Speaker 1: Some of the world's most creative people seem to have
Speaker 1: no trouble staying creative. Well, the rest of us find
Speaker 1: it a constant challenge. But what if there were simple
Speaker 1: things you could be doing to lift the load and
Speaker 1: make being creative fun again. This is why I've asked
Speaker 1: creative powerhouse Ben Surrey to return to How I Work.
Speaker 1: Ben is the head chef and owner of multi award
Speaker 1: winning Melbourne restaurant Attica. I guess you're not aware of Attica.
Speaker 1: It's been featured several times in the World's fifty Best
Speaker 1: Restaurants list and has been named the best restaurant in Australia.
Speaker 1: He's also won the Age Good Food Guides Restaurant of
Speaker 1: the Year three times, Chef of the Year twice, has
Speaker 1: earned three Michelin stars, being featured on the Netflix series
Speaker 1: Chef's Table, and Well. I could go on for a
Speaker 1: long time with his list of accolades. But what you
Speaker 1: might not have known is that Ben is also a
Speaker 1: brilliant writer. His latest book, Uses for Obsession, is a
Speaker 1: memoir of his experiences in the hospitality industry, and boy
Speaker 1: is it an amazing read. In this episode, Ben reveals
Speaker 1: how he knows a creative idea won't work, Why you
Speaker 1: shouldn't get angry even when people steal your ideas, and
Speaker 1: how to stay passionate about your creativity even when success
Speaker 1: brings new challenges. Oh and he also shares a few
Speaker 1: tips for us novice chefs. Welcome to How I Work,
Speaker 1: a show about habits, rituals, and strategies for optimizing your day.
Speaker 1: I'm your host, doctor Amantha Imber. Obviously, a lot of
Speaker 1: Ben's creativity centers around making new dishes at Attica, so
Speaker 1: naturally I wanted to know what his process is for
Speaker 1: creating each new dish.
Speaker 2: I guess we're trying to reach for something that has
Speaker 2: not been done before most of the time, or we're
Speaker 2: trying to invent something that people know and present it
Speaker 2: in a brand new way. So the development of those
Speaker 2: ideas and those dishes can take anything from probably a
Speaker 2: month of intense work to six months and sometimes even
Speaker 2: a year, depending on how big the project is. And
Speaker 2: that's really taking a kind of a three hundred and
Speaker 2: sixty degree approach to all of the elements of a dish,
Speaker 2: not only the food and the recipe and the creativity,
Speaker 2: but the plate, the physical aspects of the dish and
Speaker 2: how it interacts with the room and the customer, and
Speaker 2: then of course the story of it sometimes and how
Speaker 2: the front of house, how the waiters will articulate it
Speaker 2: to our guests, and how it all fits into sort
Speaker 2: of the cultural context. Does it feel like something that
Speaker 2: comes from our restaurant? Does it feel like something new?
Speaker 1: Wow? That is so much to think about. Whereas me,
Speaker 1: as a mere diner, I'm just like, what are the
Speaker 1: ingredients that go into it? And how's it prepared? So
Speaker 1: where does that start? Where does that idea or process
Speaker 1: for a new dish start.
Speaker 2: Well, it often starts with an ingredient, but often the
Speaker 2: quest to find the ingredient is a pretty big part
Speaker 2: of the process of the procurement and the sourcing of
Speaker 2: that ingredient. Is it an ingredient indigenous to Australia, what's
Speaker 2: its history, what's its context? Can we get it in
Speaker 2: a quantity that we can use in a commercial way?
Speaker 2: We cook fifty people a night for five nights a week,
Speaker 2: so we need enough to sustain for several months. And
Speaker 2: then it's really like, for me, it's probably about having
Speaker 2: tiny little snippets of ideas and just seeing them through So,
Speaker 2: for example, I just come back from Bologna, the home
Speaker 2: of Lasagna and Bolonnais in Italy, and there I brought
Speaker 2: a incredible brass pasta press, an extruder, a hand extruder.
Speaker 2: It's kind of like a cylindrical chee with a corkscrew
Speaker 2: on the end, and it pushes the pasta dough through
Speaker 2: the tube and then it comes out through a little
Speaker 2: die made from brass. And I saw this beautiful handmade thing,
Speaker 2: and I bought it from my home. But in my mind,
Speaker 2: I'm thinking, well, you know, at the restaurant right now, Yas,
Speaker 2: who's one of our sous chefs who is from Japan,
Speaker 2: has been working in his own time at the restaurant
Speaker 2: on a sober noodle which is made from a native
Speaker 2: Australian grain. And so it's not quite landing though, because
Speaker 2: it doesn't quite feel like the Attica context. That's because
Speaker 2: right now this dish is a straight sober noodle and
Speaker 2: it feels very Japanese and it needs to feel like
Speaker 2: something from Attica, and perhaps by pushing it through the
Speaker 2: extruder into a macaroni shape, it will start to feel
Speaker 2: like something that we could serve. Right now, it's just
Speaker 2: a kind of a great concept, not quite a dish
Speaker 2: that we could put on the menu. This has probably
Speaker 2: been going on already for three months, and I can
Speaker 2: see it last at least another month. But there's every
Speaker 2: chance that all of this work can be just a
Speaker 2: complete dead end.
Speaker 1: How do you call it? When you're like, Okay, we've
Speaker 1: got to a point and I think this is a failure.
Speaker 2: I always know because there's a sort of euphoric moment
Speaker 2: that comes at the end of this sort of journey
Speaker 2: of discovery and of creativity, and it's this really peaked
Speaker 2: moment in my life which is coming together of all
Speaker 2: of our dreams and our hopes and our work. And
Speaker 2: it's very much a team project with a lot of
Speaker 2: people in the kitchen contributing, and we've been through potentially
Speaker 2: one hundred iterations of a dish, but then with a
Speaker 2: slight shift of the dynamic or a slight little change
Speaker 2: in the recipe and the plating, it might come together.
Speaker 2: And I always know that moment. I might be the
Speaker 2: single person that knows that moment. That's maybe my job
Speaker 2: to know that moment, and that moment is really where
Speaker 2: the magic happens. I think for me is this feeling
Speaker 2: of they're the dishes, it's everything. It's that your all
Speaker 2: of your self into an item of food. It's delicious,
Speaker 2: it looks beautiful, and the culmination of all of those
Speaker 2: things is really a massive sort of moment. It's almost addictive,
Speaker 2: and I just can't wait to kind of share that
Speaker 2: with people. But I always kind of know when it's ready.
Speaker 2: It's hard to put an exact line on why I
Speaker 2: know it's ready. It's just my special skill. I suppose
Speaker 2: it can never come on though, until I absolutely believe
Speaker 2: that it's ready, because to do so would be the
Speaker 2: service to the standard that we've built over nineteen years.
Speaker 1: I think about all the work that goes into creating
Speaker 1: a new dish, and that blew my mind. I had
Speaker 1: literally no idea that was the process. And then I
Speaker 1: think about, like something that your book opened my eyes
Speaker 1: up to is just the amount of plagiarism that goes
Speaker 1: on in your industry and all that work that goes
Speaker 1: into something. And then you've got people potentially all around
Speaker 1: the world just taking those ideas and claiming them as
Speaker 1: their own. I want, don't know, because you feel like
Speaker 1: the sort of person that doesn't hold on to this
Speaker 1: stuff that doesn't hold on to potential anger. How do
Speaker 1: you do that? Like, how do you let it go when?
Speaker 2: Because I always feel like I have another idea coming so,
Speaker 2: and I have a gill our Darling's policy of you know,
Speaker 2: when a dish's life is done, whether that's three months
Speaker 2: or six months, for a year, it will never come
Speaker 2: back on with the menu. And what that does is
Speaker 2: it just keeps us looking forward to the future constantly,
Speaker 2: and it evolves the restaurant and the cooking in ways
Speaker 2: that are not possible if you're sort of reciting your
Speaker 2: repertoire of dishes that you keep coming back to each season,
Speaker 2: which is kind of the classical way to run a
Speaker 2: restaurant like house. But for me, I think when you're
Speaker 2: young and you're starting out and you haven't made it,
Speaker 2: perhaps whatever made it means, and people are copying your
Speaker 2: ideas and any creative endeavor, I think it really hurts
Speaker 2: and it's really hard to deal with. But I think
Speaker 2: just by knowing that I will come up with another idea,
Speaker 2: it eases the pain of seeing somebody you know, take
Speaker 2: your really hard work frankly and pass it off as
Speaker 2: if it was their own, which is a very different
Speaker 2: thing than being honest with your inspiration and saying, you know,
Speaker 2: I'm really inspired by this culture or this person and
Speaker 2: their work, and that's a really honorable thing to do.
Speaker 2: I'd probably argue that there should be a little bit
Speaker 2: more of that and creative endeavors in the world.
Speaker 1: That would be nice. I guess, like earlier on in
Speaker 1: your career, before you achieved the success that I think
Speaker 1: you have objectively achieved now, was it harder to deal
Speaker 1: with earlier on, when maybe you didn't have that belief
Speaker 1: that there'll always be another great idea.
Speaker 2: Absolutely. I remember happening on the first menu, and it
Speaker 2: really stung because the person that borrowed that idea didn't
Speaker 2: credit me with it, and they were really successful, and
Speaker 2: we were really struggling financially and nobody cared about Attaka
Speaker 2: on the brink of bankruptcy, and I was the sort
Speaker 2: of solution to that, the potential solution, but I didn't
Speaker 2: know that we were going to make it. It definitely
Speaker 2: stung in those early years. So it's easier for me
Speaker 2: to sit here now and say, you know, oh, like
Speaker 2: I can kind of if I do see my work
Speaker 2: and elsewhere, which I do. If I see it on Instagram,
Speaker 2: I'm kind of like, well, you know, sale a V
Speaker 2: and I know that I've got this other thing that
Speaker 2: I'm working on. It's less easy to do that at
Speaker 2: the beginning. For sure.
Speaker 1: I would love to ask a bit more about your
Speaker 1: creative process, because I feel like with anyone that is
Speaker 1: in a creative field, there'll kind of be peaks and
Speaker 1: troughs of creativity. And I'd love to know for you
Speaker 1: what what if you observed around yourself and when you're
Speaker 1: kind of at peak creativity and the ideas are just coming, like,
Speaker 1: what are the things that you're doing or the I
Speaker 1: don't know, the stimulus that you're inputting, what does that
Speaker 1: look like?
Speaker 2: I think for me it's essential, and I think this
Speaker 2: is for any person that's had a small amount of
Speaker 2: success in any kind of business or any walk of life,
Speaker 2: and evocation is to keep continuing to return to that
Speaker 2: original love and almost sort of in a way that
Speaker 2: you know, the more successful you become, the more distracted
Speaker 2: you can get. And we all know this, and the
Speaker 2: more things that are demanding our attention but are actually
Speaker 2: dragging us away from the thing that we did that
Speaker 2: brought us the success in the first place. So for me,
Speaker 2: it's about returning to cooking constantly and cookings what has
Speaker 2: made me successful. And of course the demands on my
Speaker 2: time are so many now, from podcasts like this, to
Speaker 2: requirements of staff, to running a company with forty employees,
Speaker 2: to all of the other things that I do in
Speaker 2: my life a family. I need to keep returning to cooking.
Speaker 2: So it's about finding new ways to return to cooking
Speaker 2: and not just staying in the format, which was I
Speaker 2: turn up at the restaurant nine am. By ten am,
Speaker 2: I'm cooking. Now. Sometimes I can't cook at ten am.
Speaker 2: Sometimes it's not till twelve. Sometimes that doesn't allow enough
Speaker 2: time to see an idea through in the rest of
Speaker 2: the day till five when the service starts in the restaurant.
Speaker 2: So sometimes I need to work on the idea at home,
Speaker 2: or the idea starts off in the home kitchen as
Speaker 2: an idea for a dinner party, and then it eventually
Speaker 2: makes its way onto the outer communue. So in the
Speaker 2: last three years, that's sort of how I've evolved that process.
Speaker 2: But I've realized fundamentally that thing that brings me the
Speaker 2: most joy and the thing that I need to protect
Speaker 2: is cooking and my ability to do it. And of
Speaker 2: course I'm going to come back to that idea. The
Speaker 2: more successful will you become, the harder it is to
Speaker 2: do the thing that made you successful. So I always
Speaker 2: remind myself of that, and I think it makes me
Speaker 2: feel really good as well to be able to go
Speaker 2: you know what.
Speaker 1: I know.
Speaker 2: There's one hundred emails there, there's an Instagram post that
Speaker 2: you've got to do, there's a meeting, somebody needs your
Speaker 2: help in external of the restaurant. But I do need
Speaker 2: to cook today and I need to make that time
Speaker 2: and get organized to do it. Another thing that elks
Speaker 2: me hugely is having a lot of interests and different
Speaker 2: interests than your occupation or what your passion is, because
Speaker 2: it opens you up to a different world. And so
Speaker 2: whether it's travel or listening to music for me, or
Speaker 2: skateboarding or art or whatever it might be, it doesn't
Speaker 2: matter really, it's about having a different sort of experience
Speaker 2: with a different group of people.
Speaker 1: I love that. I don't know if you've heard the
Speaker 1: theory around I shape versus T shaped people. It used
Speaker 1: to be talking about quite a lot in innovation circles
Speaker 1: where you've got your I shape people that are experts,
Speaker 1: have deep expertise in one particular area, and then you've
Speaker 1: got your T shaped people that have that deep expertise,
Speaker 1: but then they've also got the top of the tea
Speaker 1: where they've got that breadth of different interests outside of
Speaker 1: that main interest. And when I was and you know,
Speaker 1: the research would suggest that T shaped people are quite
Speaker 1: a bit more creative than I shaped people, which kind
Speaker 1: of makes sense. And when I was reading Uses for
Speaker 1: Obsession and just learning about all these different areas that
Speaker 1: you've gone so deep in, it's like, no one day,
Speaker 1: you're so incredibly creative. I do want to ask about
Speaker 1: music because that's clearly a passion and I love that
Speaker 1: you actually created Spotify and playlists that go with the book.
Speaker 1: That's awesome. How does music help with your creativity? And
Speaker 1: what I mean by that, Like, you know, I've spoken
Speaker 1: to various creative people around how they'll use music to
Speaker 1: get in a certain mood for whatever it is they're
Speaker 1: trying to create. How does it help, I guess, boost
Speaker 1: your creativity when it comes to cooking.
Speaker 2: Music's kind of everything. You know, It's the soundtrack for
Speaker 2: my life and I'll soundtrack my life, and almost every
Speaker 2: moment always to music in the kitchen as well. It's
Speaker 2: a way that traditionally chefs have sort of lifted their
Speaker 2: energy at the end of the day, right before service.
Speaker 2: I write about that experience. It's almost like a sporting
Speaker 2: team in the locker room before going out into the perch.
Speaker 2: The last hour before the restaurant opens, we amplify ourselves
Speaker 2: as we set up frantically for the first guest arriving
Speaker 2: at six o'clock with music, sometimes quite intense music, very
Speaker 2: loud music. It's something that happens with or without me,
Speaker 2: you know, in fact, mostly without me. You know, I'm
Speaker 2: mostly an observer to the kitchen using this as a
Speaker 2: mechanism to get themselves in the right headspace. So at Ataka,
Speaker 2: there's you know, a joke that it has the most
Speaker 2: stereos of any restaurant in the world. Is pretty much
Speaker 2: a stereo in every room, so every person in the
Speaker 2: organization can be listening to music if they want to.
Speaker 2: You know, I just can't imagine creating without it, really,
Speaker 2: you know, I think it's such a useful tool, and
Speaker 2: I always feel so indebted to artists. Another sort of
Speaker 2: very cool kind of fact in restaurants is that, especially
Speaker 2: creative restaurants, it attracts a lot of musicians, and so
Speaker 2: we get to serve and cook for musicians and sometimes
Speaker 2: become friends with them, especially touring musicians, and that's such
Speaker 2: a beautiful thing. I would say that sometimes it creates
Speaker 2: a bit of nervousness with the playlist in terms of
Speaker 2: will they like it? And in fact, sometimes you know,
Speaker 2: famous musicians come and their music might be on the playlist,
Speaker 2: and I almost feel bad about that because I don't
Speaker 2: want to make them feel uncomfortable. But it's the greatest pleasure,
Speaker 2: you know. I think it's such a gift music.
Speaker 1: Did you listen to a song on the way here
Speaker 1: to prepare for this podcast in your jet lagged stage?
Speaker 2: Actually, I've been all over the shop today, so I
Speaker 2: wasn't very organized. I was listening to an interviewer with
Speaker 2: a skateboarder. That was what I was doing.
Speaker 1: We will be back with Ben soon, and when we return,
Speaker 1: we'll be discussing the ways he uses creativity to cultivate
Speaker 1: adult friendships and why he being self doubt is a
Speaker 1: tool and not a weakness. If you're looking for more
Speaker 1: tips to improve the way you work can Live. I
Speaker 1: write a short weekly newsletter that contains tactics I've discovered
Speaker 1: that have helped me personally. You can sign up for
Speaker 1: that at Amantha dot com. That's Amantha dot com. I
Speaker 1: want to talk about self doubt because you write about
Speaker 1: that quite a lot, and you've had many moments of
Speaker 1: self doubt, and you talk about them just very honestly
Speaker 1: and with a lot of humility, and I would love
Speaker 1: to know what if you learnt about how to overcome
Speaker 1: that in moments where you really need to A very.
Speaker 2: Quiet person, introverted and it wouldn't necessarily seem that way,
Speaker 2: but especially in my earlier years, and always preferred to
Speaker 2: let my physical work all of the talking. And I've
Speaker 2: had to learn to find my own voice, you know,
Speaker 2: which is part of overcoming self doubt for me to
Speaker 2: learn to be a better communicator, to actually be able
Speaker 2: to articulate how I feel about things and about the world.
Speaker 2: But in terms of like self doubt, I find that
Speaker 2: there's been quite a few moments in my career and
Speaker 2: at Attica where it seemed to the outside world that
Speaker 2: the idea is outlandish, you know, whatever creative idea it
Speaker 2: might be, and a perfect one would be you know,
Speaker 2: at the end of the Lockdown's Attica, we could only
Speaker 2: open the restaurant to a very limited capacity and we
Speaker 2: were going to go broke, so we had to open
Speaker 2: a big outdoor restaurant in the arablly called Attica Summer Camp.
Speaker 2: And when I sort of proposed that idea, nobody accept
Speaker 2: My wife Kylie and our architect Eva thought that that
Speaker 2: was a good idea. In fact, people were ringing to
Speaker 2: tell me out of concern for me, that we would
Speaker 2: probably fail if we did that, but there was just
Speaker 2: something in me that I just had to do it.
Speaker 2: I thought that it was the way I could see.
Speaker 2: It turned out to be this amazing thing. But I
Speaker 2: think sometimes when you if you're doing something different and
Speaker 2: changing something, you know, people don't love change. And so
Speaker 2: probably talking about more other people's doubt in this, but
Speaker 2: also my own self doubt, which was fueled by well
Speaker 2: intentioned friends suggesting that I not do it, But ultimately
Speaker 2: I just felt like it was something that I had
Speaker 2: to do. I think there's always a bit of internal
Speaker 2: self doubt, and I think that's healthy. I think, you know,
Speaker 2: reason questioning within yourself of your ideas and not just
Speaker 2: sort of blindly going into things to change them is important.
Speaker 2: So I don't necessarily see self doubt as a negative thing.
Speaker 2: I think it needs to be controlled like anxiety does.
Speaker 2: I would probably say to younger people listening or people
Speaker 2: are starting off on a journey in a new direction,
Speaker 2: that it gets easier as time goes on and you
Speaker 2: can kind of build on its success or a failure
Speaker 2: for the next time. And perhaps that for me, that
Speaker 2: self doubt's got a little easier to beer, you know,
Speaker 2: But sometimes you just have to back yourself, you know.
Speaker 2: I think as well, like despite all of your fears,
Speaker 2: And there's been defferentely in moments where that's been true.
Speaker 2: And probably the peak one was going from being an
Speaker 2: employee in a restaurant for being the first time owner.
Speaker 2: I was filled with self doubt. I didn't think it
Speaker 2: was my place to own a restaurant. And that moment
Speaker 2: was like, I was thirty eight, thirty nine, are you
Speaker 2: ever going to do this? You know, are you ever
Speaker 2: going to do this? And I laid everything on the
Speaker 2: line a bit, my house, on my capacity to run
Speaker 2: a restaurant. I'm glad I did.
Speaker 1: I feel like that's a good segue in terms of
Speaker 1: thinking about the courage that some of those decisions took
Speaker 1: and something that struck me in terms of I imagine probably
Speaker 1: what has received the most attention in your book is
Speaker 1: your criticism of food critics and the awards industry. And
Speaker 1: I don't want to talk about the content of that
Speaker 1: chapter because people, quite frankly, can just read the book
Speaker 1: or listen to other interviews that you've done. But I
Speaker 1: want to talk about why now and how did you,
Speaker 1: I guess, build up the courage. I don't know if
Speaker 1: that's the right phrase to do it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Okay, it took a lot of courage. So why
Speaker 2: I had a lot of fear? I think because to
Speaker 2: continue to sort of tell a lie about it felt
Speaker 2: worse than the risk of actually bringing it to light.
Speaker 2: Does that make sense? You know that the idea that
Speaker 2: I will pretend like everything is fine when really it's not.
Speaker 2: You know, I've always tried to be honest about things,
Speaker 2: you know, because I really feel like glossing over the
Speaker 2: harder things, whether that be with me health, or whether
Speaker 2: that be the way that the restaurant's run or a
Speaker 2: creative process. I felt like glossing over that stuff is
Speaker 2: not helpful to other people, especially people who follow you
Speaker 2: and look up to you. And so I've felt a
Speaker 2: sense of responsibility to a broader community into my industry.
Speaker 2: And I also think that if you see something bad
Speaker 2: happening and you walk pasted it, it's not good for
Speaker 2: the victims of that bad thing that's happening, but it's
Speaker 2: certainly not good for the person that walks past it.
Speaker 2: You know. I actually in some ways that might affect
Speaker 2: them even more. And so you know selfishly as well,
Speaker 2: like if I don't say this, when will be my
Speaker 2: next opportunity. It's funny because I never really had a
Speaker 2: plan to say any of these things that I wrote about.
Speaker 2: I actually wrote them at the beginning of it. I
Speaker 2: wrote a mind map on the wall of maybe over
Speaker 2: a hundred ideas, which I felt fabulous about it, and
Speaker 2: then I didn't really write about any of them. And
Speaker 2: I think there's just something about reacting to how you're
Speaker 2: feeling and what's going on in writing that is really
Speaker 2: sparent and really sort of this rule. I think, you know,
Speaker 2: the point of writing for me is to tell the truth.
Speaker 2: That's what writing deserves, and I wanted to honor that
Speaker 2: truth in my writing, and I just several times in
Speaker 2: the book, I just felt like, you know what, this
Speaker 2: is not easy to write, This is scary, This scares
Speaker 2: me what I've written, This scares my wife Kylie. But ultimately,
Speaker 2: what I just kept coming back to was I can't
Speaker 2: not say it.
Speaker 1: What feedback or advice did you get from Kylie on this?
Speaker 2: A fair bit of fear and then also Kylie's really determined,
Speaker 2: Kylie is brave, but that changed across the time. So
Speaker 2: it's probably like a year between writing some of these
Speaker 2: meaty things and a year between them being published, or
Speaker 2: even six months before I decided that I would allow
Speaker 2: them to be published. And in that time, you know,
Speaker 2: we were kind of like yo yo's, you know, like
Speaker 2: we're really up and down on it. Some days, you know,
Speaker 2: you'd be feeling yeah, you know, like really empowered and
Speaker 2: bold and like yeah, you know, we need to say that,
Speaker 2: and then other times you'd be like quite and be like, oh,
Speaker 2: but what happens if we lose everything? What will people
Speaker 2: do to us? You know? And so there's like there's
Speaker 2: fair but ultimately, I guess kind of what I felt
Speaker 2: really strongly at the end of it, and so did
Speaker 2: Kylie were really aligned on this, and we had to
Speaker 2: be because this is her future as well. She didn't
Speaker 2: write this, but like it's her company too. Was that
Speaker 2: if we couldn't say these things and run the restaurant,
Speaker 2: then we'd find that the running the restaurant wasn't worth
Speaker 2: it anymore.
Speaker 1: How does it feel now to be on the other
Speaker 1: side that it's all out there, very public in terms
Speaker 1: of your views and the award system.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's really interesting, you know. I guess it's as expected,
Speaker 2: you know. For me, I could just come back to
Speaker 2: people don't like change very much, you know, and critics
Speaker 2: hate to be challenged. They see their workers. It's a
Speaker 2: one way street. And the irony of it's not lost
Speaker 2: on me of course either. But I would say that
Speaker 2: the absolute help pouring of people from my industry and
Speaker 2: from other creative industries, hundreds and hundreds of messages, has
Speaker 2: just been incredibly humbling and also totally heartbreaking. You can't
Speaker 2: believe the response. So I could never have seen this.
Speaker 2: I knew my own experience, of the experience of my
Speaker 2: own team, and the experience of many close friends in
Speaker 2: our industry, and we were pretty aligned on it. Whether
Speaker 2: or not we'll speak out about it publicly or not.
Speaker 2: I didn't expect the reaction that it got like that
Speaker 2: positive reaction was just staggering.
Speaker 1: I'm very happy to hear that, and I'm not surprised.
Speaker 1: I want to talk about your role as a business owner,
Speaker 1: and one of the things that struck me into in
Speaker 1: terms of like how you see your role, you almost
Speaker 1: don't see yourself as trying to be the best in
Speaker 1: the restaurant industry. You're trying to be the best small
Speaker 1: business owner in the world. And I love that distinction,
Speaker 1: and I would love to know what are some of
Speaker 1: the most important things that other small business owners or
Speaker 1: business owners in any industry could take from how you
Speaker 1: do things at Attica.
Speaker 2: I think like most of the time, when I see
Speaker 2: somebody going wrong in business, it's because they've taken their
Speaker 2: focus off the people. You know, it's always about the people,
Speaker 2: and at every part of it is about the people.
Speaker 2: Whether or not you make a profit or not, or
Speaker 2: whether or not you have high levels of customer satisfaction
Speaker 2: or not, or whether you have high levels of employee satisfaction,
Speaker 2: it's all going to come back to the people and
Speaker 2: how the people feel about the work and how they
Speaker 2: feel about the way that you treat them in the
Speaker 2: culture that you've built, and also, most importantly, how the
Speaker 2: leader is behaving and the standard that they're setting, not
Speaker 2: just the standard they're asking for, but the standard that
Speaker 2: they're laying out for themselves first and foremost. And there's
Speaker 2: that old classic saying the fish rots from the head.
Speaker 2: It could not be more true when applied to business.
Speaker 2: And so everything starts from there, you know, really it does.
Speaker 2: And so I think we have a tendency in business
Speaker 2: and small business and all kinds of businesses to over
Speaker 2: complicate everything. And what I've experienced is it's much simpler
Speaker 2: than that. Often managing people is much simpler than that.
Speaker 2: You know, it comes down to some basic fundamentals of
Speaker 2: common decency and fairness. And I guess you know, I'm
Speaker 2: really speaking on the side of owners here. You know
Speaker 2: that it needs to be an equitable agreement where both
Speaker 2: the business and the employee are winning. And I think
Speaker 2: if you can't kind of get to that in business,
Speaker 2: then you have to really question your reasons for doing it.
Speaker 2: For me, my reason for doing it is for people.
Speaker 2: It's not for profit. It needs to be profitable, but
Speaker 2: I think that I feel pretty strongly that by doing
Speaker 2: things the right way or trying to do them the
Speaker 2: right way, that the profit side of it, as long
Speaker 2: as you have good fundamentals and business and by that
Speaker 2: I mean good accounting, good bookkeeping, that the profits will
Speaker 2: generally take care of themselves. But the thing that's often
Speaker 2: missed is the sort of human element of an organization.
Speaker 2: And you see this in all different types of businesses.
Speaker 2: But there's just something about a team that is well
Speaker 2: cared for, that is respected, that respects the company, that
Speaker 2: it's the sort of fourth dimension that is not really
Speaker 2: about money. It's hard to put a sort of a
Speaker 2: finger on exactly that. You just go into a business
Speaker 2: and you feel it, and it's genuine engagement with the work.
Speaker 2: It's real care and pride in the establishment that the
Speaker 2: people are working for. I can always see it. I
Speaker 2: just had it in Paris at a tiny little crapery
Speaker 2: restaurant called Crapery Little Raise in Paris. It's the most amazing,
Speaker 2: tiny little restaurant where the crape was ten dollars and
Speaker 2: it was so beautiful. But it wasn't just the crape.
Speaker 2: It was the energy, the humility, the kindness of the
Speaker 2: people behind it. It's the most successful crape restaurant in Paris,
Speaker 2: but it doesn't carry itself like it. It carries itself
Speaker 2: with dig and grace, and it made it so much
Speaker 2: more magical. It transformed it from a crepe to something extra.
Speaker 2: And I'm still thinking about it, and I suppose that's
Speaker 2: what I'm getting at, is that there's a lot of
Speaker 2: crape restaurants in Paris and they cook very good crapes,
Speaker 2: but Little Brays does something else as well as make
Speaker 2: a crape, you know, And I believe, I don't know
Speaker 2: the business, but I believe it's connected to the leadership
Speaker 2: and that it seemed like a really great place to work.
Speaker 1: You're describing that reminds me of one of your comments
Speaker 1: around food critics and the ones that come into a
Speaker 1: restaurant and all they do is look at their food.
Speaker 1: They don't look at the environment, the atmosphere, the people
Speaker 1: around them, and just how they're missing so much of
Speaker 1: what has been curated for them.
Speaker 2: That's very common. Unfortunately. Yeah, they feel like they can't
Speaker 2: engage with it because on a real deep level, because
Speaker 2: a deep customer engages an enthusiasts, they don't like withhold
Speaker 2: their excitement, and that is how you get more as
Speaker 2: a customer too, because especially from a front of house team,
Speaker 2: because you know, waiters are there to serve you and
Speaker 2: they really rely on the exchange of human energy, and
Speaker 2: so when that's not happening, it's harder for a weater
Speaker 2: to do their job. And it's of course incredibly emotionally
Speaker 2: draining undertaking, and the weight is constantly asking is the
Speaker 2: customer happy? What can I do to make the customer happier?
Speaker 2: If the customer is happier, and it sort of is
Speaker 2: expressing that it becomes much easier for the waiter if
Speaker 2: somebody's cold. The weights trying to change tack and trying
Speaker 2: to you know, it's a really intellectual undertaking being a
Speaker 2: great waiter, and so if you don't get anything, you
Speaker 2: don't know if the persons enjoying it, and so you're
Speaker 2: trying to maybe improve the experience or tailor it. And
Speaker 2: we have to do this table by table anyway regardless,
Speaker 2: but ultimately you're just shooting yourself in the foot because
Speaker 2: you know, as I right, the waiter is your personal
Speaker 2: hedonistic agent for the evening, and who would do anything
Speaker 2: to compromise the waiter. You know, waters are awesome.
Speaker 1: I do want to ask about cooking, but first before
Speaker 1: I do that, I want to ask about friendship. Something
Speaker 1: that really shone through in your book and in interviews
Speaker 1: where i've heard you is that you take friendships really,
Speaker 1: really seriously. And you're forty seven now. I think, and
Speaker 1: often what happens with adults, and particularly male adults, is
Speaker 1: that the older thing you get, the less friends you have,
Speaker 1: and the less friendships you cultivate. And I feel like
Speaker 1: it seems like in reading the book, in the very
Speaker 1: long list, in the acknowledgment, that you've kind of done
Speaker 1: the opposite. And I imagine it's probably quite unconscious, but
Speaker 1: I was wondering if you could consciously unpack that, what
Speaker 1: do you do ben to cultivate friendships as an adult.
Speaker 2: I've always tried to be a good friend. I don't
Speaker 2: think I've always succeeded in that, especially as a younger person,
Speaker 2: because maybe my expectationtions were too high of people, or
Speaker 2: I was choosing friendships where I was it wasn't equitable,
Speaker 2: where I was putting too much into it. And as
Speaker 2: I've gotten older, I've gotten much better at choosing friends
Speaker 2: who want to be friends. I'm definitely drawn to people
Speaker 2: who are a little I don't know if mad's the
Speaker 2: right word, but are a little different, you know, who
Speaker 2: turn stones. You know. I'm definitely drawn to people who
Speaker 2: are unusual. But also I'm really drawn to people who
Speaker 2: are kind and people who communicate. And I love friendships
Speaker 2: where I'm not the only one who is the one
Speaker 2: to keep in touch. One thing I really believe in
Speaker 2: friendships is if I say that I'll do something, I
Speaker 2: will do it. I will always do it. And I
Speaker 2: think my friends know that. But I think one of
Speaker 2: the things I love most about friendship is the ability
Speaker 2: to be generous to people, and something that I really adore.
Speaker 2: As a child, I always loved giving gifts. It was
Speaker 2: much more than received them, and we didn't have a
Speaker 2: lot of money, but I would save up my pocket
Speaker 2: money or earn money by doing odd jobs and spend
Speaker 2: it almost all of it at Christmas time and I
Speaker 2: would go into the town that we lived by and
Speaker 2: spend just all this time choosing presents for my sisters
Speaker 2: and my mum and dad. And in a lot of ways,
Speaker 2: that's how I am with friends, not with gifts, but
Speaker 2: with experiences. So maybe a month ago, I went on
Speaker 2: this boat trip up to the Arrow. It's just like
Speaker 2: a little higher boat that you hire for like sixty
Speaker 2: bucks with my daughter and my wife, and we had
Speaker 2: a lovely day. And I thought, oh, you know, I
Speaker 2: would have written boats in the raw off of something
Speaker 2: tackier tourist thing. But then when I was seeing the
Speaker 2: city for the first time from a boat, it's like,
Speaker 2: this is cool, and so in that moment I had
Speaker 2: but what if I got one of these boats and
Speaker 2: I packed it. I think there's eleven people can fill
Speaker 2: in this boat. And then I did a tasting menu
Speaker 2: on the boat, ten courses that are all preprepared kind
Speaker 2: of and I could just take this big chili bin
Speaker 2: and serve them. But what if I got this group
Speaker 2: of friends together and I just told them to meet
Speaker 2: me at the room a bank. They had no idea
Speaker 2: what was going to happen. And so that's what I did,
Speaker 2: like two or three weeks ago. And it's just so silly.
Speaker 2: It's effefesent. And I think that in friendship, but in life,
Speaker 2: silliness is really underrated. Have such serious lives, you know,
Speaker 2: and our professions are so serious and so important. To us.
Speaker 2: But a bit of silliness I think goes a long
Speaker 2: way because it just sort of lightens everything.
Speaker 1: I love that. Let's talk cooking. I feel like I'm
Speaker 1: not one of those podcasters that does the whole rapid
Speaker 1: fire questions, but I've got quite a few.
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, I'll try to limit them.
Speaker 1: To try to limit it, okay, in no particular order.
Speaker 1: Kids lunches, what are your hacks?
Speaker 2: Always healthy? I mean, I think you know, if you're
Speaker 2: under the pump, we'll go and buy a rice paper
Speaker 2: roll for the kids. That's maybe one hack. Always ask
Speaker 2: them what they want. I'm onto my last kid. Two
Speaker 2: kids have progressed out of school lunches, so I'm onto
Speaker 2: my last. She's also our best eating so kind of
Speaker 2: she's easy. Anything goes. Always a piece of fruit, always
Speaker 2: a vegetable.
Speaker 1: If we're not getting rice paper rolls. What's a good, quick,
Speaker 1: healthy lunch.
Speaker 2: Well, fortunately, this child like salad a lot, so some
Speaker 2: lettuce in the garden, maybe some left avorast chicken. I
Speaker 2: like to make a caesar salad dressing from not based
Speaker 2: on mayonnaise, but based on yogurt, which is much healthier
Speaker 2: than mayonnaise. So it's essentially just like making a seas
Speaker 2: salad dressing, but with no mayonnaise. And I've encouraged my
Speaker 2: children to make their own school lunches. I'll say, hey,
Speaker 2: this is kind of what's there, what's to use? And
Speaker 2: they've always made a really great decisions. So I think
Speaker 2: just engaging kids with school lunches is important. It's what
Speaker 2: you want it. You want them to eat it. You
Speaker 2: don't want to throw it out, but teen like they
Speaker 2: ate it nice.
Speaker 1: What simple thing could the average person do that would
Speaker 1: make a big difference to their results in the kitchen?
Speaker 2: I would say having better quality pots and hands. Everything
Speaker 2: cooks better in a better pan, and not everybody can
Speaker 2: afford that, So my advice would be to build up
Speaker 2: your collection of pots and pans slowly. I've built up
Speaker 2: my pots pans in my kitchen across a decade and
Speaker 2: they do make a real difference to cooking. Other than that,
Speaker 2: I would say a sharp knife, a block of good
Speaker 2: quality Italian parmesan. What else? Always garlic, Always have garlic,
Speaker 2: Just some simple staples. A lemon is always essential, both
Speaker 2: for the zest and the juice. Coffee. I can't live
Speaker 2: without coffee, Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1: Okay, pots and pans, let's just focus in on that.
Speaker 1: If I were going to start tomorrow, what would be
Speaker 1: the first pot or pan that you recommend that I buy?
Speaker 1: And this isn't fi. I've got a fry pan that
Speaker 1: we use a lot, and my partner and I are
Speaker 1: just a bit worried about the fact that it's nonstick.
Speaker 1: Yeah no good, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: No tearflong. You don't want a tearflong pan. That's for
Speaker 2: sure that that's going to end up in your system.
Speaker 2: It's microplastics and that's that's terrible for the environment. But
Speaker 2: there are good alternatives. I have a ceramic stick pan,
Speaker 2: which is a permanent coating that doesn't come off. It's
Speaker 2: a German made pan. It's amazing. Actually it's been quite
Speaker 2: life changing.
Speaker 1: What brand is it.
Speaker 2: I'm not ambassador for it or anything, but at WO
Speaker 2: L L VOLE I think it's called it's very very good.
Speaker 1: I've got a couple of well pans.
Speaker 2: Let you go, okay, well, you're on the wrong right track.
Speaker 2: Don't overheat them. They can't take the same kind of
Speaker 2: heat that is stainless or a cast iron pan can take.
Speaker 1: What is the most underrated cooking utensil.
Speaker 2: A flat bladed wooden spoon would be my go to
Speaker 2: kind of proper utensil. Around edged wooden spoon is a
Speaker 2: hopeless device. You should get rid of that. Finding a
Speaker 2: flat bladed wooden spoon. It just gives you much more
Speaker 2: surface contact than the pan. Whatever you're making, whether it
Speaker 2: be a bolonnaise or a cheese sauce or a curry.
Speaker 2: When you're braising something in a pot, you need to
Speaker 2: stir it as little as you can, and so a
Speaker 2: flat bladed wooden spoon has you know, maybe twenty times
Speaker 2: a surface contact of around bladed wooden spoon. So a
Speaker 2: good flat bladed wooden spoon is a good tool. And
Speaker 2: microplane greater is also a very useful thing. But a
Speaker 2: decent box grader is a really great tool. So you
Speaker 2: can do a variety of different jobs on a box grader.
Speaker 1: Awesome. What's the best thing to make in an air fryer?
Speaker 2: Chicken?
Speaker 1: Yeah, tell me about that, Like, how do you prep
Speaker 1: the chicken?
Speaker 2: Okay, so I think chicken thigh is best. Boneless chicken thigh.
Speaker 2: And my wife is the queen of the air fryer,
Speaker 2: and she's converted me to it and gained no affiliation.
Speaker 2: But we have a Phillips one. I like it very much.
Speaker 2: I thought that their frys were absolutely rubbish, and this
Speaker 2: is always how it goes in our house. Kylie suggests
Speaker 2: an appliance, so I go, oh my god, no, we've
Speaker 2: got an oven. What do we need in the air
Speaker 2: fry for? But there's just an intensity to the air
Speaker 2: fry that I like. And chicken thigh, which is kind
Speaker 2: of a robust cut of chicken. You know, she marinates
Speaker 2: in a bit of olive oil, a bit of garlic,
Speaker 2: maybe a bit of Dijon mustard, maybe a bit of
Speaker 2: lemon salt and black pepper, and then she just lays
Speaker 2: it on the rack and air fry and cooks it
Speaker 2: hard and it gets really caramelized and really tasty. So
Speaker 2: I think that's the best thing I've had in the
Speaker 2: air fry. But I also like to sort of do
Speaker 2: I hate the word meal prep. I think that's such
Speaker 2: a disgusting term for like cooking food. But let's say
Speaker 2: that I'm going to use it in this context. If
Speaker 2: I'm making I like to maybe chop up some sweet
Speaker 2: potatoes and cope them with a little bit of olive
Speaker 2: oil eight very healthy and some salt pepper and lay
Speaker 2: them in a single layer on the air fry and
Speaker 2: then it's about twelve minutes in the air fry on
Speaker 2: the hottest temperature, and then that's great for the base
Speaker 2: of a salad the next day. So I think it's
Speaker 2: a really helpful tool.
Speaker 1: I just want to say your observation that you that
Speaker 1: you shared in the book around the bottom of the
Speaker 1: apple tasting better than the top of the apple. I
Speaker 1: don't have a question around it. I just thought that
Speaker 1: is very interesting.
Speaker 2: Do you agree with it?
Speaker 1: I'm not a big apple eater.
Speaker 2: Would Okay, Well, the next time you do it, an
Speaker 2: apple long and you to pay attention and see if
Speaker 2: you if you agree on that.
Speaker 1: It's on my to do list.
Speaker 2: Yeah, great, Life's greatest questions.
Speaker 1: Okay, my partner Neo, loves cooking. If if you were
Speaker 1: to suggest a Christmas gift for someone that loves cooking,
Speaker 1: what would you suggest.
Speaker 2: I mean, I've got to say that a solid brass
Speaker 2: hand cranked pasta excruder from Bologna would be a pretty
Speaker 2: great present for somebody. A really good pepper mial I
Speaker 2: like the ones with the French internal mechanisms like Burschow
Speaker 2: or Marlowe.
Speaker 1: You're right about how sourcing good ingredients is really I
Speaker 1: guess the number one it is brul, isn't it. How
Speaker 1: do you know where to get good ingredients from?
Speaker 2: Well, I think that's a learned skill, you know. I
Speaker 2: think that that comes from repetition and from experience and
Speaker 2: just from like really simple like from eating, from buying.
Speaker 2: Sometimes side by side comparisons are very powerful, and that's
Speaker 2: something that professionals like I do. But I think if
Speaker 2: something tastes delicious, it's good, you know. I think if
Speaker 2: you buy it from somebody that you can have a
Speaker 2: conversation with, it's essential, like going to a butcher in
Speaker 2: a market. If you have that ability and be able
Speaker 2: to talk about where that food comes from and how
Speaker 2: it was produced, that's almost going to guarantee that it's good,
Speaker 2: you know. I guess I have like a repertoire of
Speaker 2: ingredients that I trust, farmers that I trust, and I've
Speaker 2: just built that up from experimenting a little bit.
Speaker 1: Amazing. This is great. I'm going to do some shopping
Speaker 1: after this interview. Ben, thank you so much for your time.
Speaker 1: I've so loved this chat. And I got to say
Speaker 1: I loved researching for this interview so much. It's been
Speaker 1: great to have you back on How I Work. So
Speaker 1: thank you for coming in jet lag and all really
Speaker 1: much and on again.
Speaker 2: It's real pleasure.
Speaker 1: I hope you loved this chat with Ben as much
Speaker 1: as I did, and as well as leaving this interview
Speaker 1: personally feeling very inspired. I also can't wait to try
Speaker 1: some of his cooking tips at home. If you want
Speaker 1: to learn more about Ben, I highly recommend reading his
Speaker 1: latest book, Uses for Obsession, which we'll link to in
Speaker 1: the show notes, or dining at Attica the next time
Speaker 1: you're in Melbourne. If you like today's show, make sure
Speaker 1: you get follow on your podcast app to be alerted
Speaker 1: when new episodes drop. How I Work was recorded on
Speaker 1: the traditional land of the Warrangery People, part of the
Speaker 1: cool And Nation