This week, at a glance:
- Read: What James Michener can teach us about fusion cuisine
- Watch: Eli Feldman cut ticket times 75% using photos and AI
- Chef Notes: Chef Dan wants to ban "Heard" and "Yes Chef"
- Hot Take: Are mocktails just rebranded agua fresca?
- Cook: Zombie Sling. (making a cocktail is cooking right?
Read: On James Michener
James Michener is hands down my favorite author. One of the greatest, if not greatest, historical fiction writers ever.
He did so much research into a region's culture, vernacular, and history that his fictional characters somehow taught you more about a time period than an actual history book.
It reminds me of that dirty word "fusion" cuisine, and how it often doesn't work. When the cultures being combined in a cuisine aren't truly understood, when nobody did the homework, you can feel it. But when you do it well, and you have equal passion for both cuisines, you can create something that feels new, familiar, and delicious all at the same time.
Michener was the same way... he bridged deep knowledge with creativity, and loved the research as much as the writing itself. Worth aspiring to.
👉 Read the post here
The meez Podcast 🎙️
The Somification of Everything: Why soft skills are the future of AI-Driven hospitality
This week, I brought Eli Feldman into the mix with Matt and Mike. Eli owns Shybird (three locations in Boston), writes a newsletter that a lot of people in the industry follow, and has gone deeper on deploying AI in his restaurants than almost anyone I know.
What we cover:
- The Noma LA pop-up, Amex/Resy funding it, and whether $1,500 buys you the chef or just the name
- Can a chef's vision scale without them in the kitchen? (Matt and I disagree, naturally)
- Meta glasses for hands-free recipe development and training on the line
- How Eli cut ticket times 75% at Shybird Fenway using photos, KDS data, and Claude
- "Somification" ... the idea that every profession needs to learn from sommeliers
- What a $200/month software engineer, data analyst, and financial analyst means for restaurants
- Tech layoffs, youth unemployment, and the wave of talent coming into hospitality
- The barbell problem: PE-backed chains on one end, fine dining on the other, nothing in the middle
👉 Listen now here
Chef Feedback 🔥: "Oui Chef" vs "Heard" vs just say it back to me
I asked Chef Dan Siegelman what word or tool he would ban from the kitchen. He quickly responded, get rid of 'heard'.
I feel like Oui Chef / Yes chef is the same. It's so routinely said now that it's almost like brushing off the ask. LIke did you really get it or are you just $#@%^&* with me?
If you call out 'fire two duck,' you want to hear back 'two duck,'; not 'heard' or 'oui chef.'
👉 Chime in with Chef Dan on Linkedin or Insta.
Hot Take🤔🌶️: Mocktails?
I mean, they can def be tasty. And the margins are often pretty great.
Just seems to me like a new way to brand an agua fresca? Not saying that's a bad thing, just saying.
Also, I gotta imagine even though the margins are great, no one is ordering 4 of these in a night, so top line is dropping.
👉 Chime in with your thoughts on Insta or Linkedin
Recipe:
Zombie Sling
This was one of two cocktails I made at my wedding 8 years ago. It is way too much booze, but no one can tell because it tastes so good (well, eventually they can tell...:)
I guess if you remove the booze here, you have a mocktail too?
Recipe here
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