
01:23:43
Speaker
the Every second word is fuck used in some fucking context. In Australia as well. Yes. So I was like, I was like, well, it makes it stronger. If you say fucking believing yourself and just believing yourself, no fucking believe you. It's stronger. It gives people a sense of like, if it makes somebody smile or gives them a little bit of purpose or it sticks in their head one day that they're like, well, I should fucking believe in myself. Then it worked.
01:24:13
Speaker
She's like, well, i'm I'm offended and I'm very well known. I'm sorry, I don't know who you are. And they're like, you know what, I'm getting sorry. I'm just going to leave. I was like, OK, leave. I'm fucked. I don't want your money if you're not happy. Leave. I'm not forcing you to come and eat in this restaurant. I've been open two years. You've never been in once. I don't give a fuck. Leave. Right. So then the other one stood up. She goes, and you're ready for this. She goes, here what if you had a Nazi symbol on the wall?
01:24:43
Speaker
I said, you're comparing the word fucking to the fucking Nazi symbol. Whoa. I was like, yeah, I was like, I'm sorry, but the whole Nazi regime and all the shit that they done. and And I said, she would finally find a fence. I said, fucking right. They would. I said, they killed millions of people. I was like, it's a word. This is fucking and you're compared. I was like, she's like, she's like, God bless you. I said, don't fucking God bless me.
01:25:14
Speaker
I'm a good Christian. leader I said, well, I'm an atheist. I said, I don't believe in God. I said, you've got your bet. I've got my bet. I don't care. Just leave.
Importance of Training and Skill Development
01:25:22
Speaker
That is weird. Yeah, I know. How the fuck can you compare the swastika to fucking the word fucking believe in yourself? That's so, so odd. Yeah, I know. People are people. I don't want to say it, but I feel like that wouldn't happen outside of America, though. Like that sounds like such an American thing to say, don't you think?
01:25:44
Speaker
blocking white people.
01:25:48
Speaker
Are they as sensitive to swearing over there as what they sound like? Yeah, I can't say cunt. Okay, right. Can't say it. I say it all the time and my actual, my my staff now actually speak very similar to how I do now. So they've picked up a lot of words and a lot of slang that I used to use that they still use that they use though.
01:26:09
Speaker
yeah Like they all say dog shit. and If something's bad, it's dog shit. This is fucking dog shit, man. But I never praise my staff. I mean, i i I do, but I don't, in a way, guess and be like, oh my God, that I can really... No, you've got to... if i'm not If I'm not on their ass, they're not learning, like okay?
01:26:34
Speaker
So you come and you work for me, you wanna learn. You wanna be better, you wanna do better than yourself, you wanna get, work with me two, three, four, or five years, whatever it is, and then you want to move on, open your own place or move on and and be a head chef somewhere else or or move on and take what you've learned, how I've taught you to better yourself. I ain't gonna wrap you in cotton wool. It's just not gonna fucking happen. If you're a dick, I'm gonna tell you you're a fucking dick, but it's not a dick because of who you are, it's because you're not doing what I've showed you right Yeah. And I think, especially the younger generation nowadays, they've lost the respect for people who actually give a flying fuck about what they do. Just because somebody's on at you, or getting at you, or bollocking you, but they're doing it for the right reason.
01:27:27
Speaker
then I think that's fine because you're actually learning something and you're getting better in yourself. If somebody's just mean, that's that's different that's a whole different story. If somebody's mean and they've got an ego and they're fucking, they just want to put pressure on people just to be a dick, they're natural. But there's, you also can't be like, oh, well that was amazing. Like it was good service. I say, guys, great service.
01:27:51
Speaker
you know, or I'll buy them a beer. Or, so I'll do shit that's not, but in the middle of service, if something's shit, they're gonna throw back at me. It's fucking shit, do it again. Somebody's paid money for that, do it again. You know? So, you gotta have a bit of a backbone to work in the kitchen. But you've also got to work with chefs that are training you. And I've always said to all chefs that I've ever worked with or ever worked under me, when you stop learning, move. Yes.
01:28:17
Speaker
That's it. you can't You can't just be like, wow, well, we're really good friends until you leave that job and then you don't speak to each other ever again. You know, everybody's friends when they all work together, but when they go to other kitchens and they make new friends and they make new people and they get new groups and because everybody's work schedules all different. Yeah, for ah sure. So learn as much as you fucking, younger people learn as much as you fucking can. ah don't want to be fucking celebrity TV chefs because it ain't going to happen. ah But be better at what you do and learn from good people. you know I think there's a lot of chefs nowadays who have forgotten how to do butchery and how to do to do fish prep and how to properly cook because you all they want to water bath everything. They want to fucking molecular gastronomic fucking everything.
01:29:15
Speaker
And then they can't cook about a fish in a pan. And it's just like, oh, no, we dropped it in a bag. A lot. Yes. Yes. I think so. I think especially. I don't know if you remember this, like 10 years ago, there was a shortness or a shortage of shift parties. Yeah. There was no shift parties. And then all these talks with Daniel Clifford, all that and all that. Oh, there's no shift parties, no shift to parties, no shift. Why is there no shift parties? Because nobody was treating the fucking colonies.
01:29:44
Speaker
if you don't train a fucking commie there's going to be no chef to party because all the chef to party is the sous chefs or head chefs so it comes down to to to people like me and and sap beans and Daniel Clifford and all these fucking big guys you have to take raw raw people or raw talent into your kitchen and nurture them and train them to be better yeah it's fucking and hard work it is hard It is hard work, but you have to do it. Otherwise, five, six years down the line, there's going to be no more fucking chefs. Even culinary school. Culinary school needs a good kick up the fucking ass. Culinary school is so outdated, it is fucking believable. Yeah. You know, and you, you, you'll get chefs that that like call me, they want to go, I've been culinary school. Okay. What are you making today? I'm fucking opopiette.
01:30:41
Speaker
I'm like, well, from the fucking 70s. You know? And it's like, yeah, I understand. But yeah, it's fucking super easy to do. But it's from the fucking 70s. You know? they need to They need to give it a good kick up the ass and and not reinvent it, but just bring it into the 21st century. Keep the basics. Keep the basics. But make it fucking exciting. Make it fun. make it
01:31:13
Speaker
Make it like it is in the kitchen.
Gaps in Culinary Education
01:31:15
Speaker
Well, give them skills that are applicable to what they're going to use when they leave school. I think that's a huge thing. Because you get these guys and they're like, oh, I've been done culinary school for two years. Go cut me that onion. What's an onion? Ah, fuck's sake. Here we go. What did you do in school? Oh, fuck off. Go cook me a bit of fish. You've got a pan, oil, and some butter, and fucking go make me a bit of fish. Where's the water bath?
01:31:43
Speaker
No, but just cook basics. I think butchery is lost. Everything's pre-fucking packed and pre-bought. And and like like even my guys, like if i if I was to go and get like a whole peg or a whole lamb or a whole fucking cow and bring it in, they would that would look at me like they don't know what the fuck they're doing. Yeah. you know Because for one, it's fucking expensive to do.
01:32:10
Speaker
so you've got to utilise everything. breath So if you've got like more outgoings and more more like restaurants and stuff that you can ship stuff up, it's brilliant. I mean, i've I've butchered whole cows and lambs and pigs and fucking all that shit and been buying a whole fish. like It's hard to get a whole fish over here. Is it? Oh fuck yeah, it's produce over here, it's dog shit. It's so bad. I get the last of the shit. It's been I've got to have salmon on my menu. I huffed it. Like that, that is like, if you're not going to start, why have you not got a salmon on your menu? Yeah. 100% salmon. That's it. Cause people come in and they like what they like. So if they're if they're used to ordering, but even up at a lamb burger, right? They want, is it not taste gamey?
01:33:03
Speaker
Fucking lamb. Because you've never had it. So like i've got I've got to have certain items on the menu that people understand. yeah you know It's hard to get people to go to their comfort zone a little bit. So yeah salmon has to be a staple. But I can't buy whole salmon. It's pre-packed fucking fillets. That's it. That's so bizarre.
01:33:24
Speaker
I can't say that I've done, I've never butchered a whole animal before. um and It's one of those things that I almost like put myself in the situation where I have to do it. Like I, the local butcher, I like tell them to let me come in and show me how to do it kind of thing, but always got whole fish for sure. Yeah. Yeah. That's cool. I actually, I was, when I walked in, in, in Aberdeen, I was going home one night and somebody had had a deer.
01:33:51
Speaker
And I thought, oh, I've seen it on the road. It looks a little dear. It must be like, I don't know, maybe three, four year old, small dear. I felt it's still warm. I'm like, fuck this, man. I threw it in the back of the car, took it out, fucking gutted it outside, fucking skinned it, fucking used it all, fucking took the back strap and all that off it. I made fucking stowies for a wedding. So we used all the meat, all the meat went through the stowies for the wedding, the leg meat and stuff.
01:34:18
Speaker
Uh, but then, and then I've also, let I've done my own cure meats. So we done, uh, a cured lamb leg. Cause I want similar to like same idea or like like with pork, but I've done it with lamb leg instead took me like fucking three months.
High-Pressure Cooking on TV
01:34:31
Speaker
It was super good. And I just wanted to do it. So I sold it for two weeks, took it out, hung it for like fucking fucking two months, uh, wrapped up in the muslin cloth and stuff.
01:34:42
Speaker
It's fucking awesome. I bet it was. Yeah, it was cool. I've done all that. But you just kind of got to do stuff. You've got to push yourself a little bit. You've got to play around with it. Yeah, you have to. You'll have to. Even if it doesn't work. I mean, a lot of shit. I mean, I'll go now with that. I go to the restaurant, the next TV show that's coming out in next year. I mean, I say I fucked up the pork, the pork shop. I overcooked it. What the fuck? I cooked pork every fucking day and I overcooked it.
01:35:12
Speaker
You know, and the way I cut it, I usually cut it, so I'll cut it so it's like the chop, I'll clean the bone, and then I'll cut it like two, fold it over, set it on, simple. I fucking sliced it. Like three, I said, what am I fucking doing? And then like, oh, you're putting some, I'm like, I'm like, oh. And then I was like, I just fucked loads of stuff up, but it's just the pressure and, and. It's such a weird pressure.
01:35:41
Speaker
Oh, it's stupid. It's stupid. But the fire table was good because ah because it was so long, it was six weeks of filming, you kind of got used to everybody and kind of got into a rhythm. And and they're like, OK, this is going to be France. Give us your recipes. You've got two days. So your recipes go over. So it wasn't just like go in and cook. The only things that was was when you cook for the chef. Yeah.
01:36:08
Speaker
So in episode one, when we cooked for the Mexican chef, which I could pork, which he fucking loved. Best pork he'd ever tasted. His one's not mine. ah So he's he's now he's got two Michelin stars right now because Michelin's in and Mexico last year. It's his two star restaurant. He.
01:36:30
Speaker
They gave us. It's no palace and tuna, which is cactus and the the fruit from the cactus. Yeah. Do not talk. Do not fucking talk. And me and Aaron are like, what the fuck? I was like, I've never used this in my fucking life. And they're like, do not fucking talk. And they're like, what are we going to do? What are we going to do? Like, do not talk. They want that. I'm like, fuck! In this episode one, I'm like, we're going fucking home, bro. We're done. And I was like, fuck it. How does it taste? Fuck it, right? OK. It tastes like blackberry, right? OK, blackberry, fuck it. First thing, it's by the mind, bro. OK, I used to do pork, blackberry, onions. OK, he does this.
01:37:06
Speaker
And we just, fuck it, I'm sitting there basting pork, like making a roast fucking Sunday dinner, right? and And it's like, this is fucking intense. And then he's like, the best pork I've ever tasted. And I'm like, that's fucked. It's gone out of heaven, it was raw in an hour. work So that, that side of the the show where it's like intense and it's like right now, that's legit. The cooking on the the show, we had read like, okay, what's our recipes?
01:37:35
Speaker
But they wouldn't give you your recipe. You have to memorize that shit. Oh, right. That's tough. Yeah. So you got to think, right, OK, I'm going to make pasta. I'm going to make this. and But it was stuff that we'd done. OK, you're good at this. I'm good at this. You do this. I'll do this. We've got this time frame. Get it done. You make the sauce. I'll make the pasta. You make the foot. OK, done. I'm making it right. OK, fine. Let's get it done. So the cooking was legit on the show. So when everybody sees it, well you how many hours have you got? You've got one hour.
01:38:06
Speaker
But even two days of planning, that's nothing. Yeah, I know. But you got to, compet like a lot but they want that because like, you have to pick your plate. It's hard to pick because um but it's a fucking TV show. yeah You know, you got to entertain. It's got to be done, right? It can't be like one of these guys putting up shit and they're like fucking some of the best chefs in the world. you but Which were not, by the way. ah like they he We all hated how they said, these are 24 of the best chefs in the world. Shut up, bro. Oh, they do that for every TV show, though. Oh, yeah, I know. This chef is the best in his life. No, no, no, no. They're just chefs, right? But it sells to the public.
Future Plans: New Restaurant in San Antonio
01:38:41
Speaker
Yeah. It sells to the people that want to watch the TV show that I've never cooked in the kitchen and they think themselves as a bit of a food influencer or as a... I'm ah i'm a Yelp reviewer, diner, you know? and
01:38:54
Speaker
They wanna, but it needs to be entertaining. You need to pass it, you need to fuck shit up. Yeah, absolutely. You need to, otherwise you're not human. Even us, even me as a viewer, I love seeing when something goes wrong. Even more now that I've been through that experience, because now I'm just like, oh my God, I know how you feel, like you poor fucker. Yep, yep, yep. Yeah, no, that's crazy. So yeah, so we got the food truck. The food truck's for the Halloween event that we're doing, so it's all gonna be spooky and shit.
01:39:25
Speaker
So that's the street food Halloween out in this middle of nowhere for the only food vendor. So that's cool. Uh, so that'd be fine. So that'd be all of my social media soon. And then I'm opening another restaurant in San Antonio. And what's that going to be? Can you tell me? Yeah. So it's four and a half thousand square feet. And I think I'm, I think I'm going to go for a mutual start. So you want it to be, want to go back into fine dining.
01:39:52
Speaker
Yes, I think so. I think it needs to be a bit of both. But Michelin have just announced that they're coming into Texas this year. It's going to be San Antonio, Dallas, Austin, and one more. San Antonio, Dallas, Houston. So four places, four cities throughout Texas.
01:40:16
Speaker
i
01:40:19
Speaker
So I think I need to at least hit fucking some of it. So that's the plan to go in there and do something amazing and unique that they don't really have in San Antonio. All black and fucking vegetation or fake vegetation in the inside of it and really fucking cool restaurant. The kitchen and the bar are going to be completely linked. yeah So it's like maybe like a 30 seat chef table. So there's the bar and the kitchen. I want it to be super fucking cool. Super fun.
01:40:52
Speaker
And if it works and the money's right and it goes good, go for Michelin Star in Texas. So that's the plan. That's exciting. That's the plan. so I've got a huge budget to work with, which is good. The place that we're looking at used to be a nightclub.
01:41:09
Speaker
Which is another funny story. So we went and looked at this restaurant last week. I was looking at one prior for like four months. We'd been back and forth talking. It was two and a half thousand square feet. But they started fucking dicking me about. They wanted to increase their rent by 4% every year. And they weren't going to give me that much money to put the grease trap and all that in. So I was like, wow, fuck this shit. So we found another one. Used to be a nightclub. I started looking at the nightclub. We had 300 offenses from underage drinking, from fights, from police turning up.
01:41:39
Speaker
i they got They end up getting closed down. They no they never paid rent. They never paid their TABC license. So the owners fucking locked the door and somebody was shot dead in the car park. A 20 year old boy was shot dead last year in the car park. Yeah. So fucking crazy. Wow. but Texas us is ah takes is a funny ass place. in yes it You give people the guns and alcohol don't mix, you know?
01:42:08
Speaker
So, when are you looking at opening this new place then? Next year. Hopefully, we're going to go this Wednesday to go take my business power up and show them all and sign everything, but I think we're shifting out to the 11th because we've got so many events coming up now. I've got shit that I need to be doing, so we're going to shift it till next week. Sign on that, hopefully, take four to five to maybe six months to get it open. Complete overhaul, new kitchen, new fucking everything, everything.
01:42:38
Speaker
Uh, but I want it to be cool as fuck yeah for that little patio area. It's in a good area. You know, something was shot outside. It's in a really good area. get It happens everywhere. It happens everywhere. Living outside of the US, people who are like, Oh, something was shot. Wow. But it, it happens. I was, I was actually in my last apartment before this one. There was two in the morning. I had this. So what the fuck was that? Then I get bubble three.
01:43:07
Speaker
next minute it was just fucking police it must be like three or four minutes police sirens there was about 50 police cars turned outside my apartment complex somebody was shooting this there was a fucking drone going about there was fucking police outside with like shotguns and and fucking fucking machine guns outside the house fucking looking for somebody <unk>ia Yeah. So I don't know. I think it was, and I think it was the kind of, the apartment complex said that with somebody just fired it. But what I think happened was the boyfriend, the girlfriend, her husband, the wife, they fell out and one shot the other. Oh my God. Yeah. That's in Texas, I guess. That's the United States. Let's say guns have their place. and But it's ah it's a funny old world, isn't it? It's a funny old world. I'll agree with you on that one.
01:43:59
Speaker
So hopefully, i've touched man my life's been a bit of a whirlwind, you know? It's been fucking crazy. You had a really interesting journey. Yeah, and it's still not finished. Still not finished. No, no, no, you've got nine years left to retire, say. Yeah, I know, I know. That's not gonna happen, is it? Fuck. I've got three kids now, so i've got I've got two daughters who live in Scotland who come over here this summer. They live with a mother, and then I've got a nine... Fuck, he's nearly one. He's one this year, this month. Jesus.
01:44:29
Speaker
He's won this month. He's a... Fuck. I think I've got an ATV show coming out next year. Which is a good one. It's all happening. It's fun. It's hard work though. You've got to take the rough with the smooths. Waking up and being like, I've stressed out the fuck. I bet. like I get stressed out the fuck. Just setting my own world. And ADHD doesn't help. I remember everybody's got ADHD. A lot of people do. It is a bitch. I imagine it must be hard to switch off.
01:44:59
Speaker
Yes, I don't. My brain is just constant. Like, you're lucky if I get to sleep by five in the morning. Really? Yeah, I can't sleep. How do you function? I don't. I just do it, you know? I just do it. It's my life. It's how I... I just hope it doesn't kill me, but I think. I hyped up you. I hyped up you.
01:45:24
Speaker
It's a fucking world and everything. Oh, he's a chef on Netflix and he's done this and he lives in America now. Fuck man, it's been a journey. It's been a journey.
Stress, Mental Health, and Support Systems
01:45:33
Speaker
It's never as linear as what people see or think it is though, is it? No, no. But it's been fun, you know? I mean, there's a lot of people that have killed themselves through suicide the that could have been prevented, you know? Absolutely. I know. And sometimes people just need to ah kick up their ass and somebody to be like,
01:45:54
Speaker
Don't be a dick, you know? There's a lot of it in our industry as well. it um yeah this Stress is a bitch. People are saying, well, how do you get stressed? Even I used to say, how do you get stressed? Fuck me. Stress is a bitch. You know but she always yeah always feel like you're alone in it as well, I think. Yes, and that's wrong because you're not. Even though I i feel like i am I always push people away. Because one of the biggest things is I always push people away.
01:46:24
Speaker
because I need to fix it. I need to do it. I need to make it better. So I always put it in my fucking argue all the time because of it. She's like, why are you pushing me out? I'm like, we don't know. I don't even know I'm doing it. You know, it's like, we're here to support you. I'm like, if I need to do it myself, you know, but sometimes you just got to ask somebody just for a little bit of help.
01:46:44
Speaker
That's it. I get that. It's, it's hard though. Like you do always have in your head that this is my journey, my problem. I need to fix it. You don't want to put that on other people, but yes, you know, it is important obviously to lean on other people as well. So you need to start listening to your wife and, uh, yeah, I know. I don't listen to fucking, but he doesn't think coming into this podcast that this would be like, holy fuck, this is like crazy. I didn't expect. So let's talk about, he's a Michelin star chef and he's this and he's that.
01:47:14
Speaker
Oh no mate, I already told you, we're gonna get into the nitty gritty, so. Yeah, we we don't even we don't even touch on the whole Michelin thing. I'm gonna have to do another one. I know. We're gonna have to do another one. so Still to this day, I'm still the youngest chef in Scotland to attain a Michelin star. I've got that in my notes, but we didn't even get to it. Still to day. Still to this day.
01:47:38
Speaker
but it so funny as like and See, back then, when I was i was young and hungry, i was it was focus, focus, focus, focus, focus, focus.
Economic Challenges in the Restaurant Industry
01:47:46
Speaker
But fuck there's so much more to life than the chasing the opinion of somebody else. A busy restaurant is a good restaurant. Whether it's got fucking good reviews or bad reviews or awards or not, if the restaurant's fucking busy, they're doing something right.
01:48:07
Speaker
Do you think that you can only see that now with a bit of age and a bit of sort of experience and clarity though? like I imagine no one could have told you that at 25. No, hell no. Hell no. I am doing this and I'm putting this on the menu because I want to fucking do this. Not anymore. Now it's like, wait a minute here, the restaurant's fucking empty. Why is it empty? Yeah. I mean, and and the restaurant industry is getting its ass kicked hard right now. The amount of restaurants that are closing all over the world is fucking stupid and even like even like establishment like Pizza Hut and McDonald's like you know there's a problem if McDonald's are are saying our sales are down yeah there's a fucking problem yeah and the problems not us the problems that
01:48:59
Speaker
these motherfuckers that run all the countries that want all the taxis and they tax everything are taking everybody's money away from them. So we don't have enough money to go out like we used to, to go and drink like we used to, to go in the movies or experience shit or buy a new car or because they're taxing the fuck out. This is the UK, the fucking everywhere. Yeah.
01:49:25
Speaker
And if nobody's getting any money, they can't spend any money. So if you can't spend any money, then there's no more money coming into the government for taxes. So it's just a whole fucking circle that keeps going round. And then they just keep like right now they have an election here that you know about the whole Donald Trump and all that shit. I am 100% pro Donald Trump right now. That motherfucker needs to be voted into the United States to sort all this bullshit out.
01:49:51
Speaker
the the the The other one, she wants to increase the taxes by 45% and fucking, what is it, the shit out of everybody. And it's just, it is fucking killing the industry all over the entire world. I mean, if America is struggling, the world struggles, that's it. Because America is a massive influence in the whole entire fucking world. You know, with import and they export and everything, is America's huge, fucking huge.
01:50:20
Speaker
You know, you can see China and and all this, they're big, but America, the buying power and selling power that they have in the American economy it is massive. And because it's struggling right now, it's affecting the whole world. It's one of those things that I think people don't really always think about, but it is so interconnected into the rest of the world and the rest of the industries that it it really is the starting point for a lot of different things. Yeah, ah hold the whole lot of these.
01:50:51
Speaker
I mean, the US is run by the pharmaceutical companies, you know? I mean, that's like... There you want to touch on that. That's just fucking stupid. It's stupid. The whole healthcare system over here is so outdated and so backwards that it's fucking unbelievable.
01:51:08
Speaker
But yeah, that the American economy, if it suffers, the world suffers. it's theres There's nothing that... There's no other... we that it can be affects America needs to fix itself and the rest of the world will follow does it you know that's how it i fucking hope so because it's fucking even like pizza haven't we shut like 25 restaurants in the last two months that's not a good sign yeah if people are not eating fast food they ain't going to eat fried dine it that's it no it's just not going to happen you know so that's why i had to adapt i had to adapt and and and
01:51:48
Speaker
come up with things that dishes and experience. I mean, we've got a tasting menu on the restaurant. I've got a seven-course tasting menu for 60 bucks. You know, where the fuck you get a seven-course tasting menu for 60, which is like about 50. No, not even at 48 pounds. Yeah, right. per so For seven courses. We've got scallops, we've got pork on there, we do ceviches in the mousse, we've got chocolate souffle, we've got a pre-desert for fucking 48 pounds. Yep. That's incredible.
01:52:18
Speaker
But I make it work, it's scaled down. We taste the menus, I think everybody should... If you want to go to a restaurant and they got a tasting menu, take the fuck out. As long as it's not like fucking $300, fucking dollars. yeah But it's nice to order and then just fucking eat. I love it. I don't have to i don't have to think, okay, that I need to... What am I to have for my...
01:52:42
Speaker
Give me the tasting menu, and I fucking eat.
Enhancing Dining Experiences
01:52:44
Speaker
And give me the wine, which at ah and I drink. So we match the wine, it's dirty box, and it's you eat, and you drink, and you take your time, and it takes one hour, two hours, three hours, however long you want it to take, and you have a nice evening. But you don't have to think about it. You don't have to choose something. You don't have any food envy. It's just done. but I bloody love it. It's awesome. It's awesome. So we do a tasting menu in a bistro. It's weird, but it works. I think it's got its place.
01:53:11
Speaker
We also get people looking when they go, well he never had his cheese out at room temperature. Bro, it's a fat beef dough for fucks sake. Do you know what I mean? I don't have one guy who's in charge of a $500 cheese board who's going to slice the cheese at the table. It's $15 for fucks sake. Literally. That's it.
01:53:35
Speaker
You won't gotta please everyone. Just enjoy it. It's 15 bucks. You can't even get McDonald's for 15 bucks. know
01:53:45
Speaker
There's always gonna be someone. Oh, there's always one. ah There'll be one this week too. There always is. It's a it's a funny old world.
Passing Down Culinary Knowledge
01:53:54
Speaker
It's a funny old industry. Yeah, you have to, you have to. It's fun, but yeah, just enjoy it. That's it. All I've got to say is people, if there's a last note on anything that you want to put on this is if you get into this industry, enjoy it, take the shit, you have to take the shit, enjoy it, have fun. And then if you enjoy cooking, relax with, cook it. If you enjoy fine dining, go work in fine dining. Just,
01:54:21
Speaker
Give a bit of love and a bit of passion in what you do. And that's it. That's it. There's nothing else to it. You know, you just answered my question without me even asking it. I've got this tradition that I'm starting with the podcast where I say to the guests before we finish up, what's one thing that you wish somebody knew about the industry or whatever industry or whoever I'm interviewing? And you just literally answered it without me even having to ask for it. But it's true, isn't it? It's true. Otherwise, just don't do it.
01:54:50
Speaker
Don't get into this industry thinking that you're going to be a fucking millionaire. It's just not going to happen. You do this industry because you love it. You enjoy it. You work while everybody else is partying, you're working. And that's just it. It's unsociable. But if you get a good team and you've got a good bunch of people that you work with,
01:55:16
Speaker
that's your work in social life is that's it you know and people come and go and it changes yeah it changes one night they might be fucking 20 years out and five of them might leave next week and only five people started so there's it's always interchanging and you're meeting new people and you're learning new things And if you had Chef, or like say, I hate all this fucking, I'm just, I don't even get call Chef, I'm Graham, that's it. They call me by my name, and I hate being called Chef, I fucking, you must call me Chef, fuck off, fuck, fuck off, right? My name's fucking Graham, call me by my name, I'll call you by your name. You don't go, excuse me manager, you call the manager by their fucking name. yeah Call me by my name, you know? And these chefs that dictate, and they say, you must call me, fuck you, you ego-tasted prick.
01:56:06
Speaker
Right? Unless people are learning from you and bettering themselves, get the fuck out of the industry and go and do something else. We're here to nurture people and make them better in themselves so then they can then go on and pass on their knowledge to other people and other people and more and more and more and keep it going down the line. If they remember one thing in 20 years that you showed them and then they show that to somebody else,
01:56:34
Speaker
Fuck, that's 20 years that thing has been alive for, you know, which could be another 20 years. You could be dead and people are still using shit that you'd done fucking 200 years ago. It might not be in any books, it might not be written down, it might not, but it's something that's passing on to everybody. That's what this industry is all
Podcast Reflection and Future Stories
01:56:52
Speaker
about though, isn't it? That's it, that's it. That's literally all it is. We're all fucking dickheads because we get into this thinking that And we just shouldn't. What we do. We do. Yeah, but the dream keeps us going for a little bit. And then, you know, by the time we realize the dream's not right, then it's too late. I'm still not fucking rich, you know?
01:57:15
Speaker
but nine years buddy you got this oh thank you so much i really really enjoyed that um good i'm glad you did i would really like to have you back on again so we'll chat about that when you uh when you've got a little bit more time next time sounds good i look forward to hearing this and all the shitty comments that people want to comment on it but If I inspired one person by listening to this podcast, then my job is done. but but I'm sure you will. I'm sure you will. All right. We'll chat soon. Okay. Thank you very much.