[00:06:24]:
I wanted to have something familiar, great flavors, and the technique is hidden behind. So you taste it, there's something different, but you're not necessarily see it on the plate. So the accessibility for the restaurant and all those thoughts I had for a long time. And then when the space came around, I thought it was the right space because of the high ceilings.
[00:06:43]:
All those design elements we wanted to put into a restaurant were actually fitting really well in that space, which is rarely happening as well. It's not as easy as you think in New York City to find the right space for the right design as well. So everything fits. So that was sort of the idea about Koloman and, you know, I didn't have a name for the restaurant at that point.
[00:07:03]:
I had a name, which was called VN. I wanted to call the restaurant actually VN at the beginning, but they all agreed that it's not the most prestigious name of a restaurant and too on the nose. So then we, uh, explored with a branding company and a couple of different options and the name Colo came up and Artists and Design and, and Interior Design specialist.
[00:07:22]:
And then we jumped on that name and got Koloman and inspiration for the design part of it. And, you know, one thing to another, we got Katja Scharnagl for the wine team as well from Austria. And this was a missing link. She had this beautiful wine list and approach to casual elegance.
Josh Sharkey [00:07:41]:
Yeah. By the way, you guys are in service right now, right?
Markus Glocker [00:07:45]:
No, actually not. Is it too loud?
Josh Sharkey [00:07:47]:
No, no, no. It's good. Just curious, are you doing lunch yet?
Markus Glocker [00:07:49]:
We're doing lunch. But we'll have lunch in about an hour.
Josh Sharkey [00:07:52]:
So, you know, I kind of wanted to talk a bit about Austrian cuisine. There aren't a lot of Austrian restaurants. I mean, there's Wallsé, maybe Cafe Katja, like at least in New York City. I mean, I'm sure there's a lot across the country, but like to you, like what is Austrian cuisine? Because it seems like you're definitely like a big supporter of it. You're trying to kind of tell more of a story around Austrian cuisine. Your restaurant is not like a full on Austrian restaurant.
Markus Glocker [00:08:17]
I wanted to avoid that as well because I do think it's very difficult to have a full on Austrian restaurant. The perception of Austrian food is still. I would say a little bit more on the heavier side. You know, it's pastry driven, but the food itself, the savory food is not necessarily the most elegant and eloquent food you would imagine.
[00:08:37]:
So therefore, I wanted to have the French aspect going into the Austrian food. But look, Austrian food I have a very strong connection with since my mom was cooking pretty much everyday fresh for us. We have four kids, or we are four kids. My dad came home during the break, you know, I was working in the village.
[00:08:54]:
So it was fresh food all the time. And looking back, she cooked classic Austrian dishes all the time, and the workload which was going into it was actually tremendous. So I grew up with all those classic dishes and I all felt the flames are so great, but I would say the looks of the plate or like the elegance of, or visuals is not there.
[00:09:15]:
So there were a lot of recipes or ideas from my background, which I put in there. And I do think there were a couple really great restaurants. Danube, for example, I'm sure you're familiar with from David Belay and Mario Lohninger, which was, I think, really set the tone for Austrian food, which is on a different level of elegance.
Josh Sharkey [00:09:35]:
Yeah, the dining room was stunning. Forgione is moving into that space now.
Markus Glocker [00:09:38]:
Oh really? I did not know that. That's good news. It's a beautiful space. So that's sort of the background for Austrian food for me. I always wanted to steer away from my young years of cooking because, you know, you wanna do something new, you wanna create your own style, all those kinds of things. But getting older, you know, you put things off the plate and take them away and just focus more on the flavor profile of what you will be familiar with, at least in my career. And now I'm able to put those kinds of things together with the techniques I learned over the years.
Josh Sharkey [00:10:29]:
It's hard to work with Austrian cuisines like some of those classic dishes if you don't apply some of your background with the fine dining, the aesthetics are really tough. Fully agree with that.
Markus Glocker [00:10:29]
That was actually our thought process when we first opened. We had to call dishes in a different way. You know, we had to write a different element in general so that people would understand it. We couldn't surprise him completely. We had to sort of. When you read the menu, you know that it's something different, but it's not so different that you're gonna send the dish back because this is not what I expected.
[00:10:43]:
So those kinds of things were quite challenging actually. That was the biggest challenge for us. But we had the French aspect to it, so the French cuisine aspect to it made the menu much more accessible and more understanding as well.
Josh Sharkey [00:11:00]:
Yeah. Are there dishes that you want to put on the menu? You know, for example, Kaiserschmarrn, is not on the menu. And that's one of my favorite things to eat. But are there dishes like that that you want to put on the menu just and you need to work through how to present them the right way or?
Markus Glocker [00:11:13]:
Yes. I mean, before I opened the doors and I had to put the menu together, there's a lot of great desserts and a lot of technique, but as you know, when you open the restaurant, all of a sudden all things move around and get so busy as well.
[00:11:28]:
And having control of certain things. Kaiserschmarrn is a simple dish, and it's not that simple. If you make it nice, you are able to serve, let's say 30 or 40. And those kinds of dishes for me have a lot of leisure guests, national guests, and a lot of Austrian German guests as well.
[00:11:47]:
If I were to serve Kaiserschmarrn, it's not right. They're gonna slaughter me. You know, it's like making a burger and you're not gonna make the burger. Right. It's, it's just, there's no room for error. So that's why I chose not to put those kinds of dishes on there yet. I will. But that's gonna be when we are in full swing.
Josh Sharkey [00:12:06]:
Yeah. Well, maybe we could just talk for a little bit about your process, how you'd like to develop menus because, All your food from your time before Koloman and all the restaurants, you know, Bâtard and prior to that, like all the restaurants you worked at. It's obviously very pristine.
[00:12:21]:
I'd love to sort of dig into what your process is like when you're working on a menu or a new menu? How often are you making broad sweeping changes to the menu? Like how do you iterate? When does something feel done? How do you involve your team? I'd love to sort of dig into that.
Markus Glocker [00:12:36]:
Yeah, that's great. I think you go back a little bit, I think years, I'm sure you were quite similar in that perspective. It's just all about getting this new dish on a menu. Like it’s so cool and it's so elaborate and we present it to our chefs and they say, wow, it's a great dish, and then actually goes on the menu and we'll, the whole picture falls apart because we can't execute it.
[00:12:56]:
Those things were the beginning stages of the way I put a dish together, but now I'm looking back, I still have great elements of that time when I presented issues, but now I think more and more about how we can execute it properly? How can we put this in place? I mean, it sounds a little bit boring, but for me, there was consistency.
[00:13:13]:
It gets around everywhere, but I always say you have to have the concept to open the restaurant, but I'm not necessarily calling my restaurant the concept, you know, but you need to have the concept. How are you gonna put a dish together and how are you gonna send it to a broad audience and just 30, 40 people.
[00:13:31]:
That's my thought process behind it. I think when you have less ingredients on the plate, which I strive for now more than ever these ingredients need to be spot on. There's no room for error. And that's why when I change menu items, I mostly like specials. And when the specials are great, the way I feel it's ready, then I'll put the dish in writing on the menu.
[00:13:55]:
And then we have a dish on the menu. And this is a process of every two or three weeks, it's gonna be one or two dishes. And while we are doing this, we are sort of always in the season. I'm not a big believer of changing a whole menu four times a year because that's what you're supposed to do. Whoever comes when the menu is live the first week, they're not gonna have the greatest meal.
Josh Sharkey [00:14:17]:
I haven't heard that much. That's really interesting. It's true. Yeah. When you've, when you wholesale, change an entire menu every season, it takes time to get right. You know, and you gotta work the kinks out in the kitchen and work every dish like. How long is it gonna be, you know, in, in that oven for, and the cookies to sort of roll into their repertoire of the rest of the mise en place and their station.
[00:14:36]:
And it takes time to sort of get that right. I never heard anybody say that, but you're right. The first guests that get that menu their first couple weeks, you aren't gonna have the same experience. That's really profound.
Markus Glocker [00:14:51]:
I'm sure it's good. I'm sure. I'm not saying it's completely wrong, but I'm sure it's fantastic. But the thing is for me that the kitchen needs a little time to play ball with each other to understand everything? And especially now in our time, I think it's not that easy to find the staff and the level of back in the time. I mean, what does Gray Kunz say to you? You know, we need a new dish.
[00:15:08]:
Well, you pulled it off. You know, I don't think I can't do this right now. I don't have that kind of skill level in the kitchen, which is, that's the time we're in. However, I wanna make sure that the end product is still the same.
Josh Sharkey [00:15:16]:
Well, I wanna talk about staff in a little bit, but just sort of digging a little bit more into what you were saying. You know, it's interesting you kind of put a box around how you create a dish, which is so smart because yeah you're creative, right? You're a chef. You, you could create anything in the world. And so starting with how can, what can I execute consistently well in my kitchen as like the foundation of creating a dish is really, really smart and it's really the only way to, to succeed.
[00:15:46]
I heard this notion from Mateo, the founder of Jasper Hill Creamery. He said something that scared me, you know? He said standardization is the enemy. And I was like, yeah, that's scary because we try to standardize things so that you make things the same way. But actually what he meant was that food, especially cheese changes, it's not the same every day.
[00:16:05]:
You know, the atmosphere changes, the environment changes, and you have to sort of nurture that. And Seamus Mullen and I had a chat a week or two ago, Seamus Mullen, and we were talking about consistency. Consistency is vital in a kitchen, but they're actually different. The idea of being consistent with food is different from standardizing the dish.
[00:16:24]:
You have a salmon en croute that has to be consistently executed well, but salmon, clearly, like every piece of salmon that comes in, is not the exact same piece of salmon. So you can't standardize it. It is a four by four. You know, you have to teach the cook. How to prepare that based on your vision and that notion of consistency is, I think that that's probably, I don't know how you feel about this, but it's probably one of the most important jobs of a chef.
Markus Glocker [00:16:48]:
Absolutely. I mean, when everybody says consistency in the kitchen, everybody thinks like, oh, we're gonna do the same menu all the time. It's not the case. The case is, Consistently comes, are you gonna show up on time? Is your station set up every day the same way? It's not about the actual dish that you're gonna put on the same menu for 20 years.
[00:17:04]:
It's more about what the chefs, I believe, think of as the consistency is important because you need to have a routine, the way you execute your food, whatever that might be on a daily basis. And if you don't have that, whoever comes into your kitchen will not find it. And I think that's the key to consistency.
[00:17:21]:
When I was in law in London in 2002, everybody was talking about Fat Duck, you know, their menu. And, then 10 years later everybody was still talking about the menu. But the menu did not move. The menu just evolved into scrambled egg ice cream, for example.
[00:17:42]:
You know, back in the time it was just on the plate. Then it, it was in the eggshell, and then it was done table side, and then, So the same dish, but it got to a point where it got three stars with the same menu when he had one star, but the ingredients were the same, but the presentation and their whole asphalt was different. So that's a different level of consistency, but it's not the same menu.
Josh Sharkey [00:17:59]:
Yeah, yeah. It's a consistent experience and vision. So what you're trying to do with Koloman is the same thing. You're trying to tell us a story through your lens and you have a vision and you want this experience. And you know, when you sit down, there's a feeling that needs to be consistent throughout your food. The food might change, right? Maybe one day it's a steelhead.
Markus Glocker [00:18:18]:
Service is key in any restaurant. For me these days, chefs don't wanna really hear that, that, you know, food is just such a vital part. It has to be good anyway. There's no doubt, you have to know how to cook. But at the end of the day, I do think when Charlie, back in the Times that to me, you know, it's 30% or maximum of 40%, the food or the rest is service.
[00:18:41]:
And nobody wants to hear that. But if you really gonna be great in the kitchen, you will never achieve more than what, 30 to 40% of the guest experience because the rest is just in front of the house. And when people are standing in front of the house, having the feeling, when you wanna see every day when you come in or, or every once in a month, those feelings don’t change but the food can be different. It has to be good. But I do think when you walk into a dining room, you feel there because that's the feeling you wanna have again.
Josh Sharkey [00:19:05]:
Yeah. Obviously you mentioned that it's harder to find talented cooks nowadays, how do you create this culture in your kitchen, given that you have a different baseline of talent, how do you make sure that you're maintaining that sort of consistency, like the cooks are up to your level of standards of quality? Like how do you create that culture with the cooks that you have today?
Markus Glocker [00:19:31]:
I mean, first of all, like I, I could not have opened this restaurant if I wouldn't have been in New York City for over 15 years. I wouldn't have to say this, honestly, since the contacts I had built over the years to open a restaurant was possible because of that.
[00:19:47]:
If I would've opened a restaurant as Markus Glocker and I would've known to open the States, I would've failed miserably. And for one reason only, I could have never attracted the talent on a personal level because it's very personal. Now, you can post on culinary agents a job and say it's a well-paid job and come in, but it doesn't do much.
[00:20:06]:
You have to have a connection with the place and to find the key members like this to open a place with that kind of volume. There is no doubt. You have to notice people. That's number one. So I was very lucky to have my former sous chefs from Bâtard and Chef de Partie from Bâtard, moving with me into a different role like management.
[00:20:24]:
That was the key. But in general, I would say there was a lot of abuse going off a lot of years in the kitchens, and I think we are paying for it now, just my opinion. Some people took it, some people didn't. I'm not complaining. I wasn't in rough pitches, and I enjoyed it because I liked the level of discipline, but some other people might not have liked it.
[00:20:44]:
So to find a middle ground now to build up the industry and be a little bit more human in the kitchen as well, to allow them to make mistakes, you know, that's something I would say you cannot make a mistake, but just make sure the first chef on the past doesn't let this mistake out in the dining room.
[00:20:59]:
So there has to be a police sort of, but nobody's perfect. You know, the way we talk to each other has to change, it has changed and we have to be the mentors, the teachers, the workers, everything in one to make sure we get to the point where we can produce with our staff what we have and teach them as soon as possible to make sure the restaurant runs.
[00:21:22]:
Because there's not many people that come in and say, okay, let's cook for the holidays. Let's cook this. Let's cook for me. You have to physically explain that to 'em and teach them, and that's the process. I changed my management style quite drastically, to be honest. I feel it's a different position as a chef, but what I didn't change is like the results.
[00:21:40]:
Maybe it might take a little bit longer, but the end results should be the same and you should not lower your standards because you might not have the staff you need in the kitchen. Let's find them and be focused. That you have to learn as well what it means to be in the kitchen.
Josh Sharkey [00:22:00]:
So you said you changed your style a bit, but are there any rituals or like tactics that you have with the crew now that they go through when they're starting or just throughout the kitchen, the things that you do to keep that sort of culture going?
Markus Glocker [00:22:11]:
Opportunities. For me, that’s the word I use a lot in my kitchen. Opportunity is where all of my management crew and anybody who wants to be in management has the opportunity to really grow. And I always say my goal is, and I'm not saying this because I don't wanna be in the kitchen, I love to be in the kitchen, but if I don't wanna come into the kitchen and I don't have to do anything besides, we're setting up the service, tasting everything.
[00:22:34]:
This is the goal I have for me personally. And that's the goal. Everybody else should work behind me as well, that they're gonna be in that position at one point, and to achieve this is purely management. Really like putting the right people in the right positions, control, checking everything before it actually, before the service starts, minimizing any mistake beforehand.
[00:22:55]:
You know mise en place, all those kinds of things. And that's the management style. So it's very personable. I'm not like trying to intimidate anybody. Anybody can come to me anytime of the day. I will never dismiss anybody. But when it comes down to service and we are ready to roll and then everything is wrong, I do not understand that.
[00:23:18]:
That's where I get a little irritated because we have the whole day to make sure things arrive and then we gonna check the full tools and we wanna make sure we're gonna sell people out for success. That I do not have any sympathy, should be in the past as a chef or my sous chef and turn around and get loud to somebody when it's your own fault because you didn't check the mise en place to begin with.
[00:23:38]:
There's a certain trust level. You cannot just trust anybody right away and you shouldn't. I think it's more like the old school methods of inspecting as well. It's very simple to set yourself with tests. Once you miss those steps, I think service goes south. Well, that's something I teach them and I want to make sure that they have a routine to follow through on a daily basis.
Josh Sharkey [00:23:56]:
Obviously as a cook, when we're coming up, yes we learn how to cook, but probably one of the more important things we learn is mise en place and how to like, create a prep list and manage everything that needs to get done in the four hour window before service starts.
[00:24:16]:
The ovens that you need to use and refrigerators that need to cool and, you know, all things you need to, you know, juice or, or cut or whatever. Are you teaching that someone that's green, that's never been in a kitchen before and they now need to work? A station that maybe before they wouldn't have worked.
[00:24:29]:
They're on hot apps now or they're on or something and they maybe 5, 10 years ago would not have been, but now there's not really a choice. How do you teach that today? How do you teach them how to understand mise en place and build a prep list and be ready on time?
Markus Glocker [00:24:44]:
The bubble is just a little bit different now in general.Like, you know, I'm sure you went in the same boat as I have. I mean, we started at seven one in London and left at one one and I had a 20 minute break. So you did mise en place, you did some lunch service, you did some mise en place again, and then dinner service and knew every aspect of your station, which was quite nice.
[00:25:00]:
To be honest, every quarter of your switching what's going on with the amounts, the freshness, everything. But obviously nobody can work like this or shouldn't work like this anymore. Now I think it's not right either. So now you have a different model in terms of having different shifts and then the control of the management part goes really far because you need to control that.
[00:25:19]:
Setup for service or meal period is done directly. So I think this is really the biggest part. And then have the person who's doing a new station, being trained properly as well. I'm not a big believer of like, you know, you're gonna be there for one day with your partner and then the next day you're gonna be live.
[00:25:38]:
I don't think that's beneficial. You need to have at least three to four days with somebody and it costs money. Of course, it costs money to run more training like this. But if you don't train them properly, I believe they're gonna leave after two, three weeks, they're gonna be gone because they don't wanna be in a position where you have no tools to succeed and you have to give them those tools.
Josh Sharkey [00:25:58]:
Do you think that menus are getting smaller now because we can't really produce as much food, be with the teams, with the staff?
Markus Glocker [00:26:02]:
Absolutely. I think it's a big part. It's a big part of food costing. It's all those kinds of things. But my first reaction to this was really when we talked about this restaurant, I said like, I'm not gonna open a French restaurant and have 10 dishes on the menu with dessert.
[00:26:24]:
I'm not gonna do this. This is not a restaurant for me. This is an afternoon tea. You know, maybe that sounds off. But when you go into a place like this, you expect sort of a couple of choices. You know, it's very difficult and it's a very difficult subject for investors and chefs and in the team itself.
[00:26:40]:
But I do think there is, you have to be very, very clever in terms of costing as well as in the way of how much labor you put in every dish. Or maybe that was something, uh, we didn't, we would think about back in the time. Now it's more, more than ever, you know, how much labor goes into each dish. What's the timing? What's the food cost? What's the consistency level on it can be executed on a daily basis. All those things. It's not just cooking anymore.
Josh Sharkey [00:27:12]:
This podcast is brought to you by meez, the culinary operating system for food professionals. As a chef and restaurant owner for the past 20 years, I was frustrated that the only technology that we had in the kitchen was financial or inventory software. Those are important, but they don't address the actual process of cooking, training, collaboration, and consistent execution.
[00:27:31]:
So I decided if it didn't exist, I'd do my best to get it built. So the current and next generation of culinary pros have a digital tool dedicated to their craft. If you're a chef, mixologist operator, or generally if you manage recipes intended for professional kitchens, meez is built just for you.
[00:27:47]:
Organize, share, prep, and scale your recipes like never before. And get laser accurate food costs and nutrition analysis faster than you could imagine. Learn more at www.getmeez.com.
[00:28:05:]
And are you reevaluating those things often? So in your menu every day, are there dishes that you've had to sort of take off or just completely change because it was just too much labor.
Markus Glocker [00:28:13:]
Yes, I was thinking about it. One huge mistake, I'll make an example of it, but hard will show me, you know, we had this dish at Bâtard, which was an iconic octopus pastrami. I wanted to have something visual. I knew Instagram was coming up at the time. It's like the biggest thing. So you need something which is visually interesting as a story and gives a big impact for any reviews in the future and for all clientele to come back. So this dish was, I guess, back in the time, the dish was 38 or over 40% food cost.
[00:28:44]:
So I thought to myself at the beginning, yeah, it's gonna be fun. There's other dishes to kind of balance it out. Guess what? People came in just for this dish and the schnitzel and the milk bread, dessert we had on as well at Bâtard So these three dishes are sold for when I did I have and 80 covers. I guarantee you I did about 80 octopus pastrami just as an appetizer.
[00:29:05]:
So my food cost was still totally out of control. I took it off so you know what happened. So many people got upset. People didn't come back, and that was that. So I have a similar situation now with salmon en croute. I have a similar, you know, cheese souffle those kinds of things
Josh Sharkey [00:29:23]:
That salmon can't be easy to execute every day.
Markus Glocker [00:29:26]:
We do 60, 70 of those a day. You need one person or one and a half people down in the prep area just to do the dish. So this is the back file, but on the other side, you know, we are still serving and selling other dishes as well. More balanced than Bâtard. So it works out. But you know, it’s funny. Be careful what you wish for.
Josh Sharkey [00:29:48]:
Well it's, this is part of the innovator's dilemma and it's tough. And in the food world you wanna put out the most incredible product possible, but there's clearly barriers there, there didn't used to be because you would, you know, it was just, it, it was what it was. I mean, there were less barriers, but it also meant there was not nearly as much, you know, profit. It was probably a little bit less costly back in the day, and now that's so costly that you can't afford to. But I just, I'm curious what you think about the outlook of innovation in the industry, knowing that it is just much more difficult to create food that requires that level of effort.
Markus Glocker [00:30:30]:
Yes, I agree with you totally on that part. However, I do think as well, the trend is not there right now for their type of food. You know, in what we experienced back at bully times to start that kind of level of execution. I truly believe this is not the right time to do a restaurant like that, you know, because I think the trend is not there.
[00:30:49]:
I'm sure it's gonna come back, it's like fashion. But right now, it’s about going back to the roots, honest food, identifying when the plate was actually on the plate. Those trends are very much there, and it's all about the ambiance and actually feeling the resting more than just like the perfect dish, you know, to execute that kind of creativity in what we saw back in the time. I do think in cities like New York, it's very difficult because if you really have no car blanche, you really have to make sure it's financially viable. It's not that easy to cook like that anymore.
Josh Sharkey [00:31:22]:
Well, it's a bit of a paradox too, because it's more expensive to operate in New York, but you do have a higher concentration of talent. It's less expensive to operate in the outer markets, but there's a lower concentration of talent. So when you're, but when you're creating food, like obviously you've had some very iconic dishes and you continue to, but when does something feel done?
[00:31:47]:
When is a dish out there? I mean, you were talking about Fat Duck. Which is a great example of, for Heston, I don't think anything ever felt done for him. You know, it was always a new iteration of something. It wasn't just sort of, you know, on the menu for perpetuity. But like for you, when you put something on the menu, when do you decide, I'm not gonna touch that anymore?
Markus Glocker [00:32:05]:
I've never had the ceiling in my life. I've never had the satisfaction of, and when it stamps on me, I'm almost to take it off the menu. Because I will revisit it after a couple years and maybe a seat in a different light. The dish, you know, look, when I opened Koloman, the salmon dish I made in 1996 in Austria, in school, we had a dish which was similar to that salmon with a dish.
[00:32:30]:
So when I thought back about this and a new start idea again, and that's what the salmon is now. So I do think it needs some maturity in age in our field sometimes to revisit dishes and change them into something where you're gonna be happy again. But to say this dish, that's it. This is, this is gold. I never had the feeling.
Josh Sharkey [00:32:49]:
I feel like this is another one of the innovator's dilemmas. And also as a chef, so difficult because just when something is at the apex of, okay, we've executed this just right and we know that like now we can execute it all the time the same way and everything is balanced perfectly.
[00:33:06]:
And the textures. And the flavors and this is it. So now we're done with this. And in reality, probably customers are like, no, that needs to stay on forever because we love that. And you're obviously like, well, no, I'm bored of that because we've done that. We've done that journey and we're done with it. But that's another sort of, you know, trade-off. That's really difficult. I think with food, especially, at your level you get to a point where you're done with a dish, but maybe your guests are done with it.
Markus Glocker[00:33:34]:
I never understood this back in the time because we always wanted to change everything, every five minutes. As young cooks, I do go to restaurants back just for one dish. I do that. I didn't understand it when I was young in my career because I thought it's boring. But I do go back for certain dishes and I think, you know, if you can think about Asian foods, for example, you go there for a ramen and you go there for that one particular dish and the menu don't change and nobody's upset.
[00:33:56]:
We, in the French cooking world, think we have to change everything every day just to be on point. I don't believe that's the case anymore. And not the whole menu, but the staple dishes, you should. I know it's boring and it's hard to execute them every day, but, uh, if you change those kinds of things, people might stay away.
Josh Sharkey [00:34:15]:
But I also think it's not easy to create those sort of iconic dishes that are evergreen, that last forever. You know? So if you can do that, if you're one of the small percentage that can actually create staples that everybody wants to come back for all the time. Yeah. I wonder if there's just an obligation.
[00:34:35]:
There are not many chefs they actually have for this. You know, your former boss, I mean, his shoulder is iconic. It's timeless, you know, but how they, people do actually have a dish like this. People have signature dishes, but mostly done at the copy. Most of the time. It's something you saw somewhere else too, in the same form.
[00:34:52]:
But truly to have a dish which is visually and flavorwise so unique, that's a timeless thing. There's not many people, I cannot tell you one single signature dish from another. I can't, you know? But there's a reason behind it as well because he changed the menu every day and this was the thing to do back then.
Josh Sharkey [00:35:10]:
I think his approach wasn't to create some traditional dishes, it was just to continually evolve. You talked a bit about Gray. You mentioned the short ribs. That was a collaboration with many chefs, Todd Humphreys, and I'm sure there's lots of other chefs involved with creating that dish. Like a, a lot of times we look at these dishes and we assume just the chef came up with it in their brain and that's it. But, you know, oftentimes, our sous chefs, our CDCs are a big part of that. How do you involve your team in creating new dishes and innovating?
Markus Glocker [00:35:30]:
As of now, the opening menu was all my thought process and recipes and everything. But now it's time to, you know, move away a little bit on my sous chefs, my chef de cuisine, they are the creative parts.
[00:35:52]:
Now they run this by me and I tell them, for example, with white asparagus season, I would like to have white asparagus ice cream. I wanna have rhubarb, I wanna have strawberries. Can you do something with those flavors? That's my part. But they gotta come up with their recipes, and that's exciting for me now as well, because I wasn't on the other side for a very long time.
Josh Sharkey [00:36:12]:
It's interesting. I always think about, you know, when we're working for another chef, when you're working for Gordon or for Charlie, where I think back from working with Gray or Bouley or something like that, and you know, you know, and we're coming up with a dish.
[00:36:31]:
There's, unfortunately, this sort of undocumented way of like, this is how you're supposed to create the food in this restaurant. There's a subliminal thing there, subconscious like, oh yeah, I know what I'm supposed to do so that this is a Cafe Gray dish. Or this is a Gordon Ramsey London dish, or this is a Charlie Trotter dish and, and we're doing that, but it's never like, here's how you're supposed to create food in my kitchen. I'm always curious about if you ever think about, now you have a team that's creating, you [know, specials, like creating the food in your kitchen. How do you think they envision creating food through the lens of Markus Glocker’s kitchen?
Markus Glocker [00:36:59]:
I think it's coming back to when we talked before a little bit, when I put my team together, that the key members you have to personally know. And I think that's a big factor. It's a brand color one. It's, you know, we try to move this into a brand, but at the same time it's personal. They need to know me on a personal level to understand what I like and what I don't like, and nobody else. My team will copy the key. They know I don't like kiwi.
[00:37:31]:
You know, those kinds of things. If, you know, that's the most important thing. At the personal level of understanding of what they like. And what I do appreciate about my team is, especially the management, is like we talk about, Hey, where did you go last night? What did you do last week?
[00:37:47]:
Didn't see anything new in terms of restaurants? What didn't you like about it? What did we like about it? And it's not about lagging somebody else because we didn't like the meal. It's more about what we learn from this experience? Is this your style? Is it not your style? Would you do this in your own restaurant?
Josh Sharkey [00:38:01]:
Those things are very important. I didn't know you didn't like kiwi, which is, I think Kiwi's pretty delicious, but like what, what are other, is there anything else?
Markus Glocker [00:38:13]:
Yeah, it's delicious. I would never do a dessert with Kiwi, for example.
Josh Sharkey [00:38:17]:
What is it about kiwi that you don't like?
Markus Glocker [00:38:19]:
It sounds crazy to say it, but I just feel like it has nothing. Kiwi for breakfast cut in half on the spoon. I love it. It's great. But to make something like a kiwi sorbet, which I had many try to convince me about, I would never do that. I can't even cannot explain it.
Josh Sharkey [00:38:38]:
I remember one time we caramelized, like white pork glazed kiwi with foie gras but that was pretty delicious. There was something crunchy there too, but I didn't know you didn't like kiwi. Anything else is there. Don't hold it against me. Is there anything else in your kitchen that is like, stop talking now.
[00:38:57]:
It is just interesting. Is there anything else that you like that are like absolute no goes absolute, if you create a dish in Mark Glocker’s kitchen, these are things that you have to consider, that you have to sort of, you know, keep in mind.
Markus Glocker [00:39:11]:
Green Pepper would never use Green pepper. I can say on that one, I mean, I like peppers, all sorts of, but it's just like using a large green pepper for something, I would never, it will never cross my mind. It's weird in a lot of ways, but certain ingredients, even back in the time, like to use too much garlic was always a big thing for me, for the sauces.
[00:39:31]:
I'm seeing it differently now, but now it was fine dining oil back in the time when garlic was enough to add more off of, or gallons in a lot of ways. And I'll, we are talking more about sauces, you know, so it was like an ingredient, like nutmeg in, in a lot of ways in Europe, the way to use garlic. I think it's delicious now. You have to have some sort of a punch in there. But those were sort of the old school rules. I enjoyed them, I learned about them, but some things definitely stick in us.
Josh Sharkey [00:39:51]:
Are there any ingredients that you, that you go to a lot, whether it's like certain fortified wines or vinegars or things that, like, you, you tend to like dabble with a lot in your dishes?
Markus Glocker [00:40:06]:
Yeah, for sure. I mean, like, we work with Rasa wines and then we have vinegar, some Austria. We use some naschmarkt vinegar as well. So those kinds of ingredients are delicious and great. But it's more about the concept and the flavor profile since the flavor is great, obviously, but you know, the US has very similar products, so that some, in some cases, better ones, but it's more about the tradition, the story behind it that are the reason I use those ingredients. But, you know, I love Asian food. I love the whole flavor profile of umami. If I were to do the next restaurant or, or find dining in the future, I would definitely do some French and Japanese together.
[00:40:45]:
That would be a thing. If I could ever do a fine dining restaurant, that would be the case. Since I really enjoyed my time at Charlies very much too, this sort of thing had beautiful ingredients with French food together and give umami flavor to the French food. I think Gray is a little bit down those lines as well in a lot of ways. It's very unique and it's a beautiful western cooking.
Josh Sharkey [00:40:59]:
Yeah, I agree. Like there's, there's not a lot of substitute for some of those, you know, fish sauce, things like that. I don't see pumpkin seed oil on your menu much.
Markus Glocker [00:41:08]:
I do have it. I have it on the soup dish right now. We do have it on the cheesecake.
Josh Sharkey [00:41:21]:
Where do you find really good pumpkin seed oil? I've only ever had really good oil like overseas, but where do you find really good pumpkin seed oil?
Markus Glocker [00:41:29]:
We just got it shipped over from Munich, a wine producer. And they gave us, I think about like 30 cases for the whole year. But it's an incredible oil. It's, I'm sure you know all the history about pumpkin seed oil, but they're really good ones with the salt level. You make an ice cream facility, you're making anything within, it's really flavorful. And I used it mainly for the tafelspitz I had on a menu, which was sort of with the vinegars. I took the dish off by the way, because it took me half a day just to make one each.
Josh Sharkey [00:41:55]:
And tafelspitz is traditionally just like boiled beef, right?
Josh Sharkey [00:42:00]:
This is, for example, the story behind this dish was, I mean, it's a true story. My dad and I went to church when I was young. You know, you went to the local Augustas and then you got tafelspitz, and then the leftovers were taken home.
[00:42:15]:
And then there was the broth and the meat, and then it called in the fridge. And then from dinner it just sliced a couple onions, a piece of bread. And then he took this meat and the jellified broth on top of the toasted bread. And you ate this. This was delicious. A little pumpkin seeds the oil over the top. That was it. So I used that idea, but it's basically cold cuts and I bind it with the jellified cons and carrots and you know, additional cuts of meat, obviously sliced. And yeah, that was the idea behind it, you know.
Josh Sharkey [00:42:35]:
The story is just as important, you know, sometimes the food, because I think eating that dish, if you, if you hear that first and then you eat that dish, it's a much different experience.
Markus Glocker [00:42:53:]
Yeah, it makes a difference. But, you know, it's well off the type of restaurant you envision. I mean, some people are not interested at all. They just wanna make sure the food is good. And unless I do believe people walking into Koloman, they might just walk down by bike to eat, but in some cases they would like to know a little bit more.
Josh Sharkey [00:43:08]:
Yeah. I think in general, human nature is, you know, we are storytellers by nature. Sometimes it gets lost when we're, you know, especially in New York, we're in a rush, but you were talking about Eckhart and obviously Trotter, but like how have these chefs that you work for and any other chefs you can think of influenced, are there any other times when you're doing something in the kitchen where you cook at something and you're like, oh man, like this reminds me of my time with Eckhart
Markus Glocker [00:43:34]:
Absolutely. For sure. I still have those flavor profile sauces specifically, I think every European chef or anybody who trained in Europe has the fling for sauces, which is like such a big part of their cooking the stocks and the sauces and the way you nurture the sauce, and then balance sheet and all that kind of thing.
[00:43:51]:
So that's something I really learned from Eckart. I remember like in Munich, you know, we try, we young cooks could in the past and you know, we had this glass with a dish and you know, for him it was always, you had basically a reduction of white port wine, red port wine, celery leaves.
[00:44:13]:
It was sort of celery leaves to clean the sauce at the end, and then obviously garlic and more butter in time. And then the balance was always with the port white, red as well. So this was sort of like the doctor putting the sauces together when, when we said, okay, put more of this in there and the meat cooks it.
[00:44:31]:
Oh, yeah, yeah. And you didn't put anything in there. Just put the sauce back in front. He could tell those like in a heartbeat. He turned around this one more time. You're fired. He did it one more time and he was gone. But you know, there's not many chefs that actually can taste it. They say something and then just to make a point to say something.
[00:44:48]:
But actually the flavor doesn't really taste that much. This was something I really was mind blown by. He tasted it all. That's pretty special, but that's what I learned from him. It's creative. It's fun and it teaches you so much. I really liked that aspect of his approach in cooking.
[00:45:05]:
You know, talking about Gordon Ramsey, Gordon Ramsey was a whole different animal. I think I learned a lot from that too. I'm not about being creative, but more about being consistent in what you are able to, to do it one day. That's what I was saying, because the workload was tremendous and, you know, we had a great team and it was a whole different aspect of it and as well how to manage.
[00:45:27]:
I think that was a big part. Charlie Trotters was my greatest experience ever in terms of being creative. I really have, to this day I say like, you know, to receive this box of fish back in the time from the Fiji market and it costs $4,000 and there's fully fish in there and he asked you to, to break one down 23 years old, not many people do that to allow you to make the mistake as well. That kind of thing was really special, I would say.
Josh Sharkey [00:45:49]:
Yeah, I definitely see a lot of him in your food for sure as well. So, you know, just talking about like, you know, inspirations. You're also, I don't know if many people know this, but you're a pretty incredible musician, least piano player. I recall some bachelor party we had where you ended up playing jazz piano at two in the morning. How much does music inspire your cooking?
Markus Glocker [00:46:18]
It's everything. I mean, for me it's, I mean it's everything. It's a lot of, statistically it's the orchestrating of instruments of flavorless putting together. It's teamwork, it's fun. I always say musicians are, you know, the most creative people in the world, but at the same time, all rough around the edges.
[00:46:42]:
And that will say same thing about cooks and yeah, it's has such a big similarity and, but the way I came up was my dad is a musician, was a teacher and was playing for Phonics in Vienna was Soul Trumpets Classic and Jazz as well. So he was kind of a tough guy as well to make all kids learn instruments.
[00:47:00]:
So we did, and I enjoyed it thoroughly, but when I started cooking, instead of the music style, I enjoyed the play for fun. But I do think music teaches me a lot. I look at things together and not just in cooking. I do still play, or I have a piano or like an electric piano. Now I do that, but trumpet is sort of done. But again, it teaches you a lot of things in life's music and I think it's very important for a young individual to access music. It doesn't need to be a specific instrument or just to be a part of something with your place together. I do think it's a very important lesson.
Josh Sharkey [00:47:21]:
Yeah. I also think as a chef or just any creative person, I think it's important to have other outlets other than your primary medium to help you sort of get to the box.
Markus Glocker [00:47:46]:
Yeah, no, for sure. Absolutely. You understand the whole piece like a piece of music, which is a different tempo and actually, you know, where I'm going with this, that this is the same play music. You don't understand the progress of what you have to do and how you, it kind of starts with a forte.
[00:48:04]:
You know, you kinda start like right away, have to begin with, with this because you know what's coming after and, and those things. It's in music the same way, built this up. And the best version of that I've seen in Munich when we start talking today. Three stars, a guy who just got it yesterday. He understood from top to the bottom how to start and other things.
Josh Sharkey [00:48:27]:
You talk about understanding compositions to understand a tasting menu. But it's true. You know, there's the premise of a crescendo and arpeggios and sort of building up and then bringing them back down. That is a tasting menu. That's exactly what you need to do. I would imagine that many people don't think of it that way and you just sort of try to kill 'em from the start to the finish.
Markus Glocker [00:48:46]:
Yes. And, and just, just to put a couple dishes next to each other is not a tasting menu. Tasting really is because we want to have a taste. I don't think that many people do understand this in our restaurant world right now. I think it's more like I'm doing 16 courses. They're all great dishes individually. Two don't make sense in one go.
Josh Sharkey [00:49:03]:
So let me, let me ask you, and this might be a strange one for you, but I've been thinking about it lately and been talking about it a little bit. You obviously think you're a talented chef and also a talented musician, but have you ever thought about why you cook, why you do what you do?
[00:49:22]:
And I'm gonna sort of layer that on with how much of the joy that you derive from cooking. I know you love to cook, I know that that's part of it because you love to cook, but how much of the joy that you derive from cooking is from just the joy that you get from getting a pan in the heat and seizing something or searing something and laying that piece of fish down versus the reaction of somebody when they eat your food and could you have the same amount of joy if you made that like the perfect dish, but nobody ate it except you.
Markus Glocker [00:49:42]:
Yeah. That's a great thing. My old chef always said, like, in music, Andrea's, my old chef always said, obviously it's translated, maybe it doesn't make perfect much sense, but he also, just because he knows how to cook it every mean and he knows how to eat it, what he meant by it is like, you are putting all these things on the plate, but if it's great, awesome, but if the people eat it, I'm gonna solve it.
[00:50:08]:
To come back to your question, I think I thoroughly enjoy cooking. I mean, everybody has their story when they first realized that's what they wanted to do. I had the same thing in Munich. The first time you teach about slaughter, like cames the first time. Those experiences I had to taste. But for me, it was always the human factors that were so important.
[00:50:26]:
I was lucky to work with people. They put me under their wing. I think that's something I really appreciated, the mentorship was so big that I could not let them down. So that's why. And then when you get better and better and go to different restaurants, that sort of becomes an obsession as well in a lot of ways.
[00:50:47]:
For me now, when I stand in the kitchen, what really satisfies me is more like the human part than the shoe these days. It's the guest. Absolutely. But at the same time, I like the people, the island industry. I do enjoy working with them. It's, it's from the epidemic to, you know, The personal life is hard. It's everybody's in one sort of environment and there's not many places you enjoy this except in music.
[00:51:13]:
Music is all similar for them, but in other professions, you might sit in next to equal all the time because that's just a standard and where we still work in a place like this to begin with, it was all about food for sure, getting older. I enjoyed the people I work with and still do this very much to this day.
[00:51:31]:
But we enjoy this as well, but they have fun and they enjoy themselves in the kitchen and seeing the immediate watching for me, obviously, but as well, with an open kitchen like this, there's no, there's no place to hide. You know, there's no place to hide and sometimes there's a mistake happening for whatever reason, I step aside and say, cook's a joke, obviously, but, you know, um, he has no place to hide, so you have to take it with a grain of salt. But I do think that's the satisfaction of the whole business. The people that you work with.
Josh Sharkey [00:51:55]:
So if you hypothetically had a kitchen where you could cook whatever you wanted and you had all the team that you wanted, and you could cook anything that you wanted every single day. To say money didn't matter. Like you could buy whatever you wanted, but no guests ate the food. Would you still be like, you derive the same joy?
Markus Glocker [00:52:10]:
No, and I say this now as well, like everybody dreams of having cup blanc, you know, like as a chef and you, an investor who doesn't care about money and does everything for you, or all you have to do is cut the center cup, sell salmon, and the middle part of the duckling.
[00:52:20]:
And nothing else matters, but the root of this is deeper. I mean, if that satisfies you as a chef, that will satisfy you maybe for a short period of time. But as soon as your conscience kicks in and you start talking about waste, about anything to save the planet, you know, then you as a chef work like this, it just doesn't make sense anymore. It never makes sense, by the way. But I do think that's a big part of it. And money is another thing, you know? I truly believe that if you open a restaurant and there's no money to be made, how satisfying is it? And it's not even about the money when I'm saying this. It's more about, are you doing something right?
[00:53:20]:
Are you doing the correct thing? Finding somebody in the kitchen, you shouldn't slam him to be successful in the future. You work for Markus Glocker, so everything goes, you know, that's sort of my vision behind it. I think, yeah, I think that's the interesting thing about food.
Josh Sharkey [00:53:36]:
I'm sure there's other industries like this, but it's so obviously art and craft and commerce, because it doesn't work just as art. It doesn't work just as craft and it doesn't work just as commerce. Maybe sometimes that's what's happening today, that's more unfortunate. But that's, I think that's the beauty of what you do.
Markus Glocker [00:53:56]:
As I get older, certain things equate to me so much. Waste is something that really resonates with me more and more, obviously, as we're getting older. I think that's a big part of it. But it's just unnecessary waste or like carelessness doing things twice for no reason. Those kinds of things echo with me.
Josh Sharkey [00:54:03]:
Well, we're wrapping up here, man, but is there anything else you wanna share with the audience, cooks, the chefs out there, the restaurateurs.
Markus Glocker [00:54:10]:
What I wanna share is, I say this from the bottom of my heart, and this is what for the younger generation of chefs asking if this is what they want to do, should I go into the field or not? I think it's the right time right now to go into the field. There's money to be made because I think we are sort of in the eighties back in New York, you have this one only chance in this industry to really be successful if you are putting the work in or if it is a great industry. It's very satisfying if you are serious about what you do, and I think you have to be serious about what you're doing. Any other job as well.
[00:54:50]:
Why not? In hospitality, and I'm 42 years old, I'm still excited about what I'm doing and I'm still romanticizing the hospitality industry still to this day, but the are generation we need, and I just wanted to make sure as well that all our generation pulls in the same swing to make sure we wanna bring this people back and showing what this business is all about and maybe have the same feeling as well. You know, 25 years ago when we were cooking, and we’re still having the same fun.
Josh Sharkey [00:55:26]:
Yeah. Well I love that you are taking on that responsibility because if you don't, who does? And, and I agree, I appreciate you saying that this is the right time, this is a great time to, to start cooking and getting into this career.
[00:55:36]:
So, Mr. Markus, it's always a pleasure man. Good seeing you. My wife and I had an incredible anniversary dinner there. Always a pleasure with you.
[00:55:54]:
Thanks for tuning into The meez Podcast. The music from the show is a remix of the Song Art Mirror by an old friend, hip hop artist, Fresh Daley. For show notes and more, visit getmeez.com/podcast That's G E T M E E Z dot com forward slash podcast. If you enjoyed the show, I'd love it if you can share it with your fellow entrepreneurs and culinary pros and give us a five star rating wherever you listen to your podcast.
[00:56:17]:
Keep innovating. Don't settle. Make today a little better than yesterday. And remember, it's impossible for us to learn what we think we already know. See you next time.
.png){kind=icon}
.png){kind=icon}
