Joshua Sharkey (09:14.358)That's true, yeah. You just pulled it right from the zag it. You got there in two thousand three, landed at Boole. How did that happen? Like was you dropped a resume off, was it right away or?
Sandia Chang (09:21.055)Glenn that play.
Sandia Chang (09:26.062)Pretty much. I I don't know if you remember at that time it was like any chef that came through that you just take them. Just like Boulet. We went through chefs like crazy and it was who whoever's willing to work will take them. And yeah, I just I took the job there and worked the fish section straight away. I don't even know how I ended up there. Because I just got out of culinary school. It wasn't like I was experienced. Worked under Caesar, which which I really enjoyed. You know, people think
He's hard to work with, but I I actually really enjoy working with Caesar.
Joshua Sharkey (09:56.322)He actually has a really kind heart. You know, he's got some you know, he's got some trouble communicating and he's got his other things that, you know, people like to give him shit about. Where are my keys? But but I do agree, like he he any time something big happened, his like kind heart came
Sandia Chang (10:11.534)And he's just so passionate, you know, but he he shows his passion in an in a different way. But he is passionate. He's a very passionate chef. And the and the and the chefs that I the people that I met through working at Boulei, you know, you and a whole bunch of other people, I I still I don't stay in touch, but I still follow because they are all doing amazing in their careers. So there must be something that happened there that was really good at building us to who we are. Yeah.
Joshua Sharkey (10:39.02)I think that it's struggle, like and going through struggle together and choosing the struggle. I think that there's a there's a certain, you know, kind of person and then there's a certain thing that happens to you if you continue through that struggle that I think is really important.
Sandia Chang (10:54.508)Yeah, I I feel like I've been trying to teach my daughter this the other day. She's struggling through her reading class and I said, Sometimes struggle is good, you know.
Joshua Sharkey (11:02.67)Remember the day we lost our third Michelin star, you know, at Boole, we went down to two. And and he gave this this speech in the kitchen and he said a lot of things. But you know, one of the things that he said was, you know, you might be here because this is mostly for for the front of house staff, so probably not much for the kitchen staff, but he said, You might be here because you actually wanna be an actor or you wanna be a musician or you wanna be an artist.
Or you're just, you know, in school and you want to go be, you know, an entrepreneur or whatever those things are. And and so this might not be your passion, like what you're doing here. He's like, but this is really hard. And if you can do this a hundred percent, think about what you're gonna do with the thing that you actually really love. And it always stuck with me. I don't know if he intended to be as, you know, pro as he was. Yeah, but it was really like I could see the servers being like,
Sandia Chang (11:55.48)Inspirational.
Joshua Sharkey (12:01.634)Yeah, you're right. 'Cause you it's tough. They're like, I'm doing this but I actually
Sandia Chang (12:04.418)I'm a musician. Yeah.
Joshua Sharkey (12:06.998)He did have his moment.
Sandia Chang (12:07.906)He did, yeah. But but yeah, it was a great time there. I loved it. But it was also really tough. And it it was kind of a reality check for me. And I had just moved to New York. The rents are high. You know, the pay wasn't great. You we worked six days a week. Yeah. You know, and it was one day for for your laundry and sleep and that was it. And you're back at work again. And and all of a sudden I was like, you know, being a chef isn't that glamorous. I don't know if I want to do this or I'm cut out for this. Like I I think it takes a very, very dedicated
person and passionate person to be a great chef and I just wasn't that person. Like I love every aspect of the restaurant. So that's why I left You were good at it though. Well I I feel like sometimes I feel like if I hadn't worked at Belay, I might have been a chef still. Dunno.
Joshua Sharkey (12:53.336)Yeah, I mean you were really good at it. I remember like seeing like you know, you can tell when s the way somebody moves in the kitchen, you were really good.
Sandia Chang (12:59.694)So I left, and then to try to find my my way, my identity. I didn't want to give up. I didn't want to leave New York because I was on a mission to make it there. And the job for Food Runner came up at Per se and I was like, That's perfect because I'm a chef, I've got all the food knowledge. it was I have a little bit of front of house knowledge. It was a nice step for me to get back get into the front of house. So yeah, so I took that job there at Per se and that's where I make things, my husband.
Joshua Sharkey (13:26.071)That's where you met.
Sandia Chang (13:29.228)Yep, he was a very loud brit in the kitchen. He was still in the commie kitchen at that time. Yeah. And then he moved out to Garmerie and then fish before he left.
Joshua Sharkey (13:33.878)What station was he working when you met him?
Joshua Sharkey (13:43.906)So you two met there and then what happened? Did you just decide together to go somewhere else? 'Cause you w you ended up going to Noma.
Sandia Chang (13:50.754)We did. we met there. we after his visa ran out 'cause he's British, he decided to come back and work for Gordon Ramsay who had just opened up in New York and he's going through all his visa process. And he got denied because he was overqualified for whatever visa they were trying to sponsor him on. What? And then we're like, Okay, you know what? We're in love, we're gonna get married eventually, so let's just get married for paperwork reasons. And so we got married. We got married in City Hall.
Joshua Sharkey (14:19.534)Who decided that was that w was that you that said that or him or book or the other?
Sandia Chang (14:23.15)We've both kind of just been like, you know, we're gonna get married anyways. Just you know, it's just a piece of paper. Like, who cares? Yeah. So yeah, so we did that. And in order for you to apply for a residency through marriage, you have to leave the country to do that. So James left New York while I was still at Per se and while he was applying for it, he took a stage at Noma and fell in love with Noma and said, I'm not coming back to the US
They offered me a Sushet position there. I can't turn it down. Fair enough. I said, but I'm at my height of my career at Per se I've at that time I've been at Per se for four years. I was like, I'm I'm not leaving New York. So we sort of lived apart for about a year. And then eventually I was like, you know what? Maybe I should make the move. And that's when I moved to to Copenhagen and worked at Noma with him.
Joshua Sharkey (15:18.392)So you were in in the front of house, he was the back house, Noma
Sandia Chang (15:21.346)Yeah, I was I was one of the first non Scandinavian speaking person they hired for the front of house. They didn't know how that was gonna go down, but actually everybody in Denmark loves speaking English. Every chance they get to speak English, they'd rather speak English. So so it was great. Everybody wanted to speak to me, you know. They grew up watching Friends and Simpsons and kind of like an American girl. So yeah, it it was it was was super, super fun at Noma.
Joshua Sharkey (15:50.124)So you know, you said something in some interview, I don't remember which one, but that at per se you sort of learned that you just never kind of never say no. And then it sounds like the opposite at Noma, where like part of the methodology was it's okay to say no, and sometimes that's actually the the right thing to do. But now you have your own restaurant and they are two very different things. You at per se it's obviously like do whatever we can to make you feel like this experience is exactly for you. Whereas at NOMA, it's more like
Sandia Chang (16:07.267)Yeah.
Joshua Sharkey (16:17.592)Hey, this is us. You're going to hear our story, and you don't have to be here, but if you're going to be here, this is the the story you want to tell. What did you take from?
Sandia Chang (16:24.214)It was it was mind blowing. Like you come from per se where Thomas Keller is like, you know, it's yes. It's not only yes, it's yes, and you take it beyond yes. You know, you say yes to McJagger of having potatoes with every course, then you prepare like a different potato with every course. It's like you know, and and then going to NOMA, people are like, Can I have a cocktail? You say, No. But you have everything to make a cocktail, but yes, still no. And then their idea is that, you know.
If they can't make something good, why make it? You know, if if they're if their ethos is not about, you know, having a huge cocktail list, why would they go out of their way to make something that they're not really good at? they are all about, you know, whatever they're about and they're gonna do that and they're gonna do it well. And that was it.
Joshua Sharkey (17:13.666)They're both right. You're just deciding what your what your brand is.
Sandia Chang (17:18.022)I I feel like it was super it it's very respectful, you know, that you're they're completely right. You invite somebody over to your house for a pizza party, your guests are not gonna say, Well, I don't want pizza, I want, you know, Chinese food. Somebody just take them off.
Joshua Sharkey (17:30.53)Some might. I don't know what your I don't know what your Thanksgiving looks like, but
Sandia Chang (17:35.224)But you know, as as for my own restaurant, it it made me think, you know, it it wasn't a really fair comparison to per se and Noma because per se had a staff of what a hundred and fifty employees. To say yes is very easy to do. For for our restaurant, me and James, when we first opened, we had all of Thomas Keller's teaching behind us and we said we're gonna say yes to everything. So people come in, I don't eat gluten, I don't eat this. We we accommodated the
Joshua Sharkey (17:46.862)Mm-hmm.
Sandia Chang (18:04.718)20 course tasting menu accordingly. And then it came to a point where we're like, well, we're really stretching ourselves because we're only a team of, you know, four chefs if we're lucky, and three front of house. Why would we stretch ourselves and make everything sort of okay rather than just doing what we're really good at and doing really well? So then we're like, okay, we have to find a compromise. You know, we can't say yes to everything. So yeah, so now we
Joshua Sharkey (18:31.771)How do you how did you did you have to develop talk tracks for your team about that of like how to say no?
Sandia Chang (18:36.724)Yeah, I think when we first hired, even from the beginning, the my service style was much more sort of Noma style, you know? People come in and ask for champagne cocktails. I know. But you have this and you have that behind the bar you have champagne. Can't you just mix it together? But that's not where we're about. We're about a great list of grower champagnes. We'll find you one that you would really like.
Joshua Sharkey (18:58.456)It's gotta be really hard though, and awkward.
Sandia Chang (19:00.876)Especially for British people and British service. British service is always especially in fly dining restaurants, it's always yes sir, yes ma'am. Yeah. You know
Joshua Sharkey (19:09.838)Yeah. How do you teach your staff to say no? Like I would feel like it's hard. Like you have to teach them how to say no.
Sandia Chang (19:17.646)Saying it's not really saying no, it's just really telling your guests, this is what we can do for you instead, you know? Yeah. And Noma, for example, Renee would buy this amazing pork and he serves it medium rare because it's amazing. And people would always say, Can I have my pork cook well done? And he would say, No. You know, this this farmer that raised his pig to the way he's cooked and you know, it's just no.
But he said, I have this amazing, you know, line caught sea bass that was caught this morning. I can cook that well for you and you can enjoy that fish as it's supposed to be. I'm not gonna compromise on that piece of pork. So it's not really saying no, it's just telling people, you know, this is not the best we can give you, basically.
Joshua Sharkey (20:01.96)It's funny, it's kinda like what you I don't know about your your kids, like we do this thing where we try to never just say no. So if they're like, dad, I you know, I really want a lollipop or I want some ice cream and I know that he already had too much sugar, I'm like you know, it's not just no you can't have ice cream, it's well, you know what? tomorrow we can go here. Yeah. But finding ways to get to to get to a yes but I think it's it's still not easy. Yeah. I'm sure guests are just like some guests, especially if they're, you know, and they're checking a box of
And they're like, No, like this is ridiculous. I want I want my w my well done pork. Yeah. Like do do you have to deal with that at kitchen table still?
Sandia Chang (20:37.198)Not now, not so much anymore. But back in the in the early days, I think the diners have changed these last like ten years. I think at the beginning there was a bit more resistance. But then there's more restaurants, a lot like us, that are doing something and they're just doing that. So people are now more used to if I'm gonna go, you know, to an all vegan restaurant, I'm not gonna ask for things that are not vegan. Or I'm going to an all meat restaurant, I'm not gonna ask for
Vegetarian food. You know, people know that now when they're dining out. So it's a lot easier.
Joshua Sharkey (21:10.606)I really want to know like what you're most excited about right now. Is it is it fair to say champagne is like what is driving so like a lot of your passion today?
Sandia Chang (21:13.014)Well I'm not just excited about
Sandia Chang (21:18.476)And champagne and and also still service and kitchen table. Because ever since I moved to England I've been championing this whole like American style non formal yet professional service, which doesn't exist very much here in England and the guests are not really used to it. So I'm still very much on that, you know, that sort of champion guest. And also of course champagne. I still have a shop, I run a shop online.
Joshua Sharkey (21:36.642)Yeah.
Sandia Chang (21:47.586)Because with kiss now I can still hustle champagne when they go to sleep.
Joshua Sharkey (21:52.406)that's so cool. I wanna I wanna talk about the shop and I wanna talk about champagne, but I just to diverge for a minute, I feel like it's actually really hard to get that sort of like more casual service, but that's still really good because it's like, yeah, you want it to not feel stuffy and you wanna, you know, maybe it's not the same kind of uniform and you want them to feel more like, you know, relaxed, but you still want to make sure that they're never waiting for, you know, wine if it's empty. You still wanna make sure that like if they, you know, if you can tell that they're
that they need something that you're there for them. And so that there's like this balance between you still have excellence, you know even though it's casual. Do you find that it's hard to get the service staff to like balance the two?
Sandia Chang (22:31.374)Yeah, I I feel like especially here the European way of service is very scripted. It's very sort of robotic and the way they're brought up in the industry is, you know, if you're a commune waiter, this is what you do and this is you know, you do this after you do this. And then all of a sudden if somebody throws a wrench in the situation, they wouldn't know what to do. But you know, to your point, I I always tell this this team that it is like having a dinner party at your house.
No, you invite guests over, you wouldn't let them be cold. You know, if you see somebody cold, you would ask them if they're okay, you would turn off the heat, or you know, you wouldn't let their wine glass be empty. You know, you wouldn't let them sit there with no food. You greet them at the door, you take your coat, and when you when they leave you bring their coat to them and you walk them out the door. My it is simple.
Joshua Sharkey (23:23.694)What's like the the general age of your service crew?
Sandia Chang (23:25.908)Young. I would say like early twenties to early thirties.
Joshua Sharkey (23:29.838)What's the like I don't know about you? Like I I if I hear a twenty year old, I'm like, I don't know how you're saying. I don't know what that word means. Like, what is that like? Dexmitting twenty year olds? What
Sandia Chang (23:36.202)I don't know.
Sandia Chang (23:40.75)gosh. I feel like we just adapt to it, you know. Like I can't tell you what exactly that we change in the way we we train or speak. But it does take a lot of patience.
Joshua Sharkey (23:53.472)What's like the biggest difference do you feel like from the type of team?
Sandia Chang (23:56.875)You can't be too direct and harsh. It's it's all very you know, they're a bit more emotional and a bit more, you know, in tune with their, you know, emotional state. So things need to be very tactful when you speak to them. You have to give them more time.
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Joshua Sharkey (25:16.942)How does make you feel?
Sandia Chang (25:18.606)First of all. And it is what it is. It's my business. I have to make it work. Yeah. So there is really no other choice but to find ways to communicate, right?
Joshua Sharkey (25:30.85)Yeah, I do feel like being a parent helps with it because you learn that understanding that like kind of transfers into, you know, your your staff. At least I I I feel that often. I'm like I wouldn't yell at my kid when they do this thing, so I'm not gonna yell at them either. I'm like asking I'm gonna ask them why, like, hey, curious why that happened.
Sandia Chang (25:46.968)I can say I'm in the relationship with me and James, I'm the more patient one. But I can see a difference. I can see a difference in James after we had kids with his team that he is a bit more patient and he will let things go that he normally won't. Just because everything just seems a little bit more, you know, there's it it's a bigger world, a bigger picture.
Joshua Sharkey (26:08.878)Yeah, we're gonna shift a bit because I wanna I I couldn't drink wine for like fifteen years. I was like obsessed with I mean I was not obsessed, but like I really loved, you know, wine for for a very long time, especially like cherries and things like that, like the almacinistas and then when I hit thirty, I developed an allergy to live yeast and I couldn't drink for like until about six months ago. Or three months ago. so now I'm like getting back in catching up. Yeah. So I'm really excited for today. I'm excited to talk to you about champagne and
I'm so curious like how you got so deep into it. But maybe we start with so I I think most people probably don't know what is grower champagne versus, you know, the not the independent type of producers and why is that important? Why do you care about it and why should other people care about it?
Sandia Chang (26:51.246)Yeah, so people don't know that majority of champagne are owned by big houses, you know, you see them all the time. You know their names, the Clico, the Pierre Joy, you know, Paul Roger, Moe Chandon. To give you an example, Moe Chandon produces about twenty six million bottles a year. And then the other side of Champagne, they by the way, they don't grow their own grapes. Yeah. They source them from farmers and then they bring
Joshua Sharkey (27:15.606)They're not called grower, correct?
Sandia Chang (27:17.134)Yeah. So they're negotiants. So they negotiate grapes, they bring it into their winery, and then they blend in and make champagne. sure they they owe a little bit to make their finer cuvets, but majority is is bought in. And then the other side are these small farmers who grow their own grapes and then with their own grapes they make their own champagne. Which is how wine should be. You go to other places that in the world. That's how you most wines are made. But in champagne it's it's super commercial. It takes a lot of money to make champagne.
So that's why it's monopolized by bigger houses with money. Well, if you think about it, first you have to make wine like everybody else. Well, everybody else, after you ferment grape juice into alcohol, you can pretty much sell it for money. But in champagne, you have to go through a second process, a second fermentation. That's how you get the bubbles. And then that takes time. And you think about the overheads of rent, you know, and electricity, water, labor. And not only that, it's a lot of space is taken up.
Joshua Sharkey (27:49.484)Why does it cost so much?
Sandia Chang (28:15.418)in your cellar and in that period you're not making money at all. And then investing in equipment as well for this whole process is a lot of money for these farmers to to invest to start making champagne. It's a whole lot of things that add up to lots of money. hard return. Hard and slow return for them.
Joshua Sharkey (28:35.374)I don't wanna like poo poo on the non growers because like I I imagine that there's still effort and skill to take grapes that someone else grew and and turn it into delicious champagne or sparkling wine. Yeah. Versus you growing the grapes and then turning I it's like a chef, like you might not grow the, you know, the carrots, but you're gonna make this really great carrot, you know, gromescle or something. I imagine there's still a a decent amount of of effort and skill to do it right to take those grapes and turn them into great champagne. How much of how much of what you believe is
What makes an incredible bottle of champagne that part versus how you grow the grapes, you know, where all the kinda
Sandia Chang (29:11.984)well I I feel like it you're absolutely right. It takes a lot of skills to make a really great champagne. And all of these big houses hire some of the best champagne seller masters, you know, in the whole of the world to make sparkling wine for them. And and yes, but you know, so say you're you you work for a big house and you have farmer A that makes that grows amazing organic grapes, and you have farmer B that does pretty good C that does crap and then D that does crap, but eventually they all get
filtered together. There's no identity to to where they come from. As long as the end product, which they have to meet, is the house style, that's what they're trying to achieve. But with growers, it's sort of like, you know, every year it's different and they're okay because they're not trying to meet a a budget or they're not trying to meet a brand ambassador that says, it doesn't taste like last year's. It's all very organic. It's it's their grapes, their baby.
Joshua Sharkey (29:43.278)Gotcha.
Joshua Sharkey (30:06.04)Yeah.
Sandia Chang (30:10.072)They probably caress the little lace before they butt it and they pick the grapes themselves and they they press it themselves and I don't know. It just seems like there's a bit more connection and and love and care, you know.
Joshua Sharkey (30:22.742)there big houses that do like single origin productions for just
Sandia Chang (30:27.522)They all do. I I think all all big houses, they all have couveys that are from their own holdings and that they they manage themselves and they grow themselves. And then another side too, all these big houses, they have huge budget. They have so much money. Yes. They don't they don't need my help to market. They don't need my help to promote them. But these these small growers, you know, they're basically a family with kids and that's what they do out of passion. They probably can't make more than ten thousand bottles a year.
Joshua Sharkey (30:37.379)Yeah.
Joshua Sharkey (30:56.482)Yeah, and it's bigger risk for them because to your point, you know, they're not just they have to make wine and then
Sandia Chang (31:01.074)And then they can't fly their rep around the world to like smooth clients. So here I am with the little hot dog restaurants that serve champagne and the least I can do is to help and promote them.
Joshua Sharkey (31:12.91)So wh who are some of the growers that we should know about?
Sandia Chang (31:15.728)gosh, there's so many new ones. great producer at the moment, Jean Marc Selec. Amazing. I just met a lady. I was just in Champaign a couple of weeks ago. met a lady, Helene Cherbeau. yeah, yeah. And they're so young now. I maybe 'cause I'm getting old. Okay.
Joshua Sharkey (31:33.238)W when you say young, like what? Like like twenties, thirties?
Sandia Chang (31:35.96)like late twenties, like making amazing champagne. And maybe it's because like in our mind you you think of all these old Italian like men or French men making wine. Yeah. All of a sudden you go to champagne, which is a very prestigious drink in front and these like young kids are like making amazing champagne.
Joshua Sharkey (31:55.022)What do you look for in a great champagne? What should people be looking for?
Sandia Chang (31:58.678)It all depends on your style first, what you like, but it needs to be balanced. And it can't be too acidic and champagne has a problem. Not a lot of people know that the terroir is very similar to England. It's pretty grey and rainy and miserable. So the grapes itself usually don't get as ripe as Spain or California. So you get very high acidity wines there. There's a balance of it. It can't be too acidic, it can't be too fruity, it can't be too sweet.
They do a lot of dosage, which is adding sugar back in to balance the acidity. So yeah, it's all about balance really. And then it's what you like.
Joshua Sharkey (32:32.758)You said that you never have chocolate with champagne. What what? Is that right?
Sandia Chang (32:37.666)Right? Yeah, it's it's the one thing that doesn't pair with champagne. Champagne goes with everything.
Joshua Sharkey (32:42.518)Wouldn't there be a champagne that's like, you know, like that's got, you know, more or less acidity that like
Sandia Chang (32:49.002)I think it may be like a nice yeah, I don't know, white chocolate for sure. It's just a bitterness, like that sort of chocolate cocoa bitterness.
Joshua Sharkey (32:54.412)Yeah.
Joshua Sharkey (32:59.374)Uh-huh. So then are there other bitter things like you know, escarole or something?
Sandia Chang (33:03.438)I guess so. But you wouldn't just eat at Esquerol on its own and drink champagne. It'd always be dressed with something or or paired with something.
Joshua Sharkey (33:12.108)Yeah. But gener generally speaking you feel like bitter bitter things aren't great with okay. What else should the novice folks know about you know grower champagne?
Sandia Chang (33:24.43)Grow champagnes, they're everywhere. You should try and find their everywhere. They're always more affordable than big houses. Really? Yeah. I mean unless you find like the really cultish one that nobody can get anymore.
Joshua Sharkey (33:38.926)You would think they'd be more expensive. They should be more expensive.
Sandia Chang (33:42.318)Yeah, but a majority of them are not, you know, they're not housing a business where they have to pay like departments of people. How you know, HR or human resource and marketing and accounting. It's basically mom doing you know, the mother in law doing the accounting, the wife doing the admin, and he's making a wife. So But I don't know about in the US because there is export fees to be taken in consideration. But for us it's pretty affordable and it's actually really hurting our
Joshua Sharkey (34:01.229)Yeah, that's true.
Sandia Chang (34:12.342)our English sparkling wine business here because it's almost the same price as drinking English sparkling wines. And people here won't drink English sparkling wines because they're all thinking, well, I could just get real champagne for the same price.
Joshua Sharkey (34:26.636)Yeah. Interesting. Huh. Yeah. Makes sense. How do you price how do you think about pricing wine? Didn't not just champagne, but just in general, like at the restaurant.
Sandia Chang (34:36.076)me and my husband have very different thoughts about this. When I first opened Bobble Dogs, my pricing strategy was to go super, super cheap. Because I feel like people don't get to drink champagne that often, right? Yeah. So let me make a little less GP on it. And then this way people will buy a second bottle. And this is what happens, you know? I make more money because most people buy two bottles rather than one expensive bottle. But then at the end of the day it's business, right? Then my husband jumps in and is like,
Sandy, why don't you know how to make money? You know, people will still pay this price for this bottle if you just sell it at that higher price. You know, and they might even still get two bottles of it. So now as a business, now that Bubble Dogs is no longer there. So that sort of casualness in terms of service isn't there anymore. Now it's a two-mission star restaurant where you kind of have to match the price of your menu. Yeah. So you you can't have like a 200 pound menu where your wine list is like 30, 40 pounds.
Joshua Sharkey (35:34.486)Yeah, yeah.
Sandia Chang (35:35.756)So that makes sense. So yeah, I mean we do the average. We we stick with the average sort of seventy percent GP on pricing.
Joshua Sharkey (35:43.726)Like why why did you start a hot dog? it was it just because of champagne? You're like I need I need a vehicle for champagne and hot dogs. I need to not caviar, but it makes sense. Yeah, yes.
Sandia Chang (35:54.218)No. Well you know, when I was at Per se I remember a table I served was Armando Mani, the olive oil guy. And Beno sent out all these like crazy canopies. And one of the canopies was a like a house care lardo. And I as a head waiter I sort of managed the pairings with the with the smellier and and I said, Why don't we do in this amazing wreathling? So I go over there and I presented the lardo with the wreathsing and he he calls me over. He says, You know what?
Joshua Sharkey (36:01.805)Yeah, yeah.
Joshua Sharkey (36:10.254)Mm-hmm.
Sandia Chang (36:24.142)Could it be a better pairing? It's Prosecco. He's like, at home, Prosecco, charcuterie, Lardo, amazing. And I thought about it. It's like, my God, he's absolutely right. And then this whole idea of like champagne and hot dogs came to my mind, like, it's hot dog, it's almost like charcuterie, it's salty, it's greasy, fries. Like, like it makes sense, right? Yeah. And then I had that thought for ages. And then we got this restaurant site in on Charlotte Street and
In order to serve alcohol, you had to serve food. So then I was like, okay, fine. What food am I gonna serve? And I thought, you know, how do I get people into a champagne bar? Because champagne bars tend to be quite intimidating. Yeah. I said, okay, well, why not hot dogs? Nobody's ever scared of a hot dog. Nobody would run away from a hot dog. So then I was like, and then I said, Okay, fine, we'll do hot dogs. Even till the day we open a door.
Joshua Sharkey (36:54.893)Mm-hmm.
Sandia Chang (37:17.92)I was still thinking it was just my crazy idea, these crazy people in my head that thinks it was a good idea. But then it was it actually turned out pretty pretty good.
Joshua Sharkey (37:26.75)I wanna hear how it went, what was the what was the menu like? But and by the way, Lambrusco's also incredible with hot dogs. Sure.
Sandia Chang (37:34.13)Yes. Very good. it was a disaster, the opening of Bubble Dogs, because imagine me and James, we both come from fine dining restaurant, you know, where things you do, you take time to play things. First lunch service, you know, James is telling the chefs outstairs, bring me the garnish for this chili dog. Bring me the garnish for 'cause we we still work in like the Thomas Keller ethos, right? Everything is perfect. Me supplies, me supplies, everything.
And then the ticket starts rolling in. And then all of a sudden I remember downstairs it was lunch service. All of a sudden James decides, just give me the fucking entire, you know, pot of chili for the chili dog. Just do all the fries. And then between lunch and dinner service, we had to buy a new fryer. Because we never thought we would have to fry so many things. But between like tato tots and corn dogs and and French fries, we had to learn as we went. So that delayed that delayed kitchen table opening by two weeks.
Joshua Sharkey (38:31.31)wait, were they like almost simultaneous?
Sandia Chang (38:35.052)It was meant to be simultaneous. Well, we delayed it for two weeks because it took us that long to figure out how to cook hot dogs. And with kitchen tables a lot easier because it's what we did. Mm-hmm. Everything that we knew what to do. But yeah, bubble dogs is a hard opening for us and it was a big learning.
Joshua Sharkey (38:37.315)Gotcha.
Joshua Sharkey (38:43.533)Yeah.
Joshua Sharkey (38:55.242)How did you think of the hot dog menu? Was it a very was it very American? Was it I actually didn't get to eat there, so it was it like more of like a high end hot dog? Was it simple?
Sandia Chang (39:03.404)try keep it really like at a lowbrow casual at the but the important thing for me was that the hot dog has to be right it had to be a really good frankfurter and at that time we're talking 13 14 years ago it was very hard to find a butcher in England that made frankfurters because I don't know if you know sausages in England are very different. They're kind of like coarse grind sometimes a little bread inside and we were lucky enough to find this
butcher who was actually comes from a a German heritage. So he was very familiar with a Frankfurter. And it took months and months and months to develop this recipe for us. The snaps had to be right, the length has to be right, the the width has to be right. And then we had to find the right bun. The bun. I mean you can tell like we don't do casual fine food, but you know, we don't have casual food. We're still like three mission star hot dogs. The bun had to be right.
The size of the bun had to be right, the look had to be right. That was very stressful. But then the the toppings, we did like, you know, chili dogs, we did mac and cheese on it. We did, you know, what else did we do? Like a Reuben with sauerkraut and Russian dressing. We did like a like a Philly cheese version with saute onions and peppers and cheese sauce.
Joshua Sharkey (40:03.107)Yeah.
Joshua Sharkey (40:20.27)I'm looking at some of the pictures now as you're
Sandia Chang (40:22.206)Yeah, we did so good. We did a BLT with truffle mayonnaise and bacon, lettuce. We did we did a breakfast one with like a tomato jam, black pudding, eggs.
Joshua Sharkey (40:35.669)that is a lot of truffle right there. Wow.
Sandia Chang (40:37.634)We did we did tater cards, you know.
Joshua Sharkey (40:40.494)I see, yeah. Did you guys make those?
Sandia Chang (40:42.538)No, we didn't. We didn't want to we didn't want to do fries because everybody had fries. We want to do tater tots because I wanted it to be truly American. Couldn't find tater tots anywhere. Nobody knew what what they were. Really? We couldn't make enough in house. We did like two undercovers a day. So we ha we found a German company in Germany that did tater tots and we shipped them by the pallets into the UK.
Joshua Sharkey (41:08.396)That's hilarious. my gosh. Well probably a good pricing if it's by the palette.
Sandia Chang (41:11.958)Yeah, so that was and then we had to find a a fridge a freezer storage unit that store these pallets for us. So yeah, we go through like four pallets a year. That's wild. Yeah. It was pretty wild that now I think about it, like I don't even know how you know, I think one of your pre right questions was how did you do it? And what are the the advice you can give to people? And I think sometimes you just have to do it. You can't think too much.
Joshua Sharkey (41:18.988)Yeah.
Sandia Chang (41:39.064)But the most important thing is to react really fast and to adapt really fast. You know, you can't wait for the shit to hit the fan to to do something. You just have to react.
Joshua Sharkey (41:49.902)Well the fact that you got a fryer between lunch and dinner was that's a pretty quick reaction. That is really hard to do, by the way. I think that you know, like being able to know, yeah, you we gotta change this now instead of waiting, you know, weeks and weeks and weeks is it's impressive. What year did you guys open Bubble Top?
Sandia Chang (42:06.05)two thousand twelve
Joshua Sharkey (42:07.742)gotcha. yeah, I'm very familiar with the hot dog world. We a group of hot dog restaurants for a while and we spent a lot of time on the hot dog as well. We had a Austrian guy help us because we were making the hot dog for a bit and we were like, Yeah, this is not gonna work. Yeah. The amount of scale. Yeah, I mean, we found we just kept removing things. It literally the it ended up just being pork shoulder, like heritage pork belly, heritage pork shoulder, salt, ice and a couple of stabilizers and that was it.
Sandia Chang (42:11.808)Yeah, yeah.
Sandia Chang (42:33.528)Yeah.
Joshua Sharkey (42:36.278)And everything else just got got removed. That was a journey. Yeah, the the bun too. God like
Sandia Chang (42:41.262)Yeah. I feel like sometimes the simplest things are the hardest to to keep the standards of
Joshua Sharkey (42:46.516)They really are the hardest because you have nothing to hide behind. And everybody knows what good is. You know, when when James is making something at a kitchen table, it's his own sort of like zero to one idea of of what this dish is that nobody's probably ever had before or they haven't had that version of it. So they don't have other things to compare it to. So either it tastes good or it doesn't. And is it like, you know, interesting or not? With a hot dog, everybody comes in with a preconceived notion of like, Okay, I know what a hot dog is, I know and yours probably cost more. And so they're like you know.
Sandia Chang (42:48.92)Exactly.
Joshua Sharkey (43:15.936)So they're already on their you know on the defense. I saw there was a pop up a couple of years ago. Like are you still doing like versions of it or
Sandia Chang (43:18.616)Yeah.
Sandia Chang (43:23.256)Yeah. So we did a pop up in one of the Dorchester hotel groups in on Park Lane for their summer terrace. That was really fun. But the thing is, you know, it's reality. I have two kids now. Like to reopen a bubble dog somewhere and do a pop up on my own is a very big ask. So we take we take people that have already infrastructure created, you know, huge hotel, lovely space, they have the staff. Like we take those opportunities. But other than that, now it's just
Joshua Sharkey (43:40.908)Yeah.
Sandia Chang (43:52.246)running kitchen table and running the the online shampoo.
Joshua Sharkey (43:56.526)What mean about bubble shop? Like how did that come about and
Sandia Chang (43:58.67)Well, it's COVID happened, you know, and as you know, a lot of things happened because of COVID. We we couldn't reopen bubble dogs. mostly because we couldn't wait around for this whole like you know, distancing thing. The the space was already so small. It's not like if we did half the covers we need half the stuff. You still need the staff. So we just said, you know what, let's just focus on kitchen table.
Plus we had two kids within those three years around COVID, in and around COVID. So priorities change. We wanted to put all of our energy into one thing rather than, you know, two mediocre things. Or three, including the kids. so yeah, so we decided to close bubble dogs and concentrate it on a kitchen table. But I've been working over a decade on these growers in Champagne and I wasn't gonna let it go. So yeah, I decided to move it on to an online platform.
Joshua Sharkey (44:31.576)Yeah.
Sandia Chang (44:54.306)Which I can dismanage.
Joshua Sharkey (44:55.852)So like can I buy off bubble shops? Is it can it is it in the States too?
Sandia Chang (44:59.784)No, no, no. I can only ship I can only ship domestically in the UK. Gotcha. Yeah. But you guys have you guys have a great, you know, selection of champagne.
Joshua Sharkey (45:08.974)No, but I want to buy Sandino. yeah, I know we do. like who's the who's the typical
Sandia Chang (45:14.862)We have collectors because I get a lot of my champagne directly from from the producer who gives me my own allocation. You know, England doesn't get a whole lot of allocations from these growers. A lot of collectors, a lot of people who hopefully I had converted into grinking grower champagne. And because my shop is sort of the USP is a one stop shop for grower champagne. So you don't have to go to this site to buy this and that site to buy another producer.
Joshua Sharkey (45:22.679)Yeah.
Joshua Sharkey (45:27.512)Mm-hmm.
Sandia Chang (45:44.206)Like you should be able to find all the great ones in one spot. So people who wanna sort of experiment in grower champagnes, they can they often come 'cause there's great sort of value as well on there.
Joshua Sharkey (45:56.312)Yeah, and there's a subscription too, right? That's really smart. is there a lot of people that do the subscription?
Sandia Chang (45:57.686)There's just a fishing, yeah.
Sandia Chang (46:02.198)Yeah, they could do something different. I wouldn't say I'm smart at this e-commerce thing. This is like a totally new world for me, e-commerce.
Joshua Sharkey (46:09.71)Direct to consumer is just it rarely ever hits really big. It's just hard because people's patterns just change and you know, can only do the same thing for so long.
Sandia Chang (46:18.75)Yeah, and you're not in front of them. It's you know exactly tell me to sell a bottle to somebody sitting in my restaurant, it's easy. You know, tell me to sell some a bottle of champagne to somebody living in like the northern part of England. Like how do I know what they want? Yeah.
Joshua Sharkey (46:31.426)That's where like and I hate to say it but that's where like content comes in where we're just like talking about it every day online. When you have the time between the kids and the and the restaurant. That's awesome though. I'm I'm now I'm gonna go go find some some grower wines 'cause you know, I I didn't really understand also like the whole allocation piece. A buddy of mine is a samoyer here in the in the States and we worked together at Cafe Gray and he was on the show you know, for for quite a while. When I was able to drink wine again, I was like, just send me
thousand dollars worth wine, but I only want four bottles. And he sent me like some really, really good, good wine. And and I and he sent me a chauve, which I had nothing I ever had. If I had it was a long time ago. And I was like, I that's all I want. I was like, just send me all of that. And he sent me a couple more. And then I was like, all right, I want a whole case of this of the Chavez Saint Joseph. And he's like, dude, this is this is like my allocation. I thought you can't buy this. I just I just happen to have this stash. Yeah. I was like, I didn't know that.
Sandia Chang (47:12.91)From now on.
Joshua Sharkey (47:26.316)You have this like personal, you know, allocation that other people can't get. That probably means, you know, that's it's a good markup for people.
Sandia Chang (47:32.076)Yeah, it is. When you when things are rare you can you can really mark it up and sell it. But with grower champagne is crazy allocations. for example, I visited a a producer a while ago and a very sort of cultish, you small producer and he's got pallets in his cellar ready to ship. This huge pallet, you know, and majority goes to Scandinavia because they're cool, they're hip, you know, they're open minded, they drink amazing sort of natural wines and and grower champagnes.
So majority get a Scandinavia. And then it's like Asia and, you know, Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand, even. Like they get a huge allocation as well. Then it's Italy, because Italy has a big grower champagne consumer group. And then there's this tiny little like four case in the corner, and that's for England. Because because nobody is drinking grower champagne in England, therefore nobody's importing it in England. Therefore at the end the producer is like
English people have no taste. Why would I give them more champagne? You know, where I know people appreciate my stuff in in Denmark and Sweden and Japan. So yeah, so we're kinda like we're we are battling, yeah. And we're still battling.
Joshua Sharkey (48:42.648)So you're battling for it.
Joshua Sharkey (48:47.01)When you're getting this sort of allocation, is it like do you have a warehouse somewhere where you're like storing this or is it sort of
Sandia Chang (48:51.98)I have a I have a a sort of a seller stock warehouse that I bring everything in and store. Yeah.
Joshua Sharkey (48:59.63)How often are there at the warehouse? Yeah? Yeah. So it's near it's nearby. Sure. What's next?
Sandia Chang (49:01.262)Every week.
It's nearby, yeah. It's nearby.
What's next? Well, you know, they always won the third star, don't they?
Joshua Sharkey (49:12.83)Does he is that is that what he's aiming for right now?
Sandia Chang (49:14.978)That's what James is aiming for. I mean, as a chef growing up in Michelin star restaurants, you it deep down inside even if he says he's not, he he wants it. And that's what he's aiming for. Me, I really want to grow this brewer champagne business. Wanna go take it into trade as well, selling not just to public consumers but into restaurants eventually.
Joshua Sharkey (49:34.04)look like how do you do that? So you just need to find a distributor or be your own distributor?
Sandia Chang (49:36.942)No, be my own distributor. So I need to find somebody who's willing and happy to do like door to door sales in restaurants and and so
Joshua Sharkey (49:45.42)What's the regulation piece of that? Do you have to apply for certain things to be able distribute to restaurants?
Sandia Chang (49:50.13)No, you just need to apply for a import license. Mm-hmm. And then you have to apply for a selling, like a retail selling license. But that also includes like selling to trade. And there is no law in the UK where you can sell it to your own business. So I sell it to kitchen table. That makes sense. It is good. It is pretty good. It is pretty good.
Joshua Sharkey (50:07.83)that's cool. I know. You should you should upcharge for that.
So when when does that happen? When are you gonna start selling the Hillary Rush?
Sandia Chang (50:17.106)gosh. I I'm just I think being a parent is all about finding the right time to pull away a little bit. Yeah. You know, and I can almost feel it now, now that they're a bit more sort of self sufficient a little bit that I can make dinner and just leave it there and they'll they'll eat it and they'll you know, they can bath themselves and you know, I can see a little bit of light in the end of the tunnel.
Joshua Sharkey (50:40.234)our kids the same age and we're just starting to see we're like, I can actually go to the other room for a couple of minutes while they're eating and they'll be okay And it was not that for a very long time.
Sandia Chang (50:50.668)And also having kids, I feel like, has really taught me to you know paradise, there's things, you know, we used to go into the kit in the restaurant like seventeen hours a day. Like we'd be there all the time. And we Yeah. And now I realize that with kids, I I almost get the same stuff done. But I'm there like a quarter of the time. Like how is that possible? Yeah. Sometimes you you have a reality check of what's important and what's not important that needs doing.
Joshua Sharkey (51:15.83)Yeah, I've talked about this a bunch of times in the podcast actually. It's funny 'cause the origin of this comes from I don't want to call it like a a law, but there's this thing called Parkinson's Law that originated in Britain based on the bureaucracy of of Great Britain, where you basically you'll fill the space that you have. You'll if you have a year to get something done, it'll take a year. If you have a week to get the same thing done, you'll get it done a week. I feel like parenting is like a forcing function for you to ruthlessly prioritize and yeah, you just don't have seventeen hours anymore. You can't you you just can't. But you have to get it done.
Sandia Chang (51:45.486)There is absolutely no choice. So like, you know, who knows? Like I I feel like I'm much more open to like sourcing jobs out to people now. You know, maybe I could find a partner to go into this with me. Like I'm a bit more open. I don't have to do everything myself anymore. Like I don't have that ego of like I need this to be mine, completely mine.
Joshua Sharkey (51:48.11)You just cut out all the fat.
Joshua Sharkey (52:07.522)Yeah. And how is what's it like working with your husband in the restaurant?
Sandia Chang (52:10.99)I would recommend it. It's I tell people this all the time. Like it's eighty percent really, really hard and really shit. But twenty percent so satisfying, so safe. It's a safe place, you know. You have a partner that knows that they're never gonna throw you under the bus. They're only gonna want to make you better because it makes them better, because you're in it together. You know, but then because of that, that 80% comes in where
Because of that, you're constantly fighting because you want the best for each other. Want our business to be better, you know. I I don't like how he, you know, organizes his chef. Then he gets pissed off at me. I don't like how he tells my my servers what to do.
Joshua Sharkey (52:44.355)Yeah.
Joshua Sharkey (52:56.93)Mm-hmm.
Sandia Chang (53:00.098)Well, he doesn't like that I'm s always so nice to people and I give things away for free. But I but I I am like front of the house, like I have to do some nice things, you know.
Joshua Sharkey (53:04.844)Well yeah.
Joshua Sharkey (53:10.71)Yeah, yeah. Do you guys have any hard fast rules about like no shop talk anytime at home or anything like that or?
Sandia Chang (53:16.48)No, I feel like that's really hard. Or else we'd never be talking.
Joshua Sharkey (53:19.372)Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah, I guess it'd be different if like you're both in the industry but in different restaurants or different worlds, but like you guys have the same as like business. Did you ever work with Todd Duplache or Jess Mar at at Boulay?
Sandia Chang (53:29.325)Yeah.
Sandia Chang (53:35.014)Mm no. I was there with Evan and Sarah. Right.
Joshua Sharkey (53:39.244)Yeah, J Jess was there in in pastry at the time and and Todd was a Danube actually. But they're married and they have a restaurant in Austin and now a second a second business. And they have some really good they do like a weekly meeting between the two of them that's like everything. Like family, life. Really children. Yeah. And I was like really impressed. Like we could not do that.
Sandia Chang (54:02.062)I like today I I came home and James is just leaving. Like we are literally like ships passing in the night sometimes. And staff find it really weird that they tell me something and then the next day James comes in and he knows has no idea about it. You're like, but we told Sandia and like, yeah, so we don't see each other.
Joshua Sharkey (54:21.742)Do you guys have like a like do you try to figure out date nights and things like that or?
Sandia Chang (54:25.08)gosh this it gets harder now with kids. Like, no. We try, you know, we really do try when we get to it. But we have no family here. You know, his family lives out way outside of London. Mine's still in California. Yeah. So it's it's hard without family.
Joshua Sharkey (54:39.374)It's hard. We're the same, you know, our family's not nearby and it's people take that for granted. It's you know, to have like grandma come over and watch the kids for a night is is is a blessing 'cause sometimes it's just hard to find babies.
Sandia Chang (54:47.437)No.
Yeah. I know. But you know, I feel like now we've learned how to work with each other better because now we know when to say things and when not to say things, but we still say the same thing. We just find better timing.
Joshua Sharkey (55:04.686)Yeah, that's that's that's key. Well, speaking of family, we have a I'm doing a time check because you gotta you have to go in five minutes. It's so impressive what you what you built, Sunita. I'm so like I'm just so excited to see all the stuff that you've been building. Can you just share any any additional advice for folks? Like you went from working in some of the greatest restaurants in world, cooking and really cooking not very like you didn't have a lot of experience when you came to Boulet and you start cooking at like the best restaurant.
Sandia Chang (55:12.384)Yeah, pick up.
Joshua Sharkey (55:34.402)you know, one of the best restaurants ever and you were on a on the fish station, which, you know, some people might think, I need to do five years of this before I can start. Then you were in front of the house, then you started learning, you know, about wine and beverage and now you're doing this and you started e commerce business. You know, I I feel like oftentimes people they feel like they can't do something because they don't have enough experience or they they're not an expert yet. Yeah, sure. You're of course living proof that like you just become an expert by doing them. Any any advice you can give people 'cause I I think it's I think it'd be helpful.
Sandia Chang (56:02.766)I think you just have to not think too much. I mean, thinking back about how I got here, I none of the decisions I made, I thought about it. I just went in and did it. You know, like was Belay the right place for me to work. I don't know. I just did it and commit to it and learn. Like always keep learning. And you don't go into something because you know what to do. You go into something because you want to learn how to do it.
Joshua Sharkey (56:18.947)Yeah.
Joshua Sharkey (56:28.32)Mm-hmm. Couldn't agree more.
Sandia Chang (56:30.54)And we we opened a restaurant. I didn't know what I was doing. Like even now
Joshua Sharkey (56:35.285)You do more than some.
Sandia Chang (56:37.286)I was so upset at myself when I first opened the restaurant. I should have paid more attention in like my finance classes. I should have paid more attention in my cost control classes. Like all these things. I was like, I should have paid more attention. But then you learn as you have to, you know, you learn as you go. But definitely go into something because you want to learn more, not because you're so good at it.
Joshua Sharkey (57:00.504)That is a great way to end this. Thanks so much for finding time. I'm so excited we to catch up.
Sandia Chang (57:04.492)No, it's nice you know what, it's really nice to speak to another American. Despite the amount of years I've been here, it's just sometimes I really don't understand what they're saying.
Joshua Sharkey (57:15.663)Well, you're also you know, you were you I I didn't realize you were like you were in Saudi and then you were I think Hawaii too, right?
Sandia Chang (57:21.955)no, my parents live in Costa Rica for for a
Joshua Sharkey (57:24.355)gotcha. So you've been you've been around.
Sandia Chang (57:27.224)Yeah. But I I do love London though. It's a great place to live. Anyone who wants to ever get out of the US, come to London. Yeah, please do.
Joshua Sharkey (57:33.602)Well we will come visit again soon.
Thanks so much for listening to show. If you liked this episode or any other ones, you can actually check out more of this at getmes.com slash
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