Speaker 1: Hello, listeners of Four Courses with Jeffrey Z. Carrion. It's
Speaker 1: your host, Jeffrey. I'm here today to share a very
Speaker 1: special announcement. One thing you may know about me from
Speaker 1: social media is that I love meeting my friends from
Speaker 1: the food world at events around the country, and I've
Speaker 1: even made it an annual ritual to interview many of
Speaker 1: them at the South Beach Wine and Food Festival in Miami.
Speaker 1: So for the rest of this summer, we will be
Speaker 1: bringing you our Summer Series from the Beach. East Friday,
Speaker 1: will be publishing short and intimate conversations that I've had
Speaker 1: with some of the top talent in the food world.
Speaker 1: And even beyond. The conversations you'll here for the next
Speaker 1: six weeks were recorded pool side at the w Hotel
Speaker 1: and South Beach as my friends and I enjoyed great
Speaker 1: cigars and magnums of rose as we discussed our past,
Speaker 1: present and future. And without further delay, please enjoy Summer
Speaker 1: Series from the Beach with fashion icon and world renowned
Speaker 1: chef Marcus Samuelson. Everybody expounds at work, and when you
Speaker 1: hear a lot of people on Instagram like it's about
Speaker 1: just hard work, it's not just hard work. Hard work
Speaker 1: gets you X y Z, but it can burn you
Speaker 1: out and then you can become just someone who just
Speaker 1: works very hard, without ambition, without sort of a systematic
Speaker 1: sense of like what it is to perform. So I
Speaker 1: think that you have really outperformed others. And the discussion
Speaker 1: today is about how do you do that? How do
Speaker 1: you stay like young, excited, okay, young ish, excited, forward looking,
Speaker 1: aggressively expand, but make sure that you can deliver Marcus
Speaker 1: Samuel so into every restaurant you open. So at fifty,
Speaker 1: you're now opening more restaurants than you've ever done, which
Speaker 1: is usually when people slow down, you're just getting started.
Speaker 1: I mean, I love the game like I loved it, right,
Speaker 1: and I think about high performance for a long time.
Speaker 1: I think it's also how you take care of yourself. Right,
Speaker 1: So for me, why I do it? How I do it?
Speaker 1: You know the why? It's very important. Why do we
Speaker 1: open over town? Right? I just hate this idea that
Speaker 1: great food should be in one zip code and only
Speaker 1: certain people should have access to it. That's bullshit. That's
Speaker 1: not what America is. Americans like, let's have fantastic food
Speaker 1: in every neighborhood and let's so that's what we open
Speaker 1: over town and create job opportunities. And for me, I
Speaker 1: get excited about that. I make sure I work out
Speaker 1: in the morning. I'm your very no, it's it clears
Speaker 1: your mind. It's not about, it's just about. And then
Speaker 1: I'm off and then I'm excited to be like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I can do this right. And if you go to
Speaker 1: places like New York or Miami del A, no one
Speaker 1: needs another restaurant. It's really if you want to add
Speaker 1: value to the city that you love, I open a
Speaker 1: restaurant because I love. It's like my love letter to
Speaker 1: the city. You know what I mean. And if you
Speaker 1: if that doesn't drive you, that doesn't get excited for
Speaker 1: work with the cooks, to architect you know all of
Speaker 1: that stuff, right? What what? What else is there? I mean?
Speaker 1: For me, this is so exciting. Even when it doesn't
Speaker 1: work out, I still learn something. So you're were in Bermuda?
Speaker 1: How is Bermuda one of my favorite islands? Bermuda is amazing.
Speaker 1: We've been very We've been very fortunate. We are really
Speaker 1: lacking of good food and it's coming. It's hard. We
Speaker 1: have our markets restaurant in Montreal at the fourth season,
Speaker 1: I was doing really really well, and now we'll be
Speaker 1: over town this year. So every every year probably wanted two.
Speaker 1: We add wanted too. Is that the goal? Yeah, well
Speaker 1: that's where we go. There's no goal. You just do it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if the city speaks to me and I'm excited, and
Speaker 1: you know, in in Montreal, it was really about that
Speaker 1: French connection and and creating seafood that I grew up with,
Speaker 1: but in a more dynamic way. And you know, you
Speaker 1: work with the fourth season in a magical city. Why
Speaker 1: wouldn't you do that? You know exactly, So you do
Speaker 1: your show No Passport required PPS. Fantastic show and one
Speaker 1: of the ones that I most appreciated what you were.
Speaker 1: You were in Los Angeles when you Armenians, Armenia. If
Speaker 1: you're in Glendale, dropped the names a carrion, it will
Speaker 1: get your ship for free, just just Glendale our name dropping. Ever.
Speaker 1: I know, I know, Jeff Frown, They're really they're good people, right,
Speaker 1: and it's a whole thing. It's like it's Persian, Lebanese, Armenian.
Speaker 1: This country. People don't understand, like Glendale is like in
Speaker 1: the Middle East, a big you know from Turkey, Lebanon,
Speaker 1: Persia such a big footprint. It's amazing, really good. What
Speaker 1: did you learn from doing that show? I mean that
Speaker 1: show was made for you first of all, yea made
Speaker 1: for you? No, absolutely. I learned that America's beauty is
Speaker 1: really in this diversity and people are all we all
Speaker 1: of us have amazing stories and through food we can
Speaker 1: share it. Right. If we're gonna share it through politics, religion,
Speaker 1: it gets hard. But if you want to share a
Speaker 1: story through food, anyone opens the doors up. And as
Speaker 1: a chef, just to take a step back and actually
Speaker 1: listen to that not cooking, yeah, amazing. If you are
Speaker 1: like that. Everybody loves food, I don't care what I mean.
Speaker 1: You can sit around the table with you know, every
Speaker 1: party there is in the world, and that you can
Speaker 1: all disagree. You start eating, you're like, wow, it's delicious.
Speaker 1: So one thing we actually creep on. It's kind of funny.
Speaker 1: Out of look your kids, who is the one that's
Speaker 1: moon drawn to my kids to cooking or what daddy does?
Speaker 1: I think they all are. I would say my daughter
Speaker 1: Madeline is sort of the most aggressively into the like
Speaker 1: she's following dad a little bit. And I would say Anna,
Speaker 1: my mid daughter on my mid she's ten. She probably
Speaker 1: has the best taste buds of anyone. She'll said, Dad,
Speaker 1: did did you put like ginger in this maple syrup?
Speaker 1: Where while she's on iPhone like Instagram that ginger in this?
Speaker 1: Like like what about Georgie? George just loves to eat,
Speaker 1: eating with everything. You know, they just love to have that.
Speaker 1: How is it being apparent? Oh? I love it. Zion
Speaker 1: is Zion. He's three and a half going on twelve
Speaker 1: or something. That right, World traveler, Yeah, World travelers coming
Speaker 1: Landing asked we speaking actually, but he's just you know what,
Speaker 1: it's just changes everything and you just get every day
Speaker 1: there's something else. So I Chris Chris Bosh is on
Speaker 1: here and he has five kids, and I said one
Speaker 1: or some one word or phrase that you're trying to
Speaker 1: pass on to your children. This is your first child, right,
Speaker 1: so what is that one thing you wake up? I
Speaker 1: wanted to make sure that Zion is humility, humble and understands.
Speaker 1: He said, responsibility. I said, modesty, ulity. Yeah. One of
Speaker 1: the things that I really loved about growing up in
Speaker 1: Sweden was that my grandparents talked a lot about poverty,
Speaker 1: but not in a bad way, but actually the work
Speaker 1: ethic around that, right. And you know when you and
Speaker 1: I talked a lot about your father, us being a
Speaker 1: pianist and all that, it takes work, takes skill, and
Speaker 1: that is why you're here today, right, It's all they
Speaker 1: you know, they worked. We didn't have the idea of
Speaker 1: performance back then, because performance was like you didn't eat.
Speaker 1: This is different, you know for you and I and
Speaker 1: the people that were talking about performances, like you're on
Speaker 1: your highest level. You're an outlier almost, you're practicing ten
Speaker 1: thousand hours in your life to do this one thing.
Speaker 1: That's what we're talking about. They at least my parents
Speaker 1: and your parents probably too. It was survival. It was
Speaker 1: day to day. It was like, okay, we're okay, this
Speaker 1: will be for tomorrow. We'll save a little for tomorrow.
Speaker 1: We have some for the next day. When my father
Speaker 1: went from he grew up in a fishing village and
Speaker 1: when he said no to take over the fishing business
Speaker 1: to go to school. He was the first one to
Speaker 1: go to university and become a geologist. Everyone in the
Speaker 1: village were upset, like what are you doing? What are
Speaker 1: you doing? So when I became a chef. He was
Speaker 1: always go for it right and go hard and do
Speaker 1: your best. And I think that the humility, I think
Speaker 1: it's the one thing that I really we work on that.
Speaker 1: But we also so blessed. I mean, you talked about
Speaker 1: opening restaurant, and we talked about working art. It's a privilege.
Speaker 1: We have been fun. We're getting a chance to express
Speaker 1: ourselves as creative. We're working with young guns. It is amazing,
Speaker 1: Like even a hard day is a good day. It's
Speaker 1: a hard day. And as far as performance goes, I
Speaker 1: mean a lot of people don't understand that we have
Speaker 1: really no hours. I mean this is basically a seven
Speaker 1: occupation that you know. I asked everybody here what's the
Speaker 1: first thing they do, and they all said, while I
Speaker 1: go to the gym or I work out, but really
Speaker 1: the first thing to do is check their email at
Speaker 1: five o'clock in the morning and answer business cross. That's
Speaker 1: what they do. And let's be honest, we're very lucky
Speaker 1: to do what we do. But we're also a little
Speaker 1: you know, there's a little we want to take care
Speaker 1: of people. So how does that affect you? So performance
Speaker 1: and taking care of people, taking care of yourself, what
Speaker 1: is that for you? Because I know all you think
Speaker 1: about is like doing the right thing by your staff.
Speaker 1: You talk about yourself tribe, that tribe we have right.
Speaker 1: First of all, you know we wouldn't be able to
Speaker 1: do anything without our families. And you have an amazing
Speaker 1: white market is always on your side. You're like, really
Speaker 1: an amazing one two punch, right, you really are right.
Speaker 1: But it starts with that tribe because if it doesn't
Speaker 1: work at home, it doesn't work. Then the second tribe
Speaker 1: is really I think the staff and what can we
Speaker 1: collectively create, and then the audience, right, the customer. Without
Speaker 1: the customer, we're not here. Profit is probably number ten
Speaker 1: on that man, it's not the first thing you think about.
Speaker 1: I think about all of these other things. How you
Speaker 1: want to express yourself, doing the right thing, and humility.
Speaker 1: And we also get we're very weird that as a
Speaker 1: as a operator, because if we have a good cook
Speaker 1: or a good chef, we already know who we're gonna
Speaker 1: send her to or send him to him. If you
Speaker 1: have a law firms, like I got a young up
Speaker 1: and coming lawyer, you're keeping that lawyer. We share in everything.
Speaker 1: Sometimes maybe the default, but that's also why we are
Speaker 1: chefs or so unique. You know what I mean, there's
Speaker 1: something abnormal about what we do. There is I feel abnormal,
Speaker 1: credit of course, but it's also the abnormal. It is
Speaker 1: also our beauty, all of us here, take all the
Speaker 1: ship away, we would still cook, whether somebody would pay
Speaker 1: us or not. Absolutely, Absolutely your routine. What is your routine?
Speaker 1: Your physical nutrient based? And I know you're a soccer player.
Speaker 1: I'm up early, love soccer. I love soccer, but early,
Speaker 1: and then the first two hours before my son goes
Speaker 1: to school, make breakfast, we talk, we have our moment,
Speaker 1: then he gets ready to go to school. Then my
Speaker 1: first work hours is really taking care of europe swedom.
Speaker 1: By nine thirty, that's done with in the morning, yes,
Speaker 1: and I've been up to six so and then I
Speaker 1: want to go and work out and then I'll go
Speaker 1: to work and then the day starts. Right. What do
Speaker 1: you eat? I eat pretty liked actually, because I don't
Speaker 1: like to be heavy, because once we come to work,
Speaker 1: it's all about tasting by and I try not to
Speaker 1: eat lunch because at that point I want two o'clock.
Speaker 1: I've had meetings. People cook stuff, we taste, we argue
Speaker 1: about it. We go back and forth. So I probably
Speaker 1: had a lunch by everybody is fifty calories, so you
Speaker 1: have ten bites or seven fifty calories full lunch. Absolutely.
Speaker 1: Do you take a nap? Not anymore. I used to
Speaker 1: take naps. Oh that's great and really good. It sounds
Speaker 1: like old fashioned. I'm telling you, forty minutes just down,
Speaker 1: even if you're not completely Yeah, think about in Spain
Speaker 1: right this yes to us and all the stuff. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's awesome. Because they have four bottles of wine, bring
Speaker 1: that back, you would bring back. So what else is
Speaker 1: on the horizon for you that you feel so excited
Speaker 1: about that no one here really would know about. I'm
Speaker 1: very excited about over Town because it's it's due. I'm
Speaker 1: excited about that. And I also feel like our industry
Speaker 1: as the whole, we're heading in the right direction. It
Speaker 1: was murking for a minute. It was hard. You know,
Speaker 1: everything changed, salaries, all of that stuff. We're getting better
Speaker 1: were diversity, we're getting better with inclusion. Our food is
Speaker 1: getting better. Small cities, asked you and I when we
Speaker 1: travel around the country, just quick, everywhere in America, everywhere.
Speaker 1: Everywhere used to be the big city. It's not any more.
Speaker 1: It's everywhere, everywhere. It's really incredible. What's food city do you?
Speaker 1: Are you excited about that? People might not know, well,
Speaker 1: I know what's coming up as Tampa. Yeah, Tampa is
Speaker 1: a sleepy town three million people next to St. Pete.
Speaker 1: And you know, everybody is looking at it because it
Speaker 1: is such such such incredible people there, and the food
Speaker 1: is now just on the edge of being great. It's
Speaker 1: not just burns used to be not anymore. Uh, Washington
Speaker 1: d C. Washington d C is amazing, amazing five years.
Speaker 1: It's been five years only, so it's like just gone
Speaker 1: on fire. So what I love about the idea of
Speaker 1: like these cities are that it takes only five years now.
Speaker 1: Used to take a generation, a couple of decades, Now
Speaker 1: it takes five years. You're in what happens chefs like
Speaker 1: you myself, great chefs that come to New York their
Speaker 1: work and they go back to their town and now
Speaker 1: they're okay with opening in their small town. It's not like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, I want to go to New York
Speaker 1: and live there. It's like I'm going back and they
Speaker 1: have an audience, you know, So chefs are returning, they
Speaker 1: returning back. Look at Gavin Cason, what he's done. You
Speaker 1: talk about performance that I took from. He took Danielle
Speaker 1: back to Minnesota and has three ways class restaurants. He's
Speaker 1: training a whole tribe to say, if you live in
Speaker 1: the Midwestern your young cook, it was it was a desert.
Speaker 1: It's a food desert. Unbelievable. And the way even when
Speaker 1: Gavin even latter his story. When Gavin left Danielle two
Speaker 1: years before he was leaving, he came to a bunch
Speaker 1: of us, how do I do it? I said, you
Speaker 1: include chef six months ago. Okay, I'm gonna go and
Speaker 1: speak to Chef Danielle now about leaving. He talks to Danielle.
Speaker 1: Danielle invests in his restaurants. Morrow. I mean, that's just
Speaker 1: the book of how to exit where both are winning.
Speaker 1: I mean, Gavin is textbook like unbelievable class. No, it's
Speaker 1: when Daniel's class of course. I mean, of course, would
Speaker 1: you talk about sharing with this industry. What people I
Speaker 1: think are like learning is we are do something very
Speaker 1: different than most people. I mean we raise money like
Speaker 1: Crazy City Harvest Food Bank and all these organizations that
Speaker 1: we there's too many to even this morning. What did
Speaker 1: you said do right? He gathered a bunch chef's talk
Speaker 1: about out World Center kitchen and how to improve. It
Speaker 1: wasn't about how can I be learning out the restaurants,
Speaker 1: like how can I help out exactly? And the egos.
Speaker 1: We can put our egos aside. We have them and
Speaker 1: we need them, but we put them aside really rapidly
Speaker 1: because at the end of the day, we're just feeding people.