Five Rules for the Good Life Podcast

Darin Bresnitz
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  • Food
  • Updated Weekly

Five rules for the good life and other tips for living well as told by those who made it their business to do so. fiverules.substack.com

  1. 1d ago

    Dave Beran

    "Great risk, great reward, great failure, but great reward." - Dave Beran James Beard Award–winning chef Dave Beran, the chef and owner of pasjoli and Seline in Santa Monica, joins me to share his Five Rules for Finding Your Culinary Voice. We talk about the importance of self-awareness, learning how to accept the hard truth, and surrounding yourself with people who believe in you enough to tell you what you need to hear. Dave also explains why defining your identity gives you the foundation to take bigger risks—and why confidence sometimes has to arrive before certainty. Together, his rules offer an honest look at the long, complicated, and deeply personal process of discovering who you are through the work you make. What I love about Dave is his continued effort to refine his voice, even after the awards, the acclaimed restaurants, and all the proof that he could simply keep doing what already works. He remains willing to question himself, listen to hard truths, and keep editing until the food feels completely his own. Finding your voice is not a single revelation; it is a lifelong process of paying attention, taking risks, and having the confidence to change when something no longer feels true. Watching Dave continue to do that work reminds me that mastery is not about reaching a final destination—it is about caring enough to keep searching. Introduction Hello and welcome to Five Rules for the Good Life. I'm your host, Darin Bresnitz. Today, I sit down with Dave Beran, the chef and owner of pasjoli and Seline here in Santa Monica. He is the recent recipient of Best Chef: California from the James Beard Awards and is here to share his five rules for finding your culinary voice. He talks about the importance of self-awareness, being able to define your identity, and having the confidence to take risks. It is a great conversation for those starting their culinary journey and those looking to refine their cuisine as they move through their career. If you have a moment, please subscribe and rate this podcast wherever you listen. So, let’s get into the rules here on HRN. Finding a Culinary Voice Dave, always a pleasure to see you. Congratulations on everything. Welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. Great to be here. Going back to that first restaurant job you had in Bay Harbor, Michigan, at Latitude, did you have an idea of the chef you wanted to be, and has anything stuck from that time? No, I had no idea. Latitude was cool. That was a fun summer job. I’d just eaten at a couple Chicago restaurants with my dad. Went there and I saw this, like, cool, fancy restaurant that seemed fun. Sure. Started cooking there. I was 19. I just thought it was neat. It was artistic. The food tasted good and everyone who worked there was cool. Yeah. This is a fun place to be. I didn’t know. I had no idea. Chicago is where you made your bones, and you worked at some of the most legendary restaurants, like Tru and Alinea. Now you have your own spots like pasjoli and Seline. What was the moment when your culinary voice started to coalesce? There’s been several points. For me, it’s been a moving target. There’s been a lot of times where I’m like, “Oh, this is me. Oh, now this is me.” Sure. As of recently, it’s the most confident I’ve been in what I’m trying to do. It’s very much ebbed and flowed. At Alinea, there was a point where I would say a quarter to a third of the dishes on the menu were things I’d created. It’s incredible. I thought they were mine. The bubblegum dish at Alinea was a very famous dish. In hindsight, yes, that was my dish, but that dish doesn’t exist without Grant Achatz and Alinea, for that matter. I was very good at doing what I could do through his lens and accentuating his own thought process and, frankly, helping to evolve the thing that he’d created. I get to Next and it’s all new. I hit a window of three menus—Hunt, Vegan, and Kaiseki—where I felt like this was my food. This was my style of menu. Now I look at some of those dishes in hindsight and I think it’s not so much that I had an identity as much as that’s when I felt most confident. They’d created a foundation for me to be creative. That was a framework. I was creating within that framework. I was very quickly reminded that it was not mine when we switched to Steakhouse. Suddenly, I was making a steakhouse menu, and the internal fights around that menu and the personal struggles that I had of, “I’m not going to do a four-course with à la carte,” and ego gets in the way. I realized that my creative evolution was ultimately going to do a disservice to that restaurant because the more in tune with what I was doing, the more in tune with myself and my desires, the more I was moving away from the philosophy of a restaurant that always changed. Then I get to Dialogue, and my food is the self-discovery of, well, what’s really mine and what’s not Alinea and what’s not Next. At the time, I thought it was awesome, but now I look back at it and I’m like, sometimes I look at dishes and I’m like, I just served five dishes that are identical. Here’s a purée with a sauce, with a dollop of something, with this. It was still just an unedited mess. Recognition and Self-Discovery You’ve edited with your new restaurants. You were recently awarded one of the top accolades with the James Beard Awards for Best Chef: California, and not that they’re the end-all, be-all, but feeling that you are the most confident that you have been in your career right now, what does it mean to be recognized? In 2014, I won the same award for Great Lakes. I got Food & Wine Best New Chef, Jean Banchet Awards for Chicago. I won all those that year, too. It was like Avengers, right? Collecting all the rings. At the time, I was king of the world. You couldn’t feed the ego more. It hit a point where it was just expected, like, “Oh, there’s another award and we’re not nominated? Come on, they messed up.” I just took it all for granted. Twelve years later, you get that long-list nomination. LA has not been an easy city. No. Since my time here, we’ve had multiple fires, strikes, protests. COVID. Pretty much every year, a quarter of the year is destroyed. You start to feel like a beaten dog after a while. When we saw that there was a Beard nomination for the long list, I was like, “No way.” You feel forgotten. Then we made the short list. Seline opening was very, very difficult. The restaurant was super confused when it opened. I was confused. I knew what it didn’t want to be, but I didn’t know what it was supposed to be. We were limping along. I hit this really dark point about six to eight months into being open. We’d talked about, “Is this restaurant going to stay open?” Grant Achatz’s wife, Sam, became this major focal point for me as far as helping me understand my own identity. She was just like, “I’d love to help you and tell people about your restaurant, help you get people in, but what’s your restaurant?” It was one of those conversations where I was like, “Well, you’ve been. It’s like this, and I’m like that, and you know my history.” And she’s like, “You can’t say it in a sentence. You don’t know what your restaurant is.” One hundred percent. “No one can talk about it. If they can’t talk about it, they can’t tell their friends to go. No one will ever go because no one will ever understand it, because they can’t digest this concept in a single sentence.” That was like getting hit with lightning. It’s a great lesson. Coming out of that, getting these accolades, it wasn’t about me anymore. It was about the team and the business and knowing that everyone who stuck with us when there were nights when we had four covers—to look around at all of them and say, “Hey, we’ve found our way.” This last year has changed my entire perspective on my self-awareness. It’s no longer the ego. I’d love to say I don’t care about them, but I care about them for very, very different reasons than I used to. The fact that you’ve had such a long journey, both in the kitchen and through personal discovery, makes me so excited for you to share your five rules for finding your culinary voice. You don’t get to where you are without cooking for other people, but then also looking inward, which ties directly into your rule number one. Rule One: Self-Awareness Self-awareness. You’ve got to know who you are. You’ve got to know who you want to be. You’ve got to know what your values are. We talk about that so much in the restaurant. We have our goals, our values, our priorities, straight from talking about how hospitality starts from within, who we want to be, who I want to be. Is the goal to do it for me, or is the goal to do it for the industry, for the team? What is your goal? And that was probably the hardest journey over the last year. For all these years, I’d talked about who I was as a chef and as a person and as a creative. And when it came down to it, when one of my closest friends looked me in the eye and said, “Who are you?” I couldn’t answer the question. Being forced to be inside the kitchen and being forced to be out in the public means that people are going to say what they think about you and your food and your life in a way that people who have a less outward-facing existence sometimes find hard to understand. Your second rule talks about what to do when other people weigh in on your life. What’s your rule number two? Rule Two: Be Willing to Look Outside Yourself It’s the willingness to accept, look outside of yourself, and just say everything you do isn’t just for you. You hit a point of being a creative and you feel alone. “No one understands me. No one understands what I’m doing. I have to do this all by myself.” Finally, someone does offer an opinion and you don’t like it. And you’re like, “Well, the

    Dave Beran

  2. Sep 7

    Vanya Filipovic, Marc-Olivier Frappier & Jessica Noël

    "If your vibe is you got there at five, but at midnight you’re still there because you just can’t get enough, we’re definitely not gonna kick you out. We’re gonna find a way to make it all work, and that’s where the sidewalk tables get created. Always leave room for excess is something we swear by." - Vanya Filipovic Vanya Filipovic, Marc-Olivier Frappier, and Jessica Noël, the co-owners of Montreal’s beloved Mon Lapin, join me from Montreal to share their Five Rules for Hosting Like a Montrealer. We talk about making room when there is none, finding the magic in a winter storm, never underestimating the wine, loving people more than perfection, and always leaving room for excess. Their rules capture the particular generosity of Montreal hospitality: the table is crowded, the bottles keep opening, and nobody is looking at the clock. I love these people, and I love Montreal—the food, the wine, the cold, the warmth, and the way a night there can become something larger than you planned. Few places have shaped the way I think about restaurants and hospitality more deeply, and talking with Vanya, Marco, and Jessica brings all of it rushing back. This episode takes me home, to a city where there is always another chair to pull up, another glass to pour, and every good meal feels like it could last forever. Five Rules for Hosting Like a Montrealer Introduction Hello, and welcome to Five Rules for the Good Life. I’m your host, Darin Bresnitz. Today, I’m back in the motherland of Montreal, chatting with the co-owners of Mon Lapin, Marc-Olivier, Vanya, and Jessica, whose new cookbook, The Mon Lapin Cookbook, will be out on Phaidon this fall and is available for pre-order anywhere you can get your books. They are here to share their five rules for hosting like a Montrealer. They talk about the importance of always pulling up a chair for one more person at the table, to see the excessive cold during the winter as a positive, and to leave your watch at home when decadence is on the menu. It is a conversation that means so much to my heart and reminds me of why I love the city and the people of Montreal so much. So let’s get into the rules here on HRN. Montreal, Mon Lapin, and the People Behind It Vanya, Jessica, Marco, so good to see you. I miss all of you, and I miss one of my hometowns in Montreal. Thanks for making the time, and congratulations on the book. Thank you for having us. Yeah, thank you for having us. Montreal, as you know, is one of the all-time greatest culinary cities in the world. For anyone who’s never been, what makes it so special? Montreal has a vibe. Anyone who’s come to Montreal knows it’s a mix of bitter cold winters, French-English mashup, and beautiful people who just love to go a little overboard in eating, drinking, and being out, just consumption of culture in general. There’s the classic eponymous joie de vivre that really resonates, especially if you haven’t been before. I think it’s something that jumps out at you. We love Montreal. First & Foremost, Friends You’ve all worked in the city for years together and at separate restaurants, and have now been at Mon Lapin pretty much since the very first day. How have you inspired each other? What have you learned from each other? And how has the city inspired what you do? We all became really close friends. I mean, Vanya and I are married, but before we opened, we knew Jess for a long time, but not to a level that we do now. And same thing for Marc-Antoine and Alex. It’s been very important for us before everything, before the restaurant, before the food, the wine, to really focus on the people. It’s something that people don’t talk about enough. A happy partnership and a happy co-chefing that we have, Vanya, with Alex and the wine and Marc-Antoine. I find that everything stems from that. If we’re happy, we’re getting along. That trickles down on the whole restaurant, everybody working in it through the customers. That’s the thing that we try to maintain the most. It’s like being with somebody for a long time. Some weeks we have to do nothing and everything’s good. And some weeks we have to do better. It’s normal. We’re five people. The fact that we have this solid partnership, I really find that what makes Mon Lapin the most. The Mon Lapin Cookbook I love that. I love that these are the relationships that drive you, connect you with the customers and you with each other. In The Mon Lapin Cookbook: De Toute Beauté: From Montreal, with Love, this through line of all of you being connected with each other, the farmers, the customers, is this beautiful through line for the book. Why was this the driving narrative that you want to center everything around? I think we wanted people to really feel the energy of what we do here, whether that’s through partnerships or what small things that we do every day, even within the restaurants. Showing all those things just makes that energy shine through the pages. Sure. We didn’t want to make a cookbook cookbook, just like here are the recipes of the restaurant. Of course. Everything’s online. If you want the pétoncle recipe, it’s in the book. I’m sure if you really look online, you’ll find it somewhere. Yeah. We wanted to portray the restaurant as a whole, every little aspect from the art to the wine, to the food, to the service, to the people, to the customers. I feel like there’s a lot of restaurant cookbooks. There’s a lot of influencer cookbooks. There’s a lot of 110 recipes for sandwiches. I think we did a good job at portraying the restaurant, painting a good picture of what Mon Lapin is. I think all of you are aware of my deep love of Montreal, both as a city and then as a place going out to eat. I love the hospitality that the city represents and that I always feel when I dine with you at your restaurants, which is why I’m so excited for you to share your five rules for hosting like a Montrealer. Rule One: The More the Merrier Whenever I’ve gone to eat there, what I love is how packed every place is and how there’s always an open seat for anyone who wants to join, which makes up your rule number one. Rule number one is the more the merrier. And I’m so happy you feel it personally when you come because it really is the vibe. We have a partner, Alex. He is my wingman sommelier. He is a master of making the milk crate that’s hanging in the back store into a table of six. I love it. To walk down the street and see people eating on upside down boxes with a little tablecloth over top is a very Montreal thing. We love being able to say yes even when the answer should be no. When there isn’t room, we love making room. The energy that’s going to come from it is going to be greater than anything else. Rule Two: Embrace the Winter One of the best things about the restaurants in Montreal being so warm and so welcoming is that during the cold months, of which there are many, there’s always a place to come in, feel that love, get a good bite to eat, have something great to drink. The thing that I’ve always appreciated about those who run restaurants is they never run away from the frigid temperatures, which is a big part of your rule number two. Embrace the winter. This is half of what we are and what the city is. We’re always asked, it’s going to snow today, are you open? Yes, we are. We cook a bit differently in the winter. We love to embrace it as much as possible. In the front of the house aspect, packing people in, making it warm, having the music a bit up, serving different kinds of wines. And in the kitchen side, we serve a bit heartier dishes, some preserves, some pickles from the summer, maybe a bit more meat. We’re not going to shy from it. This is what Quebec is. The embracing of the winter makes the summer and the spring so much more enjoyable when it comes. And it makes the winter this very special moment at the restaurant. Those nights where there is an actual storm outside is the most magical nights that can happen in the restaurant. It’s the best. Everybody has rosy cheeks. Everybody’s just happy to be warm. And it’s just the magic. No one’s leaving. Nobody’s leaving, yeah. No one’s like, let me go walk into the storm again. You know, all the desserts and cheese and just see if it happens three times a year. Next time you hear snowstorm in Montreal, book a table. Rule Three: Never Underestimate the Wine I was there for my bachelor party for a blizzard of Montreal. We landed and went straight to Joe Beef. Vanya welcomed us with open arms and a couple of delicious bottles, which makes up your rule number three. Never underestimate the wine is rule number three. There’s a non-pretension, amazing appreciation and just sharing of the wine. We all have our little geeky, nerdy things that we love and we love to share and talk about, but it really is just about uncorking wine and getting everybody into it. We love to exaggerate. So we’ve completely exaggerated at Mon Lapin. We have like an extremely deep cellar. The wine list is like a Bible. Yeah, it makes us so happy to be able to show up to a table carrying a bunch of bottles and letting the magic happen. Rule Four: Love People More Than Perfection Being able to let the magic happen, trusting both yourselves and everyone working at the restaurant takes a lot of years of hard work to seem so effortless. But also understanding that sometimes not everything is gonna be exactly the way that you want it, which makes up your rule number four. Our fourth rule is love people more than perfection. If we look at it in more of a food way, produce can be perfect, imperfect, and we go with it however we feel in that moment. We’re never the type of place either that’s planning out what we’re going to be doing. There’s no lab testing of whatever dish we’re gonna be putting on the menu. Oh yeah, the lab. Yeah, the famous lab. That never

    Vanya Filipovic, Marc-Olivier Frappier & Jessica Noël

  3. Aug 31

    Evan Marks

    "All of it is inviting participation. Participation in the magic around us.” - Evan Marks If you haven’t already, please make sure to subscribe and give Five Rules for the Good Life on Spotify & Apple Podcasts. Evan Marks Evan Marks, founder and executive director of The Ecology Center, joins me to share his Five Rules for an Abundant Life. We talk about finding gratitude in the miraculous, growing your own food, taking nourishment seriously, making things with your hands, and sharing whatever you have in surplus. Together, his rules offer a thoughtful invitation to reconnect with nature, contribute to your community, and build a richer life by becoming an active participant in it. What Evan and his community have built in San Juan Capistrano is more than a regenerative organic farm. It is a living example of what becomes possible when people come together around food, nature, and a shared sense of purpose. The Ecology Center reminds us that life is not something we are meant to simply observe or consume. We have to participate—to plant something, make something, share something, and give a little of ourselves to the world around us. The more we take part in life, the more abundant it becomes. Introduction Hello and welcome to Five Rules for the Good Life. I’m your host, Darin Bresnitz. Today, I sit down with Evan Marks, the founder and executive director of The Ecology Center, a truly awe-inspiring, regenerative, organic farm, cafe, and education center located in Southern California. He’s here to share his five rules for an abundant life. He talks about the importance of participating, that making something yourself leads to a much richer life, and that the more you share with others, the more the world shares with you. This conversation offers incredible insights on a different approach to living and how, by redefining your relationship with nature, you will be able to live a much richer life. So let’s get into the rules here on HRN. The Ecology Center Evan, so nice to meet you. I’m so excited to be talking to you today about The Ecology Center. You’ve built such a beautiful space. Welcome to the show. Thank you, brother. Honored to be here. For those who might be unfamiliar with The Ecology Center, truly a unique place, can you explain its mission and its approach to food? Its mission is to shift culture. How we’ve done that so far is we’ve built an environment, an ecotopia. It’s a 28-acre ecosystem that inspires us to think and be in a different state, and that connects back to food, reminding people of the basic tenets of knowing where your food comes from and being deeply nourished, mind-body-spirit, in those endeavors of food or otherwise. As the founder, how did you take your life studies and adventures and turn it into something tangible? The Sum of a Life I like to say that we’re just all individually a sum of the parts that we’ve been paying attention to. I guess I was lucky to have good mentors, and I attuned my awareness to mostly traditional people, Indigenous cultures, and tropical environments. I just became fascinated with how humans have lived on this planet for centuries in harmony. That’s really been the design challenge: How do we take those pieces of civilization and culture and integrate them into the present and future tenets in a place unlikely like Orange County? The Principle of Participation There are a lot of tenets that make up what you’ve put together. One of the ones that really stuck out to me was this fundamental principle of participation. How do you weave this through the Center’s farm, garden, cafe, and all of its endeavors? We’re a village, so we’ve got a lot of different expressions. All of it is inviting participation. Participation in the magic around us. Participation in our food system. Participation in the joy of being on this beautiful planet. We do that through a whole myriad of programs, from farm dinners to music festivals, to yoga classes, to field trips, to cooking classes, to shopping at the cafe and eating in the farm stand. It’s a real wide aperture of offerings here, but all of it is an invitation to jump on board. I love that you’ve opened up your life in this space, showing people who are looking for a different type of living and being so generous with that, which is why I’m so excited for you to share your five rules of an abundant life. Rule One: Find Gratitude in the Miraculous In setting the foundation for this approach to living, it really comes with finding this right mindset and searching for this one thing. What’s your rule number one? So much of the magic that we’re trying to inspire is the state of being. My first rule is in the context of peace and finding gratitude in the miraculous. I love that. There’s magic everywhere, and life is precious and planet Earth is sacred. The path that I’ve found is finding deep relationship and reverence to nature. When we can do that, we learn how to fill our tanks and inspire purpose, and that motivates us to be the best version of ourselves. Rule Two: Grow Your Own and Start Small As people have experienced life and lived in our current society, there has been a real separation from understanding where food or things that come from the Earth really come from. Your second rule talks about getting back to this practice and figuring out how to make something of your own. What’s your rule number two? Yeah, my rule number two is grow your own and start small. Small-scale solutions are the path forward. That means getting good at planting a container garden of herbs and tomatoes, having potted plants in your apartment, or a lemon tree out the back door of your kitchen. These are all just simple invitations to participate in adding that magic element to every meal. Moving out to California from New York, I remember the first time I picked a lime from the tree in my backyard and the absolute beauty and magic that came from putting it in my drink. Living here now for the last 10 years, I’ve really adjusted the way that I think about the food that I cook and what I put into my body, which makes up your rule number three. Rule Three: Health Is Wealth Health is wealth. Take nourishment seriously. The path to that is knowing your farmers and getting excited about making those meaningful investments in your health and the health of your ecosystem. Go to the source: the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker. The farmer’s market is your number one stop. Rule Four: Do It Yourself Beyond just buying locally or growing your own food, there is a way that a lot of people consume now that is one and done. If it’s broke, just buy something new, or really be intimidated to practice this DIY lifestyle. Your rule number four talks about the importance of understanding how to make something for yourself. What’s your rule number four? Rule number four is do it yourself. Use your hands. Make something. That, in my context, could be making a worm bin, building raised beds in your backyard, or building a picnic table to celebrate the harvest with your children. The core of it is put your hands to work, get them away from any of the digital toxins, and move them back into planet Earth. Rule Five: Share the Surplus I know, as people look at the life in front of them, think about what they can make, what they can cook, what they can grow, and what money they have to spend, there is this concern about either not having enough or wasting things. Your fifth and final rule talks about planning for a life of abundance while considering what you can give to other people. What’s your rule number five? Rule number five is to share the surplus. That is really in the consciousness more than anything, which is the more you give, the more you get. We all want to line up to those age-old principles of leaving it better than we found it and giving more than we take. That can be volunteering a little bit of time to a meaningful cause. That could be sharing an extra lemon from your tree or donating some extra resources to an organization that you care about in your community. All of these are participatory ways of getting on board with the shift in the culture that is necessary for an abundant future for all of us. Closing Evan, congratulations on everything that you built. If people want to visit the farm, stop by the cafe, or check out the dinners you’re throwing, where can they go? How can they sign up to keep informed? Check us out online at theecologycenter.org. Most importantly, come on down. We’re in San Juan Capistrano. That’s between Los Angeles and San Diego. It’s a worthy field trip, and it’s a full day of fun here on the farm. That’s the best way to do it, is just to dive in. I can’t wait to swing down with my family someday soon. Evan, appreciate the time, and can’t wait to dine with you around your shared table. Thanks, brother. Appreciate the opportunity to share. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

    Evan Marks

  4. Aug 24

    Justin Pichetrungsi

    Justin Pichetrungsi, chef and owner of Anajak Thai Cuisine, joins me to share his Five (Easy) Rules for Taking Over Your Parents’ Restaurant. We talk about burning yourself out—and knowing when not to—along with the importance of arguing with your parents, listening to them, and recognizing that old things are often cooler than new ones. Justin reflects on taking over his family’s restaurant, preserving its history, and finding a way to move the business forward without losing what made it special. Together, his rules offer an honest and thoughtful guide to inheriting not only a restaurant, but all the memories, relationships, and responsibilities that come with it. The beauty of this episode is Justin’s openness about how complicated it can be to carry on a family tradition. He does not romanticize the work or pretend the transition happened without disagreements, exhaustion, or doubt. Instead, he shows how listening, arguing, preserving, and changing can all be expressions of the same love. There is something deeply moving about watching a new generation build upon what came before while making sure the people, stories, and traditions that created it are never forgotten. Introduction Hello, and welcome to Five Rules for the Good Life. I’m your host, Darin Bresnitz. I’m always excited when I get to spend time with today’s guest, Justin Pichetrungsi who is the chef and owner of Anajak Thai Cuisine. He’s here to share his five easy rules to taking over your parents’ restaurant. He talks about the duality of both burning yourself out and taking care of yourself, the importance of arguing with your parents, and how everything old is cooler than everything new. It is an extremely insightful conversation from someone who has successfully transitioned his family’s restaurant from one generation to another. For anyone who has found themselves in the same situation or for anyone who wants to hear the story of how it is done well, this is the episode for you. So let’s get into the rules here on HRN. Justin, always a pleasure to see you. Thank you again for splashing us out the last time we were in. Welcome to Five Rules. Thank you, I like this. Taking Over the Family Restaurant In many ways, the tradition of taking over a parent’s restaurant used to be common. Why do you think that went away and why do you think it’s back? Is it back? You tell me. Oh, why do I think it went away? I actually have thought about this quite a bit. You see this a lot in Europe. You see it a lot in Asia. You see a lot of the passing down of the torch to the next generation, whether or not it’s a restaurant. Why don’t we see it here in Los Angeles so much or in America rather? And I think it’s because we have this belief that we can become independently wealthy within one generation. So it’s not necessary to build upon the intergenerational wealth and knowledge that our parents passed down. I can charge ahead in my own career and live the fullest of my life in the way that I wanna do it. The second thing is that there’s a lot of parents of immigrants, a lot of parents of non-immigrants that are gonna say, no, I want you to live life better than I live. Don’t take over my shop. Pursue your dreams, pursue your life. I was always really afraid that I was gonna lose something if my parents closed the restaurant down. I was gonna lose a part of the family. I was gonna lose my living room where I’m sitting in right now. That fear of what was gonna happen to the recipes and to the memories was really what guided me into it. A Beautiful Renovation You’re celebrating your 45th restaurant birthday and you recently did a beautiful renovation of Anna Jack. What did you wanna preserve? What did you wanna overhaul? I love the atmosphere that the old place became. It was hard to be able to explain that to my general contractor. In fact, I moved on to different contractors until I found someone who understood this idea that it wasn’t gonna be a change. We’re gonna take the little needle and poke it into the thing, extract the DNA, and then the T-Rex, right? Dave Chang said to me, it was days right before we closed for the demolition, he said. There’s only three things you need to keep. One, the wine in the middle of the room, which makes no sense. One of one. Two, the Kobe jersey, and three, your grandfather’s art. And those were the things that stayed. Sometimes having those items that represent the lineage of the restaurant are so important to have and really help tell the story. Sharing with Your Parents It’s amazing because you’ve been able to do all this and share it with your parents. What’s been the most special part about that to you? They were leaving the restaurant at the end of their career in a state that was very challenged. If you remember the feelings that you were going through in 2007, 2008, 2009, the difficulties of what restaurants were going through during the recessionary time. Tough. It hit my parents so hard. They were working seven days a week. For the most part, just the two of them, plus a few other helpers. So for me, to be able to see them at a certain sense of peace, at least peace within the business. Life is as hectic as it always is. I’m the most proud of that, knowing that they can go into their retirement without worrying about that. This was my gift to him, truly. It’s such a beautiful gift. And as more people in America start to look to continue on traditions, especially in the hospitality space, being able to see what you’ve done and using it as a map is nothing short of amazing, which is why I’m so excited for you to share your five easy steps to taking over your parents’ restaurant. Easy redacted, by the way. Easy redacted. Rule One: Burn Yourself Out You can look at social media, you can look at this a few years in and feel like everything’s gelled completely. There was a plan from the beginning that the success came effortlessly, which couldn’t be farther from the truth and ties directly into your rule number one. Rule number one is burn yourself out. It’s an interesting rule to give because we’re such in a mode of career wokeness that we have to protect ourselves, right? Which I respect, I really do. But also, in the food business, in the restaurant business, it’s a 24 hour business, more or less. By the time the cleaners leave, the AM teams come in. To dive so deep into every aspect of it, of course, it’s kind of hyperbole, burn yourself out. Of course. We’re all in this kind of cycle of burning ourselves out, finding inspiration. Rule Two: Do Not Burn Yourself Out It’s this constant molting of our outer shell and getting stronger as we do it that it really motivates you and it can motivate the team and motivate the diners as well to put everything into it. Putting everything into it does inspire the people who are following you and the diners at large, especially when you’re taking something that’s beloved and making a lot of big changes. The other side of the coin from your rule number one is this, what’s your rule number two? Conversely, my rule number two is to not burn yourself out, to be quite careful of it because the dichotomy of that delirium and the creativity that comes from the delirium of being up all night. Contrast that with the creativity that you get from being relaxed, being bored. Daniel Son from Sonagi said, I’m never as creative as I am as when I’m bored. Boredom is the birthplace of great creativity. The mind is able to wander and honestly, the pandemic or the pandy, as I’m trying to call it. The pandy taught us that we could use this downtime to interact with other people, interact with other industries, interact with other chefs. Interact with yourself. Interact with ourselves and the world and nature and all of these countries that have all these longstanding multi-generational family businesses. We have to learn from that. You touch on a good point. Rule Three: Argue With Your Parents These are multi-generational businesses, which means you’re not just taking the name, you’re taking everything that comes with a restaurant. That means you’re also taking your parents, which can sometimes lead to creative tension and ties directly into your rule number three. Rule number three is that you have to argue with your parents. On the record. On the record, I’m saying it’s absolutely crucial. You need to let them know with the full honesty and the full emotion, how you feel about things moving forward in the business. Ed Catmull from Pixar said that Steve Jobs fired a guy on the board of Pixar because he never argued with him. I respect that. He was trying to say, I wanna learn from someone else’s perspective. Why do I need someone who also has my perspective? I got that covered. Yeah, yeah, yeah. My folks and I learned how to argue with one another. We learned how to understand each other through this process. We were able to get our perspectives to co-exist in the same space. At Old Anajac, you felt the tension of those things. Rule Four: Listen to Your Parents It’s just like these magnets that almost could never touch. Just like your rule number one and number two, there is a dichotomy with your rule number three in working with your parents. What’s your rule number four? If rule number three is to argue with your parents, rule number four is to listen to your parents. On the record. On the record, kids. A lot of people will say this as they get older. Your parents were right much of the time. Fair. My parents are a little bit old school in the way that they think about business. I mean, the kind of small business, immigrant control formula is very different. I understand control to be, it’s not a zero sum game. I understand the role of creativity and the role of managing creatives as a part of the business. There may be some kind of loss when you go from one style to the ot

    Justin Pichetrungsi

  5. Aug 17

    Carter Hiyama

    Restaurant photographer Carter Hiyama, whose book On Service, Volume One is out now, joins me to share his Five Rules for Restaurant Food Photography. We talk about why light is everything, the importance of removing distractions from the table, and why making sure your lens is clean is a must. He also explains how his background shooting skateboarding influenced the way he captures the kinetic energy of restaurant kitchens and the feeling of being in the dining room. Everyone wants to take better food photos, whether it is to show their love of food, support their local restaurant scene, or share something they are genuinely excited about. A great photograph can introduce people to a restaurant, celebrate the work happening in its kitchen, and help us feel more connected to the community around it. I love how Carter’s rules make that feel possible for everyone, regardless of the camera they use or how much experience they have. His inisghts give us the tools to take better pictures while reminding us that the real goal is to appreciate the food, the people who made it, and the experience of being there. Introduction Hello and welcome to Five Rules for the Good Life. I’m your host, Darin Bresnitz. Today, I’m joined by my good bud, Carter Hiyama, who is a restaurant photographer based out of Portland, Oregon, whose new book, On Service, Volume 1, is out now. He’s here to share his five rules for restaurant photography. He talks about the importance of lighting, why you should remove any distractions when setting up your shot, and, most importantly, why you shouldn’t let taking photos interrupt your meal. It is a great conversation for anyone who is shooting professionally and wants to up their game, or anyone who is just snapping photos for their own social feed. So, let’s get into the rules here on HRN. Getting Started in Restaurant Photography Carter, always great to see you. It was such a pleasure to have dinner with you and Veronica Ahum up in Portland the other week. Welcome to the show. Thank you for having me. Photography, especially food photography, has become so ubiquitous today. When did you realize that you wanted to move into doing it more professionally? I think it was probably right around 2019. I had just started to work with some restaurants, most notably Bell’s, but I was actually just doing video at the time. Shout out. That was when I got my first taste of doing restaurant work, and at the same time, I started to get really into food. So, I fell in love with the thought of being able to do it professionally. Luckily, since then, that’s what I’ve been doing. Finding a Personal Style Every photographer has their own unique style and approach. What are the stories and themes that influence your work? What are you trying to show through your work? I came from shooting skateboarding. I feel like I always tie things back to that. One of my favorite things to shoot is in the kitchen with a wide lens and just getting right up in there. It feels like I’m filming skating with a fisheye lens. Most of the time, when I’m shooting food photography or just restaurant photography in general, it’s more about trying to convey what it’s like to actually be at this restaurant. Not just showing what the food looks like, but what the surroundings look like, what the vibe of the restaurant is, and what it feels like to actually sit there and eat. Creating On Service, Volume 1 If you follow your work on Instagram or just know you personally, you’ve been to so many restaurants and have thousands of photos. How did you select the ones for your first book, On Service, Volume 1? First, I started with really wanting to feature Bell’s and Anajak. From there, I was trying to pick the photos that were the most influential or sentimental to me. Aside from that, it’s a combination of a lot of my favorite shots that I’ve taken over the last five years or so. What I love about your work is that it’s so personal, so accessible, and seems like anyone who wants to start taking their photos to another level can learn a lot from what you do. That is why I’m so excited for you to share your five rules for restaurant food photography. Rule One: Light Is Everything Many of us have run into this situation: A gorgeous plate hits the table, phones come out, and there are shadows, it’s dark, and there’s just no way you’re going to get a good shot of the food. This applies a lot of times even when you’re shooting during the day, before the restaurant opens for service, and is a big consideration for your rule number one. Rule number one is: Light is everything. It doesn’t matter what kind of camera you’re taking with. If your light is really bad, the photo is going to be bad. If your light is really good, you could be shooting on a professional camera or an iPhone, and it’ll look great. That’s really the determining factor in how well the dish looks and whether the textures and colors come out. The thing that I was thinking about with the light is that I always want it to come from one direction and kind of rake across the dish. That’s how you get a lot of texture to come out. If you think of something like bread that has a lot of little crevices, if you have light that’s coming across it, all those little crevices create tiny little shadows, which really makes the dish pop. The way you position the light is so important for pulling out all those minute details that really make your food pop. But where you’re taking the photo from also plays a big role and makes up your rule number two. Rule Two: Think About Your Angle Rule number two is: Think about your angle. A lot of it will depend on the dish that you’re shooting. For instance, a burger. Usually, you wouldn’t really want to shoot that from the top because it’ll just look like a brown circle of the bun. When you think about the dish that you’re shooting, what is the most important thing that you want to feature about it? With a burger, you really want to see the layers and the melty cheese coming off the side. Then you know you want to shoot it from a lower angle and show off that side profile, versus something like a pizza, which you would shoot from overhead. Shooting from overhead has become a pretty well-seen style because people want these natural, lived-in environments. But just because you’re shooting the entire table doesn’t mean that everything needs to stay on the table. Rule Three: Remove Distractions What’s your rule number three? Rule number three is: Remove distractions. Things like dirty napkins, empty glasses, and phones. That’s a common one—people’s phones on the tables. Maybe it’s just a pet peeve of mine, but I feel like I always try to move those out of the way. This is just for casually taking photos, not during a professional shoot. If you’re just out having dinner with friends and I’m trying to take a quick photo, usually less is more. If I’m just trying to feature one dish, I’ll try to make sure that’s the main focus. You can include other plates, cocktails, wine, or a menu—something creeping into the frame. I feel like that is always nice. Rule Four: Clean Your Lens Summertime is here, and there’s so much great food at restaurants and in the market. That also means people who are outside are usually lathered up in sunscreen. Your fourth rule talks about the importance of keeping this clean. What’s your rule number four? Rule number four is: Clean your lens. Yeah, I know it sounds basic, but it’s kind of surprising how often I’ll open up my camera and I can tell the lens is blurry or smeared. Or, if there’s some light hitting the lens, you can tell everything’s super washed out and you get a ton of glare. Basic camera tips: Wipe your lens, tap on the dish or whatever you’re trying to focus on, and make sure that’s in focus. If you’re shooting in sunlight, lower the exposure. A lot of the time, bright hot spots on the plate will be super blown out. For some reason, the phone is just okay with that. So, I always try to darken it, and that makes for a nicer picture. Rule Five: Don’t Let Taking Photos Interrupt Your Meal There are so many things to consider when you’re taking a nice photograph at a restaurant. Whether that’s a candid portrait of a chef while you’re in the kitchen or a dish that’s on your table, it can take a lot of time to get everything adjusted just the way you want. Your fifth and final rule talks about balancing the time it takes to take a photo with this consideration. What’s your rule number five? Rule number five is: Don’t let taking photos interrupt your meal. I’m guilty of it, but yes. When we had dinner, it was totally fine. We just took our phones out really quickly and snapped a couple of pictures. Yeah. I feel like that’s the perfect balance. Sometimes I’ll see people taking their phones out every time a dish hits the table, or they start recording videos and everyone has to stop what they’re doing to pause for this content moment. If that’s what you’re there to do and you’re being paid to be there and do that, that’s totally fine. I feel like, in a regular, casual dinner setting, it can be kind of disruptive. Yeah. So, I usually just try to get my couple of pictures, and that’s it. Closing Carter, congratulations on the book. If anyone wants to order one of the few remaining copies, because it’s almost sold out, or follow along with the work that you’re shooting on a day-to-day basis, where can they go? I have them for sale on my website at carterhiyama.com, and they’re also being sold at select stores across the U.S. Support your local independent bookshop. Shout out to Now Serving. I know that they have a few copies left here in L.A. I can’t wait to see you again, share another meal, and take some photos together when we’re in the same city. Definitely. Thanks for havin

    Carter Hiyama

  6. Aug 10

    Adam Weisblatt

    Adam Weissblatt, co-founder of Last Word Hospitality and author of For the Love of Restaurants, joins me to share his Five Rules for Opening a Neighborhood Restaurant. We talk about trusting your gut, treating your landlord like a true business partner, and making sure you can deliver on what you promise. After opening seven restaurants of his own, Adam offers an honest and practical look at what it takes to turn the dream of a restaurant into a place that can become part of its community. What I find most inspiring about Adam is his willingness to openly share knowledge that took him years—and plenty of hard lessons—to earn. For more people to succeed in this industry, we need more people willing to follow his example and let go of the gatekeeping that has kept so much valuable information out of reach. Sharing what you know does not diminish your own accomplishments; it gives someone else a better chance to build something meaningful of their own Introduction Hello and welcome to Five Rules for the Good Life. I’m your host, Darin Bresnitz. Today, I’m chatting with Adam Weissblatt, the co-founder of Last Word Hospitality and the author of For the Love of Restaurants, An Insider’s Guide from Daydreams to Opening Night, which comes out tomorrow on August 11th. He’s here to share his five rules for opening a neighborhood restaurant. He talks about the importance of trusting your gut, how by building the right team sets you up for the right success, and that by being honest with yourself and those you’re working with allows for a long existence in any community. It’s a great conversation for anyone who’s ever dreamed of opening up their own space from someone who has walked the walk and opened up seven of his own spaces. The Neighborhood Restaurant So let’s get into the rules here on HRN. Adam, always great to see your smiling face. Thank you for taking a break from your restaurants and hospitality group and congrats on the book, The Love of Restaurants, which comes out tomorrow. Yes, sir. Tomorrow. It used to be that a neighborhood restaurant was a bit of a backhanded compliment. Rise of the Neighborhood Restaurant How has that perception and term shifted over the last few years? As the economy struggles, people are looking for familiarity and they’re looking for comfort. A restaurant is the ultimate form of being able to go out, have a big night out, but then maybe not spend as much, including just on the simple realities of getting to and from. What it costs to get in an Uber or gas or everything like that. It all factors into how people make decisions about where they’re going to eat. Now, maybe more than ever, people are looking for that neighborhood comforting place and want a place they can call their own. That’s really good. The Search Your group, Last Word Hospitality, has specialized in neighborhood restaurants and has seven different spots in your portfolio. What is the through line that ties them all together and makes them a part of their individual communities? We’re always just looking for beautiful spaces that represent a cool aesthetic of that neighborhood. When you take an old building that’s been there since the 20s or 30s and it’s been uncared for and you put love into it, that already starts to show people that you really genuinely have pride in what you’re doing and that matters. For us, we partner with people on each one of these projects. I love that. Every time you walk into the restaurant and you ask, who is the owner, the chef and the GM are going to be part of that team of owners. You’re going to have that constant connection through the people in the space to ownership. I think that really matters and draws a connection between community. Being able to be a authentic and literal part of the community from the space to the people in it has been something that’s defined your career and approach to building these different spaces. For the Love of Restaurants The book, The Love of Restaurants, I remember you telling me about it four or five years ago at a one-on-one event. Why was now the right moment to share it with the world? Three years ago, when I really started to take it seriously, I lost two of my best friends in the same year. One to cancer, one to unnatural causes, unfortunately. So sorry. Thank you. It motivated me to do something really difficult and to do it in their honor. I did always feel like there was a gap in the book market of just a book that you could pick up if you were waiting tables or cooking or managing or being a chef and find a path that shows you what it means to become an owner of a restaurant. You’re going to touch in real estate and you’re going to touch in permitting and you’re going to touch the city and all these things that you won’t necessarily learn in your day-to-day managing a restaurant even as a general manager. That’s the information I wanted to really share and I wanted to do it in a way that restaurant people could read and find enjoyable. Rule One: Trust Your Gut I’m so happy that the era of gatekeeping is done and I’m seeing it more and more across different creative industries, which is why I’m so excited for you to share your five rules for opening a neighborhood restaurant. Anyone’s ever walked into a hot restaurant on a Friday night, you immediately feel the energy the second you walk through the door. What’s harder than that is walking into that same space months, if not years, before a big night can happen, but it ties directly into your rule number one. Rule number one is you do have to have this feeling in your gut. There has to be a natural attraction to what it is you’re going to do. Considering you’re committing years of your life to this, and I always think work in years and live in the present, try to enjoy every moment, but know that if you’re going to do big things, it’s going to take amounts of time and so be patient with yourself. The first feeling is do you truly love it? When you look at that space, do you envision a restaurant there and can you play in your mind how people are going to interact with it? You need to be able to fully visualize whatever restaurant in your head is there in that physical space and how people will truly react to it and be as honest with yourself as one can be when talking about your own emotions. That honesty and having that trust with your own emotions is key because at some point you are the one who knows what you’re really going to like, but to build any business in anything, especially a restaurant, you do need to have good partnerships and having a good relationship with this person is your rule number two. Landlord is your first business partner in these deals a lot of the time. Rule Two: Your Landlord Is Your First Business Partner Big time. In order to raise money, Holly, my partner since 2014, we had to put in money at least to get the lease assigned. Then we could prove to people that we were serious and that we could then go out and raise capital against it. First person to convince that you’re serious is a landlord. In our experience, you really want to like that person as much as you can. That is a real relationship that will be ongoing. It will be a very serious relationship. If you’re going through things like the fires or COVID or all the stuff we’ve done for years, that’s the person you’re going to be turning to and working with, but no guests can show up. The only person you can really try to figure shit out with is your landlord. Rule Three: Choose the Right Partners You being on the front lines with your landlord and being able to take on the outwardly problems for your team is really important, but to run the restaurant day to day, you got to look inside the four walls and put together these types of people, which are rule number three. Partners, I don’t think I would ever do a restaurant without knowing that there was going to be a number of extra people there to partner with me and to help carry that person. People say it’s like a marathon, but marathons have a start and finish and restaurants don’t end, especially if you’re doing well. I won’t even consider a project unless we can really visualize who those people are going to be. It’s at least a chef and at least a general manager and not only them running that place and being part of that community, but also working with each other. A lot of our partners who’ve now developed into great friends didn’t necessarily know each other before. Some of the magic of what I think we’ve been able to do over the years is find like-minded people who often have really different backgrounds, but you just think will be great together. And if it turns out to be true, Mike and Melissa from Barra Santos didn’t know each other. That’s crazy. Their friendship is so real and genuine. It’s the reason why that restaurant feels the way it does. You make friends fast when you’re working in the trenches to say. When you’re cramming in 10, 12, 14 hour days, those friendships and those relationships really develop. Even when you have great relationships, even if you have a good landlord, even if you have a space you love, you still need runway. And without this resource, that’s not going to happen. Rule Four: You Need Enough Money What’s your rule number four? You need enough money. The M word. Restaurants are very expensive. Every locale is different. And so I was very careful in the book to never name dollar amounts. Doing a restaurant in all different municipalities across the country is going to cost very different amounts. But that doesn’t mean that that amount isn’t a lot of money in each one of those municipalities. I don’t think they’re ever really affordable. It’s going to be expensive to whomever’s doing it in whatever community they’re doing it from. There is a reality to this where some restaurants don

    Adam Weisblatt

  7. Aug 3

    Mackenzie Hoffman

    Mackenzie Hoffman, co-owner and operator of Stir Crazy, joins me to share her Five Rules for Creating a Restaurant that Feels Timeless. We talk about welcoming solo diners, staying earnest, and maintaining your principles without compromise. She explains why restaurants should avoid chasing trends, remain grounded in their values, and become genuine friends to the people and businesses around them. It is a conversation about creating a sense of place—one that feels deeply connected to its neighborhood while offering guests an escape from the world outside. Together, her rules offer a thoughtful blueprint for building a restaurant that does more than serve great food—it creates a feeling people want to return to again and again. After nearly twenty-five years of covering and working with restaurants, I have seen that the places that last—both by keeping their doors open and finding a permanent place in people’s hearts—are the ones that embrace their communities. They know their neighbors, welcome regulars and first-timers with the same generosity, and become part of the rhythm of local life. A truly timeless restaurant does not impose itself on a neighborhood or chase whatever is popular in the moment. It listens, contributes, and slowly becomes a place people cannot imagine the neighborhood without. Photo by Shelby Moore INTRODUCTION Hello and welcome to Five Rules for the Good Life. I’m your host, Darin Bresnitz. Today, I sit down with Mackenzie Hoffman, co-owner and operator of Stir Crazy and a fixture in the LA food scene. She is here to share her five rules for creating a restaurant that feels timeless. She talks about the importance of tailoring each guest’s experience, especially when it comes to solo diners, the tips and tricks of staying earnest, and how to maintain your principles without compromise. It’s a great conversation for anyone who’s looking to open a place that can embed itself into the community or for anyone who’s been open for a few years and is looking to become an even bigger part of the neighborhood. So let’s get into the rules here on HRN. BACKGROUND Mackenzie, always a pleasure to see you. Thank you for taking the time out of your busy day at Stir Crazy to sit down for the show. Incredibly honored to be here, Darin. Thank you so much for having me. My absolute pleasure. You literally went to school for food studies and nutrition, something that is rare in the restaurant world. What unique perspective do you feel it gave you in regards to hospitality? BY THE BOOKS The best way to describe the program was comprehensive. There was a culinary portion to it, there was a microbiology portion to it, food in the arts, food writing, a little business piece, accounting and whatnot. So it really gave me a comprehensive view of food, food systems, restaurants. And then being in New York City was incredible because just the access to being able to study something during the day and then go to my job or go out to eat, grab lunch somewhere. It was awesome. You were in New York at an incredible inflection point in the restaurant scene and you got to work with some of the great names of that time, Four Horsemen, Union Square Hospitality, Major Food Group. What did you learn from working in New York and Brooklyn restaurants that you still practice today? IN NEW YORK I get goosebumps thinking about it because 10, 15 years ago, we were trying to get this craft to catch on. Now, it’s just porn. People can’t get enough of it. Within the past 15 years of seeing restaurants grow and evolve, not just in our industry, but how they affect the world at large. It’s a global industry. The diaspora of all these other ideas and flavors, I feel like we won despite all the adversity, not just happening in localized from city to city and city, but also in the industry at large. I do think that this is a long game and I think that we’re going to win. You’ve been in the industry through incredible adversity like COVID, which affected the restaurant that you moved out to LA for, Onda, but you managed to stay in the game and eventually open up Stir Crazy. How did you take everything that you’d learned and put it into your own place? MAKING IT MY OWN I was fortunate enough to be part of restaurants in multiple different cities and seeing some really, really incredible people, professionals with their own long histories. It was almost like an anthropological view of a lot of different ways to do stuff, not just the how to do it and the what to do, but also why it was being done. I really got to see all the options in front of me and then take a look at my internal world and what my values were to shape that into a very personal perspective. RULE ONE: WELCOME SOLO GUESTS I love how you’ve taken your experiences, your studies, what you’ve learned from other people and put it into this unique restaurant, especially for LA, which is why I’m so excited for you to be sharing your five rules for creating a restaurant that feels timeless. For all the restaurants that I love, you can easily feel that hospitality is at the center of what they do. It’s not just about the big groups that come there for the special moments like birthdays and anniversaries. It’s for the people who just want to be out in the world, have a dinner, enjoy themselves, and this makes up your rule number one. My rule number one is welcome solo guests. Yes. To me, it’s a no-brainer and it also speaks about how creating a restaurant that feels timeless honors your neighborhood too. I always try to find ways to welcome and treasure guest experiences that are varied. Looking for those solo guests, such a great flag when they bring a book and feel comfortable to just linger and read. Number one. Yeah. The varied turn times also include bookending other experiences, dropping in for a pre-dinner bottle of wine before you have omakase or even finishing your night with us with a nightcap or even dessert after you went somewhere else. Not every experience that we offer is replicatable. Everyone is unique. The fact that guests can feel comfortable walking in is incredible. We have a 33% return guest rate. That’s amazing. Which in LA is mind-boggling. Month after month after month, I’m like, did I refresh the page? The number is the same. RULE TWO: STAY EARNEST When you are that welcoming to guests, when people keep returning, a lot of it radiates from staying sincere, having this open arms policy, and really catering to what people want, which now that you’ve been over three years is not the easiest thing to do. But your rule number two talks about the importance of this in creating a restaurant that feels timeless. Number two, stay earnest. So hard. There’s a couple of different tongs in my fork of earnesty. Sure. It’s a good reminder that to both your guests and yourself and your staff that food, wine, service, hospitality, they’re crafts. You’re allowed to be a nerd. You’re allowed to make this your career. You’re allowed to invest in yourself. That pride and that joy and that confidence is going to be contagious. And then ultimately, if you continue that with the way that you teach and the way that you serve and the way that you host and have gratitude while doing it, it’s a really, really great feedback loop. That is the importance of earnesty. RULE THREE: AVOID TRENDS. KEEP THINGS ANALOG. Being earnest from the start and knowing who you are allows you to put your best foot forward when And when Stir Crazy opened, I can say it. It was one of the most talked about and hottest restaurants for all of the right reasons. By not chasing this, it has allowed you to stay consistently well-respected and busy as your doors have been opened. What’s your rule number three? Rule number three is avoid trends. Keep things analog. This is my rule for the non-capitalist capitalist in me. You have to have a North Star. The big word here is intention. Yes, we were hot and cool and vibey when we opened, but I would say that the way that I approach growth, it’s a slow burn. It’s like embers in the fire. It’s really making sure that you’re stoking your heat and making sure that you’re giving yourself grace to fail sometimes and make wrong decisions and then always learn from them. Restaurants should always be a feeling. They should not be any bigger than one person inside them. You’re always going to harness something timeless if you’re reaching towards a feeling. Then the keeping things analog, this is just to not so much think forward in time, but also backwards in time. At Stir Crazy, we don’t have a lot of screens. We don’t have a phone. We don’t have a website. It’s almost as if time collapses on itself. Yes, we’ve been around for three years, but I hope that someone can enter our doors like a threshold to a portal and be transported. The transportative nature of Stir Crazy is what I find to feel timeless as well. RULE FOUR: BEFRIEND YOUR NEIGHBORS This ability to feel timeless, welcoming the community really is a key to keeping your doors open. By ingratiating yourself to these people, it’ll allow you to do so for years to come. What’s your rule number four? Rule number four, befriend your neighbors. So important. Restaurants need to understand that they have a sense of place. We have terroir. We don’t have to impose ourselves on the neighborhood and scream louder. We can just be more intentional in the things that we say and the things that we do. Don’t operate on an island. Get to know the people on either sides of you, your businesses. They probably have something to teach you, whether it be something about that crack in the sidewalk, something about that crosswalk. A timeless restaurant is not an imposition on the neighborhood. It is a seamless character that befriends a whole cast of people. RULE FIVE: MAINTAIN YOUR PRINCIPLES WITHOUT COMPROMISE Being able to truly

    Mackenzie Hoffman

  8. Jul 27

    Greg Baxtrom

    Greg's Five Rules for Getting Your Life Back on Track Greg Baxtrom is the chef and owner of 5 Acres in Rockefeller Center and the author of Nothing Matters but Delicious: A Radically Honest Cookbook about food, alcoholism, recovery, and rebuilding a life. In this deeply personal conversation, Greg shares his Five Rules for Getting Your Life Back on Track. Together, we talk about the long road to sobriety, the daily work of becoming reliable again, and how cooking helped him begin accumulating the days that eventually became a new life. These conversations are important because no one should have to struggle alone. Hearing Greg speak so openly about his lowest moments, the people who helped him, and the work he continues to do offers more than hope—it reveals a path forward. Recovery does not happen all at once, and it does not always move in a straight line. Sometimes it begins with telling the truth, asking for help, or simply doing the one thing you said you would do that day. Wherever you are in that process, be patient and kind to yourself. You are not alone, and change is possible. Introduction Hello and welcome to Five Rules for the Good Life. I’m your host, Darin Bresnitz. Today, I’m chatting with Greg Baxtrom, the chef and owner at Five Acres in Rockefeller Center, and the author of Nothing Matters but Delicious, a radically honest cookbook, out now on 10 Speed Press. He’s here to share his five rules for getting your life back on track. He talks about the importance of telling the truth, the necessity of building a routine you can actually keep, and that by being patient and kind to yourself is the key to real change. This conversation, along with his cookbook, are deep explorations of Greg’s struggle with alcoholism, his journey through recovery, and how he’s put his life back together. It is a great conversation for anyone who is going through similar struggles or for anyone looking for a insight to understand those who are. So let’s get into the rules here on HRN. Greg, so good to see you. Opening Congratulations on the book and Five Acres. Thanks for making time for the show. Yeah, thanks for having me. I appreciate it. I love the book and it starts off with a very powerful introduction where you talk about living your life in two unequal parts. How much has the concept of balance played a part in your life? I mean, there was none until recently. Sure. Even now, I’m not that great at it. I mean, I’m pretty great at being sober. I don’t have near misses and stuff, but I’m probably on day 55 straight of no days off. Right. Still a work in progress. I take things like going to bed at a specific time. I try to be in bed by 10 o’clock every day. It’s pretty good. I try to wake up and have a coffee. I still have some non-negotiables, but there are ones that get tossed out the window still. I’ll go through a phase of like, now I’m vegan and I’m starting off with a five-day fast and I’m signing up for my trainer. Yeah. So that lasts like four days. And right now I haven’t really been going to the gym because I’ve been coming here every day to just kind of make this new thing land well and represent what we try to do. Yeah. You know, I prioritize my family more. I also just go to Chicago more. I wouldn’t even consider going for a holiday in the past. And now I try to go home for birthdays. I prioritize that a little bit more. A cookbook like yours, nothing matters but delicious, usually comes out as a celebratory, usually four or five-year mark of a restaurant, which was Olmstead. You closed the restaurant last year. The book just came out and a lot of what delayed the book was life happening around it. How do you feel about its release now? It was hard for me to even write the book in the first place. I eventually became acquainted and friendly with Joshua David Stein. And I had other avenues to go down. There were big publishers that wanted a great big Olmstead book. They would make it as beautiful as I wanted and as cheffy as I wanted. Yeah. I was basically told it wouldn’t sell but it would look pretty. Sure. As vain and egotistical as I am to have a nice pretty book, I really didn’t want to do something that from the get-go wouldn’t be even attempt to be successful. I’m dyslexic and I have ADHD. It took Josh to literally lay on my couch while I just talked and cooked and would just type as I was doing stuff. Yeah. I wanted it to be accessible. Yes, there’s some Olmstead stuff in there. A lot of the recipes are when I went to rehab the second time because the first time it didn’t really take. There was no getting another shot. I woke up at eight. I walked my dog, got my juice. Right. I made my coffee and I went to the farmer’s market as often as I could to make just enough food for myself that night. I was just accumulating days. So a lot of the recipes in the book are just what I cooked to get to 90 days. Many people would not open a cookbook so honestly with tales of their own addictions and their lows battling alcoholism, let alone shape the recipes and stories within these pages. Why did you want this to be a fundamental of the book which you call a radically honest cookbook? I don’t want bipolar sober chef on my tombstone. I don’t want to be remembered for that. I dedicated 20-25 years to doing this thing. I still love it, but I unraveled. I wanted to be on solid ground again through instructions from my doctors, psychiatrists and psychologists. I had been documenting my time in rehab the first time and then the second time. I have a first-hand 20-30 page document of basically what it was like getting sober that I’ve never really done anything with and I just took a chunk of it out and I decided to put that into the book. I wanted to move on. I’m not afraid of doing the work of getting sober, becoming reliable again. I’m all for that. I just want to set the tone again. Hopefully, I can get back to, okay, Greg’s back to being reliable and talented. The fact that you are willing to put in the work, the fact that you have the opportunity to do so, the fact that you’ve been so honest about it makes me so excited for you to share your five rules for getting your life back on track. Rule One: Tell the Truth In the introduction, you lean into what it was like to go home into Chicago, to having to start lying about what you were doing with your life and how you’re spending your time. Yeah. Your first rule talks about the importance of moving in the other direction. What’s your rule number one? You gotta just tell the truth. At that point, I knew I was a mess and I knew I was a drunk and I was miserable and lonely and sad and suicidal, but no one really knew that. People just saw that I was drinking more. Yeah. I would hide in the employee bathroom and drink. I felt like I was still involved in there and around the people that I liked and admired and so when I went to Chicago, I think my parents just sort of and my family assumed I was stressed and drinking. Eventually, I got a DUI and my father came and picked me up. I jumped out of the moving car. Wow. I’m named after my dad’s brother who got hit by a drunk driver. Yeah. I was so uncomfortable and miserable. Sure. The next day, my sister finds me and she’s like, look, I don’t think this is just run-of-the-mill hereditary alcoholism. I think there’s something else there. I think you should go to the hospital, not just straight to rehab again. That was the first time that I felt hope. I was miserable. I didn’t want to be this way. I knew there was a problem from the get-go and I didn’t want it. That doctor and a team of people were like, you’re on all the wrong medication. Basically, we believe you’re bipolar and we need to put you on all new medication. Yeah. From there, once I was on all the new medication, then I was transferred to a different type of rehab. The property was so big, they didn’t even care if you left to go camping for a couple of days because you weren’t going to go anywhere. There was just thousands of acres. I got to be out in nature while accumulating those first couple of days being sober. With that opening up, there was a woman in my life who really took care of me, who happened to be a nurse. Then, there was also my sister who’s a doctor. Without them, for sure, I would not be here right now. Rule Two: Accept That You Don’t Have All the Answers Going through all of that, having to look inwards sometimes can be a very hard awakening, but it does lead you to accept that you don’t have this, which is your rule number two. My rule number two is to accept that you don’t have all the answers. I am a reliable person when I’m not a drunk. My intentions are good. In the very beginning, you’re like, you just need to be 30 days sober, and then you’ll be able to recalibrate and go back to a beer a day. Eventually, you break down. You go, okay, it’s three months, and then it’s six months, and then it’s a year. It’s a long time before you go, okay, fine. I get it. I won’t be able to drink again. I went to Smart Recovery, Wellbriety, NA, AA. I just wanted to be fixed, and I was willing to do it. Rule Three: Get Professional Help The more you can be honest and open up, some people, how they’re communicating to you is going to click. Once you’ve accepted that you don’t have all the answers and you start listening to other people in your life and build a support system, that’s really important on a personal level. At the end of the day, your rule number three talks about looking to these other types of people for guidance. What’s your third rule? Getting professional help. The people in my life tried their best. Everybody was for me going to AA meetings, for me getting a psychiatrist, but the sadness in me was not going away, though. I didn’t want to exist anymore. It required consistent medical observation. Even whe

    Greg Baxtrom
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Five rules for the good life and other tips for living well as told by those who made it their business to do so. fiverules.substack.com

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