You're wildly stressed out. Your anxiety is through the roof. You're in nothing but pressure situations, having to stay on every day and get yourself hyped up I have to go in full tilt. Cook as good as I've ever cooked against some of the most talented people I've ever met. Deal to burn baby. Oh yeah. Is a slam dunk. Absolutely breathtaking. Welcome to the Bike to Bites podcast. I'm your host, Garrett Best. This is a companion podcast to the Bike to Bites television series, and you can check out the links in our show notes to find out more information on where to tune. In today's podcast, we're going to be revisiting Chicago where I stopped at four different restaurants along my bike route. My guest today is Joe Flam, chef owner of Rosemary. Joe is the culinary director of Sanair hospitality overseeing Chicago restaurant's, Rosemary and Boulevard Steakhouse. Joe has worked in some of the city's most prominent and Michelin starred kitchens and winner of Top Chef Season 15. Joe named the restaurant after his grandmother's Mary and Mary Rose, and the restaurant is inspired by his Italian heritage and the bold, bright flavors of Croatian cuisine offering a seasonal menu of what Joe has coined Adrianic drinking food. I guess we'll learn a little bit about that in a second. Now, I'm excited to get into this episode, but before I do that, I want to take a moment to thank our sponsor. Plus, for the support of the Bike to Bites podcast. When your tomorrows are built on technology, you need to partner with Superior Insight, with expertise in cutting edge innovation across ai, security cloud and workplace transformation. E plus is on the front line of today's modern enterprise e plus where technology means more. Now, I'd like to kind of recap our Chicago bike route for a second. We took a total 20.3 mile ride through the city. We started at the West Hotel in downtown, and from there we made our way to our first stop where I met up with Jason Trapp and Freddie Macroom of Mr. Beef. Now, Mr. Beef has been made famous from the television hit television series, the Bear, and if you want to get a little bit of a history as to where the bear kind of got their start, it was at Mr. Beef where they're serving up these incredible Italian beef sandwiches. Now you can get it sweet, hot and juicy, so with some in-house jarre and some Sweet Pepper, or you can go for the gusto and do what they call a baptism, and I will not tell you what that is. I want you to watch and you'll see you can just use your imagination from Mr. Beef. We then continued on our journey. We rode back out to the lake shore. We went along the lake, and then we stopped at our second destination, which was Wood Chicago. Now Wood Chicago, chef Devin Kreer, chef owner, fantastic stop. We had an incredible experience there with a watermelon salad, some sweet corn dumplings, steak and potatoes. And if that wasn't enough, he felt like he needed to kind of share me one of their famous breakfast treats from their brunch that they do, which was their Vos rancheros. And it was fantastic. And I was full, but not too full to not want to continue on to our third stop. We got back on the bike, we continued to ride, and come on, you cannot come to Chicago without experiencing deep dish pizza. And for the locals, many of them, if you're talking deep dish pizza, you're talking pea quads pizza and pea quads is what I would call like a cross between a Chicago deep dish and a Detroit. And for more on that, you can see us kind of experience it in the episode, but I'll give you a hint. It all has to do with the crust, and that's all I'm going to say about that. So we had a delicious sampling of Piqua pizza, I will tell you, sausage and pepperoni, deep dish. And then we had a cheese list, veggie pizza, and I actually got to help make some of these pizzas and it was a lot of fun. And for those of you who might think, oh my gosh, veggie pizza, it was fantastic. Okay, got back on the bike, went to our final destination, but we had one stop before we went to our final restaurant destination, and that was a quick visit to the famous home of Walt Disney. Walt was born in Chicago. Many people don't know that. We rode right by his house where he grew up and got a chance to take a look at that. And they've turned that into a museum now. Then got back on our bike and we finished our ride and we ended it. And of course at Rosemary. And Rosemary is oh by Joe Flam, chef owner of that restaurant, and I'm super excited that Joe is joining us here today. So Joe, thank you for joining us on today's bike divides podcast. Happy to be here. So when we were together filming our episode in Chicago, I was super excited. Your restaurant is just exploded in terms of popularity and being able to sit down and enjoy an incredible meal over a couple of dishes with you, and the great conversation was just fantastic. So thank you for that. We're going to get into a little bit about what we had together in a second, but thanks for being here. Yeah, excited to be on. So I wanted to start off by having you hit the rewind button for us for a second. Take me back to the early days of when you first decided that you wanted to be a chef. You told me a story of when you shared the information about wanting to be a chef with your parents and how that went over like a lead balloon initially. Yeah, originally my path was not culinary. Originally my path, I was going to a college and I was studying accounting, and I was two and a half years into it, and I knew I wanted to get back to restaurants eventually. I always loved it and I just kind of didn't know how. And then one day I literally just Googled how did Ebal become a chef? And I saw he went to culinary school and I started looking up culinary schools and I decided, you know what that's going to do. I was like, forget everything else I'm doing. I'm going to drop out of college and I'm going to go to culinary school. So sometime around, I think it was late 2006, I decided that unbeknownst to everyone else, I was dropping out of college and I was going to go on a path to be a chef. So I take it were you living on college campus at the time that you said that's it, or were you at home? Where were you at that time? I was living in Chicago. I was living on the north side of the city, Lincoln Park, and so I was living up there. I was going to school down there. And so I lived up there for about six more months, and then I moved back to the south side and lived at my parents' house while I went to culinary school. And so when you first broke the news to your parents that you had a change of heart in terms of your career direction, what was that conversation like? I'm just curious. Yeah, it didn't go well. You know what I mean? I think would be an understatement. Everyone I told was not very excited about this whole idea of not finishing college, not doing anything in that realm, and just dropping out to go do this thing they had never really heard of. They didn't know anyone who went to culinary school. My parents didn't know any chefs. They didn't know anything about this industry. And so when I told them that that was my decision, they were like, what do you mean? It was like, they're like, why don't you just finish your degree and that if this is what you want to do, you should do that, but get your degree first. And I was like, yeah, no, I don't want to really do that. I want to do this now. And I mean, everybody calling me, Hey, SL calls everybody calling me saying, just finish your degree, finish your degree, you got to get a degree, and then you can go do this thing that way. If this doesn't work out, you will have a backup. And I was kind of like, Nope, I don't want a backup. I'm going all in on this. No parachutes, no nets, just full send in it. Where did you go to culinary school? I went to La Cordon Blue in Chicago, which no longer exists, but I did a 15 month program there. Okay. So I have to ask, you had this dream of you were watching and saying, oh, where did Emeral Legi go to learn how to do what he's doing? Once you got in it, did it live up? Did the reality live up to the fantasy of this is what I want to do? Were there any surprises? I mean, for me, I had come up in restaurants. I had worked at restaurants since I was 15, so I knew a little bit, you know what I mean, going in. But I had never worked in the chef world. I had worked at one place where they cooked and there were chefs, but I really didn't know the levels of it. So I was a weekend of school and I started working at this restaurant by school that was for Art Smith, and it was serious chefs and serious cooks. And I was like, oh, this isn't, you know what I mean? This is totally beyond my skills, my capacity. I thought I, I was going to walk in and kill it, you know what I mean? I had worked in restaurants, I thought I was a pretty good cook, and it was just day one, it was like, oh man, I am so in over my skis on this. So that was a quick smack in the face with some reality of expectations, not fully aligned with what reality was basically. Yeah. A hundred percent. And you go to culinary school and at that time, places like that, they would sell you this dream of like, oh, you're going to go to culinary school and you're going to graduate, be a sous. She, which anyone knows isn't true. And I never believed that, you know what I mean? I was never on that hook line and sinker, but I thought I would be a better cook when I got out of culinary school than I was. And it was really, I went to culinary school five days a week. I worked six days a week. So all I did was cook for those 15 months, and I became a much better cook, but it was because I was working in a restaurant 90 hours a week while I was going to school. So it was all I did. So it was just nonstop training, training, training. And so I became better, but if I would've just done the school part of it, you what I mean, I think I would've graduated wildly unprepared for just about anything. And we're going to talk more about that in a second. I want to go back just a little bit further, even before you end up leaving your path towards county to go to culinary school. Before that, you said you had done some cooking in some restaurants or you had worked in some restaurants. Where did those early influences of your love of food and cooking and all of that good stuff kind of originate from? Well, I think I always loved food. Big guy. I like to eat. And I grew up in a family that cooked me and my mom cooked, my grandma cooked. So there was always people cooking, and I liked being in the kitchen, and I loved the traditions of it. I mean, I love making raviolis for Thanksgiving, doing Feast of the Seven Fishes. I love those traditions for the big family gatherings. That was awesome to me. I thought it was so cool. I thought it was so special. I still do. And then when I got into restaurants when I was 16, I fell in love with restaurants right away. I was just like, this is the best job. You work with the best people. Every day is interesting. There's always stuff going on. I liked working weird hours. I liked being late at night, you know what I mean? It was just the coolest, especially I just got my license. I was a 16-year-old kid and I could stay out till two, three in the morning. I was working. Nice. Okay. So the early inspiration came from your own experiences At home, you end up leaving college with a path towards accounting to go pursue your interest in the culinary arts. You go to Cordon Blue, and then you leave Cordon Blue, and now you are working again in restaurants. But this time a graduate of Cordon Blue, and now you're cutting your teeth where. So the whole time I went to school, I was at table 52, so I was the line cook there. I stayed at Table 52 after I graduated for a while. So I was there for two years, and it was an incredible experience. You know what I mean? I met my best friend there, some of my other best friends in life, people I still talk to this day. And it was amazing. You know what I mean? It was a really young kitchen. It was really fun. I was 21 when I started there. My best friend was 20, and we were station partners and it was a blast. It was college two point, and it was incredible. So I spent two years there. I started to feel like I could cook. I was something, which obviously wasn't true. So I left there being young and dumb, and I took a job at a place that was opening for a chef I didn't know, or a company I didn't know, but it was an Italian restaurant. I said, ah, that sounds cool. We're going to make our own pastas and charcuterie. And I really liked that. It was a small kitchen, just a few people. And we spent about two months opening it. And then we were open for three days. And on the fourth day I came in for service. I was heating up the sauces, and the chef called us all into the dining room and told us that we weren't going to open that night that the restaurant was closing, After three days. After three deaths. Wow. I think that might set a record as the fastest open and close. I haven't heard of something. Maybe you've heard of something going open and closing that fast, but what happened? So they just ran out of cash. Yeah, I guess they never had it. You know what I mean? They never paid any of us. It was a very good lesson for me, and knowing who you're working for and who you're working with, and it was super humbling. You know what I mean? At an early point in my career where I really thought I was hot shit. And then to go out in the world and just get slapped with reality of like, Hey, we're at a place like Table 52 for a big name chef, and we're busy every night and there's celebrities and there's all this stuff, and we're doing cool events to the reality of the restaurant business of that, it could all be gone in an instant. So did you think at that moment that you made a mistake leaving table 52? Yeah. You know what I mean? I left and I fell straight on my face. And so I was like, now, now at this point, this is like 2008, so the economy is trash. Nobody's hiring line cooks. I have two years line cooking experience, but this is the time in Chicago where if you want to work in fine dining, they would expect you to have three years line cooking experience. And they would say stuff like New York Experience preferred, which obviously I didn't have. So I remember I sent my resume out to I think 40 chefs, and I heard back from one, and I went to the interview and the guy, we had an interview and the guy just was really grilling me, and at the end of the interview he said, well, can you st tomorrow? And I said, no, I can't st tomorrow. I have another interview, but I can st st the next day. And he said, well, I don't know why you wasted my time, then you can show yourself up. Come on. So finally, my brother-in-law, he's like a 3 99 operating engineer union guy, and he was working at this building downtown that was a private members only club. And he's like, Hey, one guy quit. They're looking for one guy. So I go in, I interview with the execs too. It's this guy Rafat. And he interviews me and he goes, listen, after he interviews for me for a while, he asked me questions. I answer all of them wrong. He doesn't like anything I have to say. He goes, I don't like people who went to your culinary school. I don't like you kind of young entitled cooks out of culinary school who think, you know what? And he goes, and I don't really like you. He goes, but he goes, I like your brother-in-law. He goes, so I'll give you six weeks. We'll see if you make it. He goes, I don't think you will, but I'll give you six weeks and we'll try it out. So I was like, done. I'll take the job. So I ended up working there. I ended up working there for 365 days. Exactly. And it was brutal. You know what I mean? We were doing banquets for hundreds and hundreds of people a day. It was old school French techniques. It was a place you could address the chef, but the chef almost never addressed you. I mean, he would stand next to you and say stuff to his executive suit to say to you, I'm the only new guy there. Everybody else has been there for years. They're mostly an older Latino kitchen. Nobody really talks to me. I am of the lowest of the low men on the totem pole. And it's just like, it's the kind of place where you'd have eight things on your prep list, but it'd be 11 hours worth of work where it'd be like sear off 900 filets, cut 72 pounds of butter cut, six inch deep hotel pan of carrots, onions and celery each. And you'd be like, it may be prep at the worst spot of the kitchen. I'm prepping next to two steam kettles, so it's 110 degrees back there. I'm just like, do it all. The work. Do you think this was a little bit of hazing going on for the new guy? That was the new guy. You were the new guy was the guy. Everybody else who worked there just stayed there forever. It was a good job. So people didn't leave. We made good money. You got vacation. It was consistent hours, so it was a really good job. So you know what I mean? I was kind of the only newcomer, so it was just kind of like, this is your spot. So it was really hard. That was probably one of the points where I was like, I'm not sure. I thought I was going to go in there and I was going to be like, oh, I have finesse. I know fine dining. I'm going to be able to just wow these chefs here and I'm going to grow really quickly. And I think I was there three weeks, we're doing a wine dinner, and the chef did a demo of the plating. He sliced another one, and I picked it up and went to plate it, and he took it out of my hand. And I remember he looks at me and he goes, if I ask you to plate something good for you, then you can help. But if I don't tell you to touch something, don't fucking touch it. And then he made me stand in the corner and watch them plate the next two courses until I was allowed to play it again. It was like that kind of old school kitchen. What's so funny, just to digress for one second. So my first job out of college, so I went to school for what I'm doing now, but at the time, talk about economic downturns. I graduated in 1988, so the market had just crashed in 1987. There were no jobs to be had in Boston. I graduated college a year early, but I didn't know it. I thought I had a semester left. I went in my college offered half price credits, and you could take a full load of credits in the summer. So I was going to school all summer, every summer while working jobs to put myself through school. And I go into the registrar's office to register for what I thought was one more semester. I had already signed my apartment lease, and I find out that the registrar looks at me and goes, Garrett, you graduated. I go, what? He goes, yeah, you're done. And I'm like, oh my God. I looked at myself and I go, I don't have a job. I just signed this apartment lease. Anyhow, I tell you this story because I end up working for my landlord who I was working for while I was in college, and I can relate to the story that you're telling because working for this guy, it was five French brothers that all owned a bunch of real estate, a bunch of buildings in Boston, and he offered me a job as a property manager, and I ended up working for him, and I was the bottom of the totem pole. I was the guy that knew nothing. He used to slap me in the face with his hand and go, oh, Mr. College educated man, nothing. And it was that kind of environment, so I could totally relate. And so I was working at this place and it was that every day, you know what I mean? And finally about after six months, I started to make friends with people. You know what I mean? They know what I mean. Took it liking to me. There was one woman who was this Bosnian woman who she was a wartime nurse and then went to Germany and learned culinary in Germany from this old school German chef. So she was lights out good. She was mean shit. She was like five foot three. She had four arms bigger than mine, you know what I mean? Spoke six languages. And she decided she liked me. She heard I was dating a Croatian girl. Okay? I said, yeah. I said, I was dating my now wife. And somebody had told her like, oh yeah, Joe's girlfriend, her family's from Croatia. So she came up and she asked me, she goes, where is your girlfriend from? And I said, well, my father-in-law's from her sego. And she's like, oh, I'm boo. You know what I mean? She's like, does he like you? And I go, I think so, we've been dating a while. She's like, okay, then you must be a good boy. And so then after that, she kind of took me under her wing and you know what I mean? And then more people started to come around to me. But the funniest thing is I went over the chef there who this guy had no vices except for he liked gambling. This guys love to gamble in this kitchen. All these guys did. They gambled big, and it was mostly soccer. But then NFL season came around and they all liked to bet on that, but none of them actually watched NFL. So the chef figured out the guy who was the exec, so figured out because he was from Palestine, he figured out that I was actually a football fan, and I'm not a wiz at football, but I know more than a bunch of people who don't watch the sport at all. So once he figured out that, then I was like his inside track, the winning bets, he came around to me too. And all the kitchen started to become more friendly because you were scoring money from, you were helping the guy score money. This guy became your friend. You helped, this woman liked you because your wife was Croatian. That's kitchen life. You got to find your ins. You got to find your ins where you can get 'em, whatever it may be. You got to find a way to work your way into the system. So it was a place, it was really good. I was learning a lot about banquets and stuff, but I wasn't growing. There was definitely no future for me there. I was kind of really stuck in a rut. And so I hit a place where my parents were really on me. They were like, what are you doing? Go back to school. So I flew out to Denver. I went and looked at Johnson and Wales out there. I could finish a four year hospitality degree out there. So I was like, all right, maybe I'll just move to Denver or I'll finish my four year degree out there. This isn't really going well. You know what I mean? My friends are progressing in their career. They're working at restaurants. I'm working at a private club. I don't know what to do. What year we're at? 2009, 2010? Where are we? This is like 2009. So I got to a point where I was like, all right, maybe I'll move to Denver. And then I saw an ad come up for a restaurant opening for Stephanie Izzard's, new restaurant in Chicago, girl in the Go. Place. And I was. Man, yeah, great place. I was like, this would be really cool. So I decided I was going to apply to be a line cook there. She's pretty incredible too. We'll talk about her in a second, but go ahead. So I decided I was going to apply to be a line cook there, and either I would be a line cook there, or I would move to Denver and finish my four year degree. So I was dating my wife at the time, and I remember her telling me, she goes, listen, if you're going to move to Denver, she goes, I'm not going with you and I'm not waiting here for you. She goes, this works in Chicago, not anywhere else. She's figure it out. So choices were being laid out in front of you right then and there. I go. I apply for this girl on the go job. I remember I meet staff. We have an incredible interview. We talked for an hour. And I'm like, I'm, she's fucking awesome. She's on a different level. She's so cool. She's so smart. She's so much different than any other chef I met. You know what I mean? She's not in the pressed lights. She shows up late to the interview. She's got stuff all over her from setting up the restaurant where you tell they were working in the dirt, in the dust. And the first thing, she walks in and she looks at me and she goes, oh, shit, you're tall. And then she looks at her chef at cuisine and goes, well, at least he can reach the high shelves if he can't cook. That was my first interaction with Stephanie Ard ever. So she offers me a job. I ended up taking the job, and it ended up being on the opening team in 2010 for Girl Togo, which at the time we opened on Randolph in Chicago, all the restaurants were closing around there. Nobody was opening restaurants in the West Loop. Everybody was closing the West Loop restaurants. They're like, the West loop was over. It's done. It's never going to be heard from. And this crazy woman who people are like, oh, she's not a real chef. She's a TV chef, thinks she can open a West Loop restaurant. It'll never work. Well, there you go. If you've ever met Steph, if you ever, you know anything about Steph, there's no telling her no. And there's nothing she can't do. And she just came out of the gate so hot and I mean wildly successful. It was wildly successful. You know what? It was right out of the gates. It was nuts. It was busier than anybody anticipated. It was crazier than we thought. You know what I mean? We were working maniacs,

00 AM. But we loved it. I mean, well, those of us who stayed, loved it. Somebody quit every day. They were just like, I can't do another day this. And someone would quit. We'd be like, all right, next, bad up, next, bad up. And it was just, that was the first year someone quit, I think, every day for the first year, just because it was so intense. We were going so hard. But it was so goddamn fun. And it was like we were cooking on another level. Steph is brilliant. You know what I mean? She's the most creative. And it was just like, I was like, this is electric. What did you learn? What did you learn while you were there? Obviously you never stopped learning, right? So what were your takeaways from that experience while you were there with her? I mean, they're unbelievable. I think the biggest thing I learned is I was like, oh man, there's levels this, and Steph's on a completely different level than anyone I've ever met, from creativity, from organization, from culture to all these things that she was doing that now everybody preaches now. You know what I mean? 13 years later, it was, we were the antithesis of these fine dining restaurants. We were the opposite of it. Nobody was calling each other chef. You know what I mean? We were cooking in fucking t-shirts when everybody was in their starched white baskets with their tweezers. You know what I mean? We were still cooking over high heat and pans and doing 400 covers a night and not doing tasting menus, and we're cooking pig face and we're butchering whole just completely in a different lane that she created than anybody else. And to me, it was the most unique restaurant in Chicago at the time. It was such an original thought. And so from her, I just learned the work she put into the creativity was unbelievable still. You know what I mean? From the research, the eating, the, you know what I mean? Just how hard she works at it, how hard she works at her craft is just unrivaled. It's just incredible. And how long were you there? How long did you stay there? I spent two years there, and I made sous chef there before I left. That was my first sous chef job. And it was awesome, but it also made me realize that I needed to learn more. You know what I mean? I would've stayed there forever, except I knew I wasn't good enough to grow there. I didn't know enough. Did she encourage you to move on your journey in an effort to support you? Or in other words, when you made that decision. She came around to it? I loved working for her. I think she loved that. I know she loved me working for her. We had an awesome relationships, so it was hard, you know what I mean? It was a really hard separation, but it was also, she had lit all these fires in me, and I was like, I got to go chase them. You know what I mean? She made me fall in love with all these cool Asian ingredients I never worked with. And I said, I want to go cook somewhere in that realm. So that's why I ended up leaving there to Bill Kim in Chicago was opening up a new restaurant. That restaurant and what was that restaurant? It was called Belly Q. So it was a Korean barbecue restaurant. And I was like, that sounds crazy. I want to go do that. So I left there to go be Bill's sous chef to open this Korean barbecue restaurant. We ended up opening a ramen shop too. And I spent two years working for him that were just bonkers. I mean, it was going from staff who staff's a real all over the place, wild woman flying by the seat of her pants making changes when she feels like it. Bill worked for Jon Bon, she worked for Charlie Trotter, worked for, oh God, what's his name in New York? David. Am I blanking on his name? Oh my God. I'm going to go crazy about this one. But anyways, worked for Susanna Fu, worked for all these amazing old school chefs. Bill was like, rules, rules, rules. You know what I mean? And it was like. So the exact opposite of what your experience was. Oh, it was like Bill was like, if you didn't drink your coffee fast enough, he was like, what are you doing? You're just sitting around all day drinking coffee. You drink your coffee, you put it back, you're done with it. You know what I mean? You shouldn't have coffee for more than two minutes. And I think it's still to this day why I drink coffee like ripping, ripping hot. It's just because of two years of working for Bill, getting yelled at for drinking my coffee. Do you. Know what's funny, Joe? That same story that I was telling you about, the gentleman that I went to go work for right out of college, my first day of work, I show up and I come in, I have a coffee in my hand and I have a muffin. And I was supposed to be there at 7:00 AM in the morning,

00 AM in the morning on time, and I'm sitting at the desk waiting for him to come in, and I have my coffee and my muffin, and he walks in the door and he goes, what the fuck you doing? And I go, I, I'm eating my muffin and my eat your fucking muffin in the coffee on your own time, not on mine. He goes, tomorrow, when you come eat the muffin in the coffee before you get here, not when you're sitting at the desk here to do work. And that was it. You know what I mean? And Bill was like, it was hardcore. You know what I mean? And it was a really hard opening. We ended up two thirds of the chef team we lost during the opening. And so for a long time it was just me and Bill, and it was one of those things where everything that could go wrong went wrong. I was a young sous chef and it was just like, we were like brothers, man. We just battled it out every day, just fighting. We were teenage brothers who had a share a room, and it was incredible. I learned so much. You know what I mean? And was just, he had the mindset of it doesn't matter who you are, you have to treat it like an owner. And it was like, I remember one day, and I always tell my sous chefs this story. I was there, it was like I got in at six. I'm like the only one there. I'm setting up prep, I'm doing everything. I know I'm going to be there till midnight, get in the restaurant, going, getting the prep, going, getting everything on. Bill shows up a little bit later, and then he comes up to me and he's furious, but I'm like, good morning chef. What's up? And he is like, how'd you get in the building today? I said, I walked in the back door. He goes, yeah. So I said, okay. He goes, you didn't fucking notice anything. I go, no, what's wrong was something broken is something blah. He's like, did you look at the cracks in the sidewalk when you were walking up to the door? I was like, no. Fuck no. It was 6:00 AM. He goes, there's weeds growing the cracks of the sidewalk on the way up to the door. Oh my gosh. And I was like, I go chef. I didn't see him. He goes, and that's the fucking problem. He goes, if it was your restaurant, he goes, you'd see the weeds in the fucking cracks. And it was one of those things I was like, you're right. You're an asshole, but you're right. You know what I mean?

00 AM We're the only two people here. Come on man. You know what I mean? But it's things I think about all the time now, still to this day. It's just like, that's how Bill thought. That's how Bill was. It's like if you're here, if you're running it, you should be thinking like an owner always what the title is. You invest. You talk about the experience with Stephanie and then These are big investments of your soul, of your time, of your energy that you put into these places. Then when you make that ultimate decision to leave, that's got to be hard because I always found it interesting when people come in a place, you want them to be a lifer. You want them to treat it like it's theirs, you want them, but then people grow and they move on. But that's got to be hard. When you feel the level of comfort that you felt with both these examples that you've just described, you connected with both these people in a real intense kind of way. How difficult is it leaving these places? Sure. You don't have either. And it's like a lot of 'em don't miss words about it either. About if you leave, I remember my one year review with Bill. He sits me down and it was like me, him and the gm and the GM gave me a formal review, and then he told the GM to leave the room. And he goes to me, he goes, I know it's been a hard year. I go, you could say that Bill. And he was like, I'm sure I called him Chef. I never called him Bill in two years. I was like, he goes, but if you quit now, he goes, I will never speak to you again. He goes, if people ask if you work here, I will act like they don't know what they're talking about. I'll tell 'em, you work for staff that you didn't work for me. If I see you on the street, I will walk to the other side. Just go through this long. Think about it. I go, Chuck, when did I say anything about quitting? He goes, I'm just letting you know. Wow. And what happened when you did. Years not enough? And what happened when you did? How. Long were you there? How long were you there? Two years. I was there two years. Gave him a whole nother year. You know what I mean? Rebuilt the team, opened another spot with them, did all these things, and then it hit a point where I thought I really wanted to cook that food. I cooked that food for two years, and I was like, nah, this isn't really the direction I want to go. And he had hired this exec, Sue above me, who was a really talented guy who was another total maniac and total asshole, but he was a really good chef. He was a really bad boss, but a really good chef. And he was like, you need to learn some finess. He's like, you're just a monster in the kitchen. He's like, you're so heavy handed. So you cook like staff, you cook this. You know what I mean? This super over the top food. He's like, you need to learn restraint. He's like, you need to learn finesse. You need to learn polish. He's like, you need to go cook Italian food at a high level. Wow. So he sent you on your. Way. So I was like, okay. So I started looking into that. I'd applied at one place, did a tasting, didn't get the job, and then a couple months later, Gio was looking for a sous chef. And I was like, no, what? You know, I mean the greatest Italian restaurant of the history of Chicago needs a sous chef. I'm a sous chef. And I was like, I got to get that job. So I went, I go, I do a stage, I do an interview, I interview with everybody that finally my last interview is with Tony Wan. So I never met him before I'd seen him, guys living lived. So I go and I'd sit down and I talk Toad, and he's a completely different person than anybody I've ever worked for, from the Art Smiths, from the chef I worked for at the private club, from Stephanie, from Bill is like this guy comes in in this cool zenia suit. He is like, oh, let's have an espresso. Let's have some sparkling water. And he's not asking me questions about food costs. He's not asking me questions about dishes I made. He's asking me questions. Have you ever been ly? He's asking me questions about my family and my grandmother, what we cooked on the holidays, all of these things. And it's like this long conversation. And finally we get to the end of it and it's awesome. I'm like, I just am enamored with this man. And it was like no interview I ever had. It was talking to an old friend for an hour, just the best conversation I could have imagine. And he goes, again, one last question. He goes, you've never cooked Italian food professionally. Why would I make you the sous chef of sp? Because we're a Michelin star Italian restaurant. And I was like. Can't wait to hear the answer. And I told him, I said, I go, listen, you're right. I go, don't got it on the resume. I go, that's why I'm here. I go, but I go, if you look at who I cooked for, I go, everyone who I've cooked for, I goes, I would bet in your cell phone right now you could text them. I go, and they will tell you that I worked harder than anybody that I was all in that I pushed. And I go, and if you give me the shot, I go, nobody's going to work harder for you. I go, I will learn everything. I will read everything. I will push the hardest to know the most about this to be the best sous chef for you. I go, I can guarantee you that. And I go, no, I'll tell you the same thing. I go, you can find that out in three text messages when I get up from this table. And so I got up, I left, got a text about a week later that I've got the job, and it was incredible. And it was like. What year are we now? So this is so 1214, so this must be 14. 2014. So take the job there. By the way, I just have to clarify something. When you left Chef Bill, was it Chef Bill, that was the one that says, you need to learn finesse? Or was it the executive sous-chef that was telling you that. The executive sous-chef. Right. So you left. Jeff still thought I needed to learn everything. He probably still does. If you asked him today, he'd be still like, oh, he doesn't fucking know anything. Who. If this is Chef Bill, you're saying? Yeah. Alright. But he didn't cut you off, did he? Chef Bill? No. No. Okay. So he supported your decision to go make the next move eventually. One of the things he said to me when I left, he goes, it's very important to me that you do well when you leave. He goes, I need to put good people up. He's like, Charlie's greatest success was the people he put out, not the food he put out. He goes, I haven't put anyone out yet. He goes, so you need to go do Well. So you were representing him. Yeah. You were the poster child for what he stood for and what he was all about. In his mind, he would be judged by how well you performed. Right. So no pressure. So I leave, and he knew Tony. He respected Tony, he respected spi. So he felt like I was going to an acceptable place for me to leave to, and that was really important to him. So I start there. I'm there the first year they had just redone the dining room at spia. So we're relaunching spia, a 3-year-old restaurant. I'm running the cafe. This is my third sous chef job in a row at this point. And it's kind of like a lot of my friends at this point, they're exec sues, they're CDCs. The guys I came up with are all out ranking me, and I'm still a sous chef, but I'm like, this is the place I want to be. So I spend my first year there. It's a tough first year, but I'm learning a ton. You know what I mean? I'm reading every book I can get my hands on. I get to go to Italy with Tony at one point. That must. Year in. And I'm like, you know what? I'm ready to be chef to cuisine of the kitchen. So I actually go out, I apply for three chef to cuisine jobs. I have three interviews. I had three offers. And I remember I sat down with my then fiance, now wife, and I said, the only way I could stay at sia, I goes, I'm like, the chef would have to leave. This person would have to leave. This person going to have to leave. This person would have to leave. There's like six people, Dominos that had a fall in the next 30 days. All six of those people left out of nowhere. Come on. So the chef out of nowhere puts in his notice 30 days, says, I'm moving to California. I'm going to go work in San Francisco. Somebody else notice, notice, notice. So I go sit down with Tony and I say, Hey. I go, I'm ready for it. I go, you've only known each other a year. I've only been here a year. I know I go, but I'm the guy. I go, I'm the person. And what's he say? I think I'm ready for it. And I go, frankly, I go, if you don't, I go, I understand, and I could accept that. I go, but other people think I'm ready for this role too, and this is the role. I'm going to move into this role somewhere. It's just going to be here somewhere else. And he said, no, I think it should be here. And that began my tenure as chef de cuisine at pi. Wow, okay. And then how long did you stay in that position at Atia? So I was there for after that four and a half years. That's a long time. So that was probably up to this point in your career. That's the longest stint that you had done anywhere. Still the. Longest stint. I own my own restaurant now. Right? So wow. So I spent four and a half years there, and it was crazy. I never really worked at a Michel Star restaurant before, and now I was running them. It was kind of the first year was survival. And then after that it was like, okay, can we do this the way I want to do this? Can we build a team the way I want to build the team? Can we have a culture the way I want to have a culture? Can we write menus the way I want to do it and see if that still flies? And we did, and me and Tony for this awesome relationship where it's like he was so bought in and he was like, we had so much fun with it. And he was such a great mentor and such a great sounding board, and such a great editor for me in a really pivotal point in my creative growth. And so it was just like we just kept rolling and it was amazing. It was such a special place. It was such of an era. You know what I mean? That doesn't exist anymore. And it was incredible. So during this time that you're there, the entire time that you get promoted from sous chef to chef to cuisine, you stay in the chef to cuisine position for the remainder of your tenure, or. Do you No, I think they gave me a couple more promotions at some where I think it was like we worked for a bigger company, so the bigger company was throwing more titles at me. But they. Wanted to try to keep you happy, keep you feeling. Yeah. I mean really for what I mean as far as all intensive purposes, you know what I mean? I was the chef to presume. So now while you're, you decide that you're going to throw your hat in the ring literally and go for Top Chef, is that correct? What year did you decide that this is something that you were going to go for, and why did you decide what brought that decision about? Yeah, so that one wasn't, it was kind of a weird one. So it was 2017, and I didn't really put my hat in the ring so much as Tony put my hat in the ring. They were casting in Chicago. I didn't know they were casting in Chicago. I didn't go. And I guess they didn't meet anybody who they wanted to cast. And so they called Tony because he had been on Top Chef Masters. His old chef Sarah had been on the show. And so they asked him, they said, Hey, we're in Chicago. We're casting. We kind of struck out anybody we should talk to before we leave town. So Tony was like, yeah, I got this. I got a guy. I got a guy. There you go. He's like, I got this kid, Joe, who works for me. He's like, you should come meet him. You're going to love him. So then Tony calls me, he said, Hey, tells me the thing. And he said, they're in town. What do you think? I said, I don't know. He said, take a meeting. So I was like, all right, sure, Tony. I'll take a meeting. So take a meeting, talk to these people for 45 minutes. And they're like, you got to do it. They're like, it's a long road. You got to go through all this application process, but you should do this. I kind of talked to my wife, I talked to Tony, I talked to everybody around me, and they're like, yeah, you know what I mean? Timing works out. I didn't have kids yet. Tony was super supportive of it. So I was like, yeah, why not? We'll go for it. Now at the moment that you're sitting down having this conversation, did you have any idea as to the intensity or what would be required of you? I mean, had you heard through the grapevine of what the level of commitment was to take this on? I mean, not really. Steph had gone on it and won, but we never talked about it. You. Know what I mean? It was almost like, I think it felt like in those days it was like a faux pa to talk about her TV stuff. Because. She was like a serious restaurant chef, and you couldn't be both. Back then, you were either a TV chef or you were a restaurant chef. And so it was something we never really spoke about. And so I didn't really know much about it at all, or someone who had worked for someone who had won it. So I really didn't know what I was getting into. When you decided to do, I've talked to a couple of people who've gone down that path that you've gone down. And I remember speaking to one, I won't mention this person's name, but one restaurateur who owned his own restaurant and was going to go for Top Chef and said, all I care about is I won't use the, well, I will because cursed on this as putting asses in my seats. And if this can help me put asses in my seats, then it's the right decision for me at the right time. And he had some trepidation because he knew that it was pretty intense. I mean, can you describe for the listener, the viewer about the process? You're kind of clustered in a group away from your family. Your communication is somewhat controlled. Talk about. That. There's no kind of about it. You. Know what I mean? You are clustered. You are off the grid. It's two months long and you film every day and you are cut off from the outside world. You get there day one, they take your phone, they take your wallet, they take everything. And I mean, you're cut off. You are in the pressure cooker, and that is your life for two months. No matter if you come in first, no matter if you come in less, you are there the whole time. You are excom cado the whole time. And it is wildly intense. And they don't tell you that. They tell you they're going to take your phone and you're like, oh, okay. And they're like, oh, yeah, but maybe you can check some emails. You'll be able to make calls home on a producer's phone and that. But it's like you get there and then it's like you're there five days before you make a phone call. Wow. It's like the military. So it's fucking, it's nuts. It's so pressure. It's so hyped up. There's no tv, there's no books, there's nothing. It's like all you were doing is to show because they just want you on edge. Did that work as motivation for you? Oh yeah. You know what I mean? You're wildly stressed out. Your anxiety is through the roof. You're nothing but pressure situations. You have no idea what your next five minutes is going to be at any point in the day. You're living with a bunch of strangers you've never met before. You know what I mean? It's like there's no greater motivator. Now, I know competition on that show is really fierce, but it also in watching and the performances, right, some real camaraderie I think developed with those casts, right? Can you talk. About that? You have no outlets. You mean those are your only people. So as much as they're your competition, they're also your only chance of threats. So you either got to decide, well, I just going to be an asshole and not talk to any of these people and be alone for two months, which I can't do. You know what I mean? Or I'm going to make friends and you know what I mean? It's going to get hard at some point. Now with the advantage of the rear view mirror that you've got, what was the toughest part of that whole experience for you? What was the most challenging? I think the toughest part is it's just a constant unknown, and it's kind of a game of attrition too. You know what I mean? The hardest part of baseball is just 162 game season. So at some point people get tired, and it's the same thing when you're filming every day for two months, as you know, and you got to be on every day and you're going back and it's like, you're like, man, I just cooked the best I've ever cooked. But that was yesterday. And it doesn't matter to them. It's not cumulative. You know what I mean? All that matters is today. You know what I mean? The AA of cooking shows it's 24 hours at a time. You know what I mean? It's like there's no, so it's just having to stay on every day and get yourself hyped up enough again and be like, I have to go in full tilt, cook my life, cook as good as I've ever cooked against some of the most talented people I've ever met. There were moments I would imagine that. What's kind of a Pellegrino. I. Have. There were moments I would imagine where you, during that experience, maybe doubted yourself. Were there ever moments where you actually felt confidence, where you felt like, man, I killed that. Or I got this. Or was it. I had two moments of confidence in 300 moments of doubt. You know what I mean? And I would say the two moments of confidence were this, were one, were restaurant wars. When I got to do front of the house, I was like, I'm going to kill this and I'm going to crush this. And I did it and I was, oh, yeah, we smoked that. It was awesome. And the only second time I ever had confidence was in the finale. It was like when we walked away from the judge's table, Adrian turned to me before they had done the judging, before we knew anything, just when we had put our dishes up and they had given us feedback, then we had to wait for the judges. Adrian talked, we walked out of the room, we were off camera. Adrian turned to me, she shook my head. She said, congratulations, chef, you won. And in my head I was like, I know. Wow. Weird. I knew, and it wasn't like a cocky thing or an arrogant thing, but it was just like I kind of knew it. You mean for the feedback they'd given us? And I was like, yeah, you never know. Blah blah, blah. We'll see what happens. Know what I mean? We both cooked a hell of the meal. Wow. What did that accomplishment, what did Winning Top Chef do for you both individually and for your career? What changed? I mean, it put me on just into a different conversation, you know what I mean? Gave you so much more exposure. So when you go to open a restaurant, people know about it on a national level, not just a local level for me to, people still come in because of that show people still, you know what I mean, want to take pictures, whatever. And then I've been able to leverage that and do a lot of things for business opportunities to the charity organizations I'm involved with and been able to really leverage that little bit of celebrity to. Do. Talk about those for a second. Hopefully a decent amount of good with it. Yeah. Talk about some of those charities that you're involved in because you've done some incredible work for your community. Talk about what you're doing for a second. A couple of places I work with, I'm the co-chair for the Chicago arm of No Kid Hungry, where we raise money for, and that goes straight to feeding kids in schools, you know what I mean? Adding additional meals for kids in schools for kids who have food insecurity. And that's a massively important one for me. They work in Chicago public schools, they work all over the United States. They work with Congress to get bills passed to help fund it, and it's super important. Another really great one I work with is Grocery Run Club, which was founded by two friends of mine during the pandemic where they just started bringing literally groceries that they would buy from either urban farms or local farmers and just bagging 'em up and just delivering with people who needed them. And they've built a whole community out of it. It's incredible. They've raised a ton of money, a ton of awareness, and just a grassroots operation from two Chicago kits, and it's insane what they've been able to do. So I'm really proud of the work I've been able to, the little bit of help I've been able to give them has been really, really cool, and I'm really proud of that. That's amazing. We work with Pilot Light here, which was started by four chefs and they do food education through schools, so that's a really cool one. And I think that one's special because it was started by chefs and set the tone. I always tell these guys, they set the tone of this is the expectation for chefs, it's that we can't just be in these communities, but that we are also a part of these food. Pretty incredible. And so Top Chef gave you a national kind of spotlight, a platform for you to leverage and you've done great things with it. And I would imagine your boss, Tony, during this time was pretty darn proud of the win. Oh, he was so wildly supportive. He threw me the biggest party you've ever seen for the finale party. We had 40 foot screens that we were showing it on. He was crying when I won. It was beautiful. He's definitely been such a massive supporter of me for me, through everything. And when did you make the decision? So at this moment around this time, when did you make the decision to say, I'm ready. I'm ready to steer my own ship? When did that happen? So I got back from Top Chef. It took about another year for all that to come out. And then there was another, took another year where we had our first child in that year. So you're married at this point? Yeah, married at this point. So the finale aired in 2018. I had my son and me and my wife had our son in December of 2018. And so 2019 I was like, you know what? I think time to start lining it up and making moves. So it took me, I stayed at Fija for another nine months and I left there at the end of September of 2019 thinking I was going to take six months off and you know what I mean, get a restaurant open, be a stay-at-home dad for a little while, and then Covid happened. So I ended up taking a year and a half off to be a stay-at-home dad before getting Rosemary opened. So Rosemary was your first restaurant? Yeah. Where did the name come from? So my wife has pitched me on the idea of Rosemary. It's an herb that grows all along the Adriatic Sea, the idea, it's Italian Croatian restaurant and it means good fortune in both Italian and Croatian cultures. And so I was like, like that name. I go, but what if we split it into two names? And my Irish grandma was Rose and my Italian grandma was Mary. And I go, it'd be Rose Merrit. And she was like, oh, I like that. It's the only name we ever pitched. It's the only name we ever thought of when we went with. Oh, that's awesome. I love that history of where the name came from. And speaking of the restaurant, when we were together, you picked two specific things that you wanted to share with me. One of them was the homemade strella and then the other was the seasonal ati, right? Yeah, the ati. Yeah. Stuffed pasta with Parmesan truffles and with roasted corn sauce. Where do these dishes, where do you gain inspiration to create what you're putting out? The kitchen, like these two dishes that we tried? I mean, for me it's a culmination of things. So I read a ton, I do a ton of research. It's things of that nature and then it's what the season gives us, you know what I mean? So the Ella, I love making mozzarella. I love the craft of doing something where everything on that dish is made in house by us. So from the cheese to the bread to the set to everything and. Speak about the bread, the bread was incredible. That's a unique. So we make a house made lja, which is almost like a cross between a pita and a shabada. So it's super typical Balkan bread, but not something you see a lot space up. It was fantastic. Fantastic. And then the second dish. In the onlo, and that's something that's just dictated by season, right? So here, being in the Midwest, being in Chicago, the time of year you came, it was cord season. So usually kind of, and this Italian Croatian sensibilities of just using what is the best around you to cook with. So it's just that whole idea, and maybe it's not an ingredient they would use, but if they were here, they would. Those chestnut mushrooms that were on that dish. Yeah, those are good. Ridiculous. Those are really, really good. So yeah, the dishes were incredible. The experience was incredible. Other than Rosemary, you have another restaurant as well, right? If you. Could just, yeah, so I have my partners, actually they had a restaurant before they partnered with me called Boulevard Steakhouse, and I took that over about a year and a half ago and just became partners with them in that we kind of liked what we had done at Rosemary, thought it went pretty well, and so decided to get 'em all under one umbrella. Nice. And you've got another restaurant coming, are you able to. Talk about it? Another one working at 10 45 West Fulton Market. Can you announce what it is yet or not yet? No, not yet. Sorry. Not yet. Alright, well listen, if people want to find you, where can they go to learn more about you as a chef, the restaurants, this is your opportunity to self-promote a little bit. Yeah, if you're looking for me, find me on Instagram. I'm at Insta flam. You can find Rosemary at Rosemary Chicago and at Boulevard Chicago all on Instagram and keep track of all of us. Joe, I can't thank you enough for joining us today on this episode of Bike de Bites podcast. Thank you for being our guest. Really, really appreciate it. Oh man, it was a pleasure. Always great talking with you, man. Hopefully I'll be seeing you in Croatia. For more information on this episode as well as other episodes in this series, head over to our website at Bike to Bites podcast.com. You can also find us on YouTube at Bike debees. Be sure to give us a like and subscribe while you're there. And if you're listening on your favorite podcast platform, we would appreciate a five star rating and a glowing review. It really does help spread the word. Check out our Instagram at bike debees tv and be sure to follow my personal Instagram at Garrett Abe, where I post shots of my daily rides in interesting places I visit. If you're interested in watching the Bike de Bites TV show, please visit bike de bites.com. 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