Isn't it wild that you're talking about all the words that you just said? I don't know, what is it? 2026? like 15, 10, 15 years ago, you were talking about the cuisson on a duck breast.
John Adler (03:24.31)
Yeah, I mean, I was so, you know, one of my sous chefs from Franny's came with me to Blue Apron. And so we've been working together this May will be 13 years. And at Blue Apron, I hit 10 years next month. And if you told me like 10 years and two months ago, that I would be talking about subscale supply chains versus scaled supply chains versus, you know, how you deal with mitigating tariff impacts, like I would
I'd laugh in your face. Like I'm focused on pizza dough and making salumi and how much Parmesan we eat next week. know, I mean, I spent four months over the fall, just working on an RFP for our chicken program, which is just, you know, it's funny to think about to spend that much time on one skew. But when you're looking at almost 3 million pounds of usage,
for one protein in 12 months. The skew selection process, the sampling process, the contracting, it is a very, very different game. Then calling Dairyland and saying, hey, I thought we said flour was going to be 18.50 a bag and you charged me 19.25. It's a different ball game.
haha
Josh Sharkey (04:47.79)
It is wild. mean, yeah, like you were, you know, talking about Parmesan, you know, like you were like, no, I don't want Murray's. I want the fucking Valserita. That's all I'm taking. And now you're like negotiating the 300,000 pounds of chicken. What chicken producer are you? Like, who'd you guys go with?
It's it's it's
John Adler (05:06.894)
So we work with two companies, one's called Mission Driven Foods, which is, they're sort of a supply chain aggregator out of Houston, Texas, and they're part of the Standard Meat Company, like Family Tree. Standard Meat Company was started by the Rosenthal family, they partnered with the Friedman family over the years. Then Sam Friedman broke off and started this company, Mission Driven Foods, which is focused on cleaner protein supply chains and working with smaller producers and helping them reach more retail markets.
So they've done a great job for us on poultry over the years. And then we also work with a company called Rustelli's food group out of South Jersey that does a good bit of our beef. And they work with Crescent foods out on Long Island on chicken. for us, you know, at that volume, it's like you're, have animal welfare commitments. So that limits the number of programs that we can pull from. have sizing commitments as part of that. So that limits the number of programs even more so. And so you get down to like, maybe
you know, six, seven producers nationally that can service the raw material volume. And then both Crescent and a company down in, in Georgia called Soul Shine do the cutting and packing for us.
Yeah. Well I gotta say, if we order out up here, it's kind of a food desert up here. I mean it's not a food desert, but it's close to it. Northern Westchester's not ideal. We order one at all time. And it's just good. Like Shrevepie? First of all, like we went to Shrevepie 20 years ago, and I mean wish they did the crispy watercress salad, but every time I'm like how do they-
How is this this good? It's not supposed to be this good. And I've gotten, you know, a bunch of other stuff now, too. Like we get like even the Bobby Flay steak stuff is good. And what's the Italian one with like what they use to chicken? Alonso's great. They this one with the the peppers and it's like.
John Adler (06:56.856)
Yeah, the chicken sport yellow. Yeah. Yeah, that one's good. So to do that, they worked on a sous vide half chicken that they then like blast in the turbo chef with, you know, the peppers and potatoes and everything. And so, you you talked about like the wonder blue aprons sort of cross pollination. Like we looked at the half chicken. We're like, this is a great spec. Like families would love to be able to roast a chicken in 10 minutes. You know, we can like tell people to rub a compound butter on that.
This is really good.
John Adler (07:25.44)
and throw it in their oven and achieve the same result. And so it's finding little things like that that are huge, but the Wonder Innovation is really tremendous. there, mean, with like something like Street to Pie in particular, they're working on, after we just acquired Spice Kitchen, a few months ago. They're working on robotic walks to be able to get the, you know, that like seared noodle flavor, which is, I mean, it's, they've gotten the flavor down, but that,
wok flash fried flavors. so they're really going after every little detail.
By the way, we haven't ordered the wakas often. I get the masaman. It's so good. It's so funny that I'm talking to you about robotics and Spice Kitchen, because I remember last year, right around this time, sitting down with Chad at the Sweet Queen Kitchen talking about robotics, and now they're passing along to you guys. you both, did you work with Chad, by the way?
Yeah, me too.
John Adler (08:24.172)
Yeah, Chad and I worked together at Perse. I love that guy. I forget what station he was on, but I think it was when he was on Garmanje. He had like a section of his low boy that was just Chad's experiments. And you would call it like Chad Labs. he would just come up with, you know, he, was fresh off his time at El Bouye and Danielle. And so he has like the molecular gastronomy and then the like mastery of classic French technique.
And this was before he got his master's or PhD in mathematics. Yeah. He has a master's in mathematics from Columbia. And then, know, like the big Danielle White book that has all the like, you know, the Charlotte Roos and all the rest of it in the back. He came up with all the mathematics as far as the ratios for those recipes and like all the multi-tiered stuff, how much weight each thing could support and like.
I know he got
Josh Sharkey (09:19.438)
That's wild. I had no idea that he was, that had a master in mathematics and that actually, it's interesting. I feel really, I'll be honest with myself in the back because he was like, I love, he was chatting on me and he was like, the fact that it does all this math, I built all these spreadsheets, but it was a pain and like it does it all for you. was like, nice. I'm like, come here, that makes me feel lot better. I know whether the masters in math did that.
He might be the smartest cook I've ever worked
And someone else in this same ecosystem I met and then actually I her on the podcast after I had chatted with her in LA What who I think came up with I worked was was was Kim. Oh, a coupe now. She's amazing. She's Yeah
She's amazing. On the same day, per se. Yeah, she's like, she always says that I'm her sister from another mister.
wild what that's producing that that level of execution is not just going to create like great restaurants, but going to actually have this massive impact on consumers at scale by doing these, you know, like you guys are hundreds and hundreds of thousands or millions of people now millions. Like as opposed to a hundred a night, you know,
John Adler (10:26.584)
Yeah, millions of people
John Adler (10:31.022)
I don't know if you saw Grub Street just did sort of like a, they did a review of Cove and Saga and their big thing was just, it's tasting menus are fine to showcase technique or awareness of what earns stars, but they're not lovely experiences. And they're not.
I like you're at the behest of the, in terms of your time, know, that restaurant, and you kind of have to go through each of these things. So I get that.
Yeah. It's, mean, they're still like, they're still amazingly crafted, but you know, they talked to, they're like, this was this delicious bite of cornbread and chicken confit. And then like, it was just sort of like unceremoniously and to a certain extent, obviously just topped with caviar. Yeah. And you're like, yeah, that's lazy. Like not lazy, but like, it's a default when you're thinking about who you're cooking for.
Yeah. Well, I mean, think, you know, opulence just becomes like a lever, you know, you know, instead of whatever other things, know, creativity or innovation. I mean, it can be a good lever sometimes, you know, sometimes not. You ready to dig in? Yeah, let's do it. What is the greatest dish you ever ate at a restaurant? And of course, which restaurant?
greatest dish I ever ate at a I mean I think one of the easiest answers I could say is the first time I tasted oysters and pearls because I was just blown away at how perfect it was. But actually the best dish I ever ate at a restaurant was, it was.
Josh Sharkey (12:08.27)
So everybody's aware in case they're not French laundry oysters and prost
Yes. French Laundry, oysters and pearls. Right after I finished working at Stone Barns, I ate there with my mom before going to stage in Europe. So we're, it's, this is French Laundry 2006. think Corey Lee was in the kitchen then. But actually the best dish I ever ate at restaurant was fresh tagliatelle with wild chanterelle mushrooms in a restaurant called Il Grotto di Coragnane, which was this tiny whole literal
hole in a rock, the grotto, restaurant in a tiny town called Corignan in the Veneto region of Italy, like right next to, and like to give you a sense, you're sitting outside at this restaurant, plastic table and chairs, dad is the chef in the kitchen, wife is running the dining room, and his daughter is the waitress. You're like a stone's throw away from Giuseppe Chintarelli's winery.
And the cheese that you're being served comes from the farmhouse on the hill that they point to you, that they point out to you. And it was just, the pasta was insane. Like the texture was just so amazing. The sauce was so simple. It was just mushrooms and onions, but it was immaculate.
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Josh Sharkey (14:38.454)
Is the chanterelle similar? Is it the golden I'm assuming, not like a yellow? Yeah. And it tastes the exact same? Everyone says it had chanterelle.
Holden Chanterelle
I mean, it was really piney. It tasted like there was rosemary in it, but there was also rosemary in it. It was just like a really piney, woodsy mushroom.
Sergio sent me a box of chanterelles from his backyard and I think they must have grown near a ton of pine and they were like, it was like almost, I love you Sergio, was like almost inedibly piney. Like it was so piney.
Yeah. And because it was Northern Italy, you know, there is, it's, they call them fi-fiddle-y and it's like, they, they make them, it's like a very light cream sauce, but there's just nothing else to it. It's like, I'm sure there's a little bit of wine that they deglaze the mushrooms with. Yeah. Like a little suave, but it was, it was magical.
Josh Sharkey (15:29.646)
Two fun facts. One, Stone Barns, the first time I ate there for my birthday. You know, they do all kinds of, you know, it's an experience and they bring out the whole seltzoo thing and they did one course where there was an egg on the table and I smashed the egg because I didn't think it was a real egg. They were like, are you really just putting like a whole raw egg, like just a random egg on the table? And I either dropped it or smashed it, like whatever. And like they had to like, you know, do the, you know, when you're naughty and they look through the, the, take the...
That's amazing. And Quintarelli Giuseppe is the, when I was working for free at Union Square wine, know, in Union Square, they didn't pay me, but on my birthday, they're like, just pick any wine you want. And they, and I got a 1981, my birth year, Quintarelli Giuseppe.
So earlier that day, like I had just finished my stage at a restaurant in Vicenza. So I'd been cooking in Italy for the summer and my sister and my mom came over. And earlier that day, my sister had used her journalists, her like journalism credentials, cause she was working at Harper's to get a tasting in the reserve room at Tintorelli. And so we were just drinking wines with, you know, I, I don't believe it might've been the winemaker or his daughter in the.
in the cellar at Kinturelli for like two hours. And like, you know, it's one of those things where you're just like, can still remember the first Kinturelli Amarone I ever tasted. Cause it was, you just couldn't believe it. It's, you know, people say like they taste and, and, and you can, or like musicians say like they hear music in colors. Like I tasted music in that glass. was so complex and some phonics.
Before we
John Adler (17:15.59)
Il Grotto di Corignan. Corignan is C-O-R-I-G-N-A-N. Tiny. I don't even know if it exists, but tiny if it still exists. like, I mean, this, I was like ready to move to Italy and work there. There are parts of me that still wonder if I should have.
Yeah, it's funny though, right when you go eat some place in Italy and I remember I went to this place in Rome called El Bric that I bet is not there anymore. But I can never get that pasta out of my head. I don't think it was one of the best things ever. So it was just literally it was just guanciale, pecorino and bucatini. And I think that's it. Oh, no. And like overcooked broccoli, like the broccoli was like overcooked and became like a sauce, you know, that coated everything. It was so fucking good.
Here, just found, I'll text you the, I found the website. It does still exist.
alright, yeah, shoot it over. Okay, moving on. Yeah. A chef, that should get way more shout outs than they do.
Juan Cuevas.
Josh Sharkey (18:20.75)
Tell me about one.
Juan Cuevas is now a chef in Puerto Rico. He just finished running a restaurant called Hotel, or all the food at a restaurant called Hotel Coronado 1919. But he's originally from Puerto Rico. He worked for Sylvan Porte at the Ritz-Carlton dining room in San Francisco. He worked at El Rocco de Canfabes. He worked at Acalare. He worked at Les Pinos under Christian Deluvrier and
He opened ADNY. Dukas called Sylvan and was like, I need a saucier. And Sylvan was like, I'm sending you Juan. And then he was the chef to cuisine at Blue Hill, New York. So when Michael Anthony moved to Stone Barns and Stone Barns opened, Juan took over Blue Hill. Maybe the least pretentious cook you'll ever meet. Exceptional technique. You know, he doesn't show up with like 50 knives. Like he's old school. Like I watched him.
do tournée potatoes and tournée zucchini, wipe his knife off, sharpen it, butcher black bass, then go make like, Ducasse's, you know, black bass, cham- like the, bass head champagne sauce that he's just a technician, amazing teacher, explains things so well. And I think for, you know, in a lot of ways, like never really got his flowers because
He ran a couple of restaurants in New York that didn't, mean, Blue Hill obviously got a lot of acclaim, but 81 didn't. And then he was at a place in Jersey called the Pluckerman Inn. And then he went to, he went back to Puerto Rico where he's from, but he's just an insane cook. And like a sponge, he, he always, he's always learning. He would eat a phrase all the time. He'd be like, how do you make this pickle? How do you do this? What's your, like he eats, he's just, he's a cook's cook, really a cook's cook.
John Adler (20:17.038)
I feel like he's one of those people where if he was still working, I mean, I would still tell people to go move to Puerto Rico to work with him. But if he was working in the States and a young cook came to me and they said like, Hey, who should I seek out? He'd always be at the top of my list.
Okay, that's a great answer. Love it. Alright, next. I'm gonna switch around the order here. If you could ban one ingredient, tool, or phrase in the kitchen, what would it be?
Truffle oil.
It's the same thing. I totally by the way I'm sure like there are a couple truffle oils where it's actual truffle but like 99.99 percent of it is just It's her it's it's just like every time you just ruin a dish why just not don't use it, please
petroleum derivative.
John Adler (21:03.458)
Yeah, just don't use it and it it it takes away the the the actual appreciation of what truffles are truffles are amazing, but you know, getting to have Parmesan fries at your Local eatery in Montclair, New Jersey isn't necessary
Yeah, defeats the purpose of what the truffle is for. Okay, yeah, I agree. Top two ingredients that are most wasted in a kitchen.
I would definitely say greens or just stems in general. know that's like a very Tamara Adler thing to say, but herb stems, kale stems. think people are really unimaginative in how they approach things like that. And they treat them as waste. The other thing I'll say is crusts of bread. think like, and I know there's aren't whole ingredients by product, but people, there's just a lot.
I would love to challenge, you know, Matt Orlando in, in Copenhagen is obviously pushing this to an incredible extreme with the way he's eliminated wasting his kitchens. But I would just challenge young cooks to be a chef in those moments. You know, you have stems of something, be a chef in that moment and see what, what are you willing to challenge yourself with? Come up with a new recipe. I would, you can call it a, make it a pesto or decide that you're going to ferment some herb stems and see what happens and maybe.
You don't use the stems, maybe you use the fermentation liquid, but like that's your moment to be a chef. Yeah. Byproducts your moment to be a chef. It would kill me. I'd see a cook go in a diced pande campagne and they're dumping all the, the crust into the garbage. Like what, what are you doing? Go give that to the Garmin J cook for staff salad. Like better yet go make a sauce. You know, with, with crust. So.
Josh Sharkey (22:48.878)
Yeah, I would 100 % agree. And it's a great point. Like it is just like part of a job as a chef, you know, is to figure out like interesting ways to use those things.
Yeah. And it's not a waste of time. It's not a pet project. It's every kitchen should view that as a challenge.
There's I had him on my podcast like
I remember like the
His name, I always, and I apologize, Votek, think is how you pronounce it. You know, he's like a chef, but he's like, he's just focusing on like anti-food, like a hundred percent, you know, reduction in food waste. And he's like dedicated his life to it. It's pretty amazing. He's got a book out about it. It is really true. There's like basically something you can do with everything.
John Adler (23:28.366)
Yeah, there really is. it's fine to, I mean, if you were to tell me like what ingredients get wasted, it's like, people always overorder onions and potatoes because they think they should buy the 50 pound bag and then inevitably they leave some in the bin and they order more and those go bad. like, I would tell you like, could look at like poor process as what's generating waste. And obviously like products like Ami's are, should, should prevent that.
But if I looked around the kitchen or if I went through a garbage can, I would say it's, I'm going to find herb stems and bread crusts.
Yeah. Yeah. OK. Next. So we talked about both of those. Do I want to do? Yeah, let's go to this one. Wildest or most embarrassing kitchen story? By way, I'm going to preface this by like I have a bunch and they're all like, I can't say the full story because I'll get in a lot of trouble or. But so far, everyone I've heard is very G rated. So let's hear where you go with this.
I mean, there are moments I'm not proud of, right, in a kitchen, which I think all chefs could point back to and say there are times where you lost your cool, which doesn't help. But the biggest, I'd say the biggest like mistake I ever made was I was working the Canapé station at Per Se, moving pretty fast. And you know, with Canapés, always had a number of Canapés that weren't on the menu that were held for VIPs, other chefs, solo diners.
VIP doesn't necessarily mean VIP from like a important standpoint, but who the dining room wanted to celebrate. I grabbed the truffle custards, which I made, you know, out of the French laundry book. And I reach up to grab the sauce, Perry Gourdine. And which is obviously a sauce that takes three days to make and has about a cup of chopped truffle in it. And anyone will ever tell you if you're grabbing a deli container.
John Adler (25:28.002)
Don't grab it from the top because especially if you're holding that sauce warm, there's a chance that that top came loose. You should grab it from the side. Moving too fast, grab the deli of sauce, Perry Gourdine from the top. And I spill an entire deli of sauce Perry Gourdine all over the French cooktop of our Bonaire range. And now there is a deli container melting on the stove.
A highly reduced veal stock, veal stock based sauce bubbling away, truffles burning. And keep in mind as the canopy cook, you didn't make sauce peregrine. Yeah. The meat, the, you know, meat cooked it, the sauce you did.
And that's not yourself.
Jonathan Benno. And you think about a good learning moment about the effectiveness of kitchen discipline. And he just looked at me and he went, that's probably the worst thing you could have done right now.
Yep, that's a good one.
John Adler (26:36.974)
And I said, it is chef. And he said, clean it up. He looked down at the meat cook who is a guy named Brian Nasworthy. said, chef Nasworthy, we're going to need some more saucepare, Gordine. Chef Adler will be doing plenty of sauce prep for you tomorrow. And I said, yes, I will chef. And nothing said about it again until the end of the night where we were writing the menu for the next day. And as we're getting through the menu.
He just looked at me and he said, and what items off chef Naz, were these preplists are you taking tomorrow? Said whatever he wants to give me chef. That was it. But it was brutal. I thought I was like, I'm getting fired right now. This is my, got fired from per se story.
We've all, yeah, I remember dropping like a whole hotel pan of, not dropping, but like I pulled it off the wrong way right before service at Tabla and Duck Confi. And the whole line caught on fire. my Everything. We had to pull off every single burner and Tabla, had a bunch of those mistakes. You know, it's like the beginning and end were rough and everything between was amazing. Like my last day, my last day at Tabla, we had baby lamb on the menu and it like like black.
black cardamom yogurt marinade. We roast it in the oven for a few hours, like really low. And I fucking left it in the oven overnight. I left it in the oven when I left for my last day. I remember texting, I forget who it Ty or somebody, dude, fucked up. It was like four in the morning and it was done. It was toast, obviously.
Yeah, it's, those are good learning moments.
Josh Sharkey (28:13.698)
Let's end on something a little lighter. And this is perfect for you because you are an amazing chef, but you're also a dad of three kids. And I want you get really specific. I want to know brands. I want to know all the details of how you make your grilled cheese.
Okay, that's great question. I use, and I have no problem admitting this, Pepperidge Farm Hearty White Bread.
That's a great bread. For grilled cheese, it's a great bread. And PB &J.
Yeah. I put butter on the inside. So, and I use whole butter on the inside, not D. So butter on the inside because that helps the cheese adhere. And then I like to use Sargento whole milk, shredded mozzarella and Habit shredded Monterey Jack. I don't use cheddar. I keep it pretty mild. No craft American, but I keep it pretty mild.
No craft American,
John Adler (29:10.018)
Both shredded cheeses because they're more likely to melt evenly. So butter the both sides of the inside of the bread, shredded mots on one side, shredded Monterey Jack on the other sandwich. A little swipe of mayonnaise on the outside of the bread and then ghee in the pan. Start to brown, press for about a minute on one side till you get, so you get the even brown because the one thing about pre-sliced sandwich bread is there's always that like
slight rim where the crumb has pulled away from the crust. So you get like uneven browning. So you need to press the middle to get the evenness and then you flip it, you press the other side. And then I think where everyone goes wrong is they cut grilled cheese right away. So I always, I season the outside with salt, which was something that I first saw Mike Jacober do on the Morris truck.
Way back in space. That's critical. My wife does that too.
Season the outside with salt, put it onto a paper towel on the cutting board and let it sit for like a minute before cutting it. Because if you cut it too early, all the cheese oozes out and that's it.
So Manny's on both sides.
John Adler (30:16.546)
Mayonnaise on a light swipe on the bread.
So when you're pressing it, that press is hitting the mayonnaise on the unseared
But it starts to melt off pretty quickly.
Yeah, okay. What kind of pan?
either lodge cast iron or if I'm, if I have to make like more than two at a time, I use, I use a griddle. Like still, you know, like one of those, like I've got like a, a lodge cast iron griddle that sits over the burners. So if there's like multiple kids, you know, if our niece or nephews are over, then that's the move.
Josh Sharkey (30:40.802)
nice.
Josh Sharkey (30:46.978)
Yes.
Josh Sharkey (30:54.126)
Yeah. My wife thought I was crazy for making grilled cheese in a pan. There's things every once in a while where like I've made them this way forever. And, you know, she's not a chef, but she makes good food where like she makes me doubt like why I've done that, why I do the things that I do, because she grilled cheese in an oven. She uses a convection oven and she just puts it in the convection oven, you know, with butter, with butter. And it comes up, it comes up. Well, you have to do it the right way. But like, like I would have never have thought to do that.
and I still like it in the pan better. I was like, am I crazy? Am I? Wait, did I forget something?
That makes sense to me. think my feeling, my concern with that is like the convection effect on the crust is that you would get a drier crust.
Your bread dries out. The thing is if you use a bread, one that like a pepper farm type thing, and if you do pretty quick, then it's not as, and our kids don't like it too hot anyways. she's in Kraft, American, so it melts real quick.
real fast. then, know, if sometimes it's grilled cheese on its own, but recently have converted them to the idea that grilled cheese is best dipped in tomato soup. that's always a good winter move.
Josh Sharkey (32:10.316)
Yeah, that's that's game changer once they start doing that. My daughter does that with tomato soup. Like Amy's, is it Amy's? Like they're called the bunny soup.
Yeah. That was always the family meal when cooks would be like, I don't know what to make for family meal. I'm like, do you know how to make tomato soup? Cause I can make cheese toast real fast.
yeah. Cheese toast. We did it. We did it. We got through all six. Great. This is great, man. I am very I'm proud of you. I'm happy for you. I'm excited to see, know, this new venture you're on. mean, it's not technically new, but it's somewhat new. And and your kids are to be graduating college any minute. So. All right, brother. Good seeing you, man.
Don't remind me.
John Adler (32:56.014)
I'll talk to you soon.
Thanks so much for listening to the show. If you liked this episode or any other ones, you can actually check out more of this at getmes.com slash Josh. That's G-E-T-M-double-E-Z slash J-O-S-H. I have my podcast there, The Mese Podcast, plus some other shows and interviews. Starting to write some stories and blog posts, some recipes, recaps, things like that. So I think you'll enjoy it. Again, it's getmes.com slash Josh. G-E-T-M-E-E-Z
Thank you very much. Very grateful for all of you.
