Five Rules for the Good Life Podcast

Darin Bresnitz
  • 5.0 (1)
  • 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. Al Doyle

    23H AGO

    Al Doyle

    On this episode of Five Rules for the Good Life, Darin Bresnitz sits down with Al Doyle, one of the musicians behind the sounds of Hot Chip & LCD Soundsystem, and the co-founder / co-designer of Relax and Enjoy Studio in Shoreditch, London. Al shares his Five Rules for Making Music You Like. The conversation moves from childhood piano experiments to the very different recording philosophies behind his two bands, and the thinking that goes into producing music that lasts. Along the way, he talks about the discipline of listening, the power of simplicity, and the confidence it takes to trust your own instincts in the studio. What makes Al’s rules interesting is that they apply to so much more than making music. They are about creating anything. Writing, painting, cooking, filmmaking, building a business, hosting a dinner. The mechanics are different, but the mindset is the same. Start with something you actually like. Keep the structure simple enough so the idea can breathe. Spend more time paying attention than constantly tinkering. Learn enough about your craft that you can rely on yourself when things get complicated. And when the crowd pushes you toward something safe or expected, sometimes the best move is to lean the other direction and see what happens. Creativity is rarely about doing more. Most of the time it is about knowing when to stop and trust the thing you already made. Five Rules for the Good Life is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Transcript Introduction Hello and welcome to Five Rules for the Good Life. I’m your host, Darin Bresnitz. It is always a pleasure when I get to sit down with today’s guest, Al Doyle, who is a member of both Hot Chip and LCD Sound System and a designer and owner of Relax and Enjoy Studio in Shoreditch, London. He’s here today to share his five rules for making music you like. He talks about the importance of listening and not changing too much, the fundamentals of being both ambitious and self-sufficient, and that sometimes doing nothing is the best way to make something happen. He shares some amazing insider stories about making music, the different approach to recording from his two bands, and we share a few laughs about what really goes into making music that you like. So let’s get into the rules. Getting Started Al, it is always a pleasure when we have the chance to make time and chat with each other. Thanks for coming to me live from the studio. You’re very, very welcome. Yeah, I’m sitting in front of my upright piano. Really bringing class to the show. It’s all I can do to not start playing some jazzy chords in front of you, so you have to appreciate my restraint. I also appreciate that you’ve been making music almost your entire life. Do you remember the moment when you first made something that you actually liked? Yeah, I was playing piano from when I was four or five years old, and I definitely remember hammering out some stuff on the piano that I enjoyed going back to, really raucous, hammering, childlike piano music. I love it. In terms of actual songs that I can remember... I fall out of love with things that I’ve made very, very quickly, I think. When you’re actually making something, the moment of creation is so emphatically all-encompassing and scintillating, and then leave it 20 minutes like, oh my god, now I’ve got to do some actual work to put this together. It just sucks all the joy out of it again. It’s something that I’m battling with every day. You’ve been lucky enough to also record and create music and go through that process all over the world. Is there something you’re looking for in a space or an environment to be creative? Or is it different vibe for different project? Making my own studio was an answer to that very question. There was lots of places that I’ve been to that were very close to what my ideal recording space would be. Obviously, DFA was a huge thing for me when I first came to New York City. Philippe Zadar’s studio in Paris, which is called Motorbass, was a very, very inspiring space. There’s another amazing studio that belongs to the keyboard player in Jamiroquai called Angelic, which is a country retreat studio on a farm. Those kind of places have been on my mind. Being able to see all these different studios and knowing what worked and didn’t work, I have to imagine fed into what went into building Relax and Enjoy, which is the studio that you built with James. Why was it so important for you to create a space for other musicians to make music? There is an indulgent thing that we do in Hot Chip and in LCD, which is basically write music in a studio. A lot of bands, they will have to do some kind of writing elsewhere in their bedrooms or like the way that Hot Chip used to do. The space can be very inspiring for making music if you have the time to allow the instruments to show you where to go. We’ll just go to a synthesizer that we’ve just bought or we’re in another studio that has something that we’ve never seen before and just by the act of trying out that instrument learning how it works you will inevitably write a song through that process because it’s just this voyage of discovery with the instrument brings up stuff that you end up recording and can be the kind of seed of an idea. When people come in to this place that’s one of the things that we want for them especially younger kids that maybe only have ever seen some of this stuff as plugins and software versions or whatever they’re like oh my god you’ve got a real csa team it’s like oh yeah here it is i I love that. So immediately they get their hands on it and start using it in a way that we would never have imagined. And that’s actually inspiring to us. And then the whole thing feeds into itself. Everything’s turned on. Everything’s able to be recorded at any time. It’s supposed to be a little playground. Creating that playground, having all the toys and tools and the actual approach of making music that you enjoy and have a good track record of making is why I’m so excited for you to share your five rules for making music you like. Rule One: Make What You Like The very first rule... It’s so simple, but people, myself included, always seem to ignore it when they’re getting into the creative process. What’s your rule number one? This rule was something that I actually came up with talking to Nick Millhiser from LCD because he’s also a producer and we were just talking about working with other bands. I can tell that they’re trying to get somewhere to something and there’s a level of frustration and The rule is anyway, make what you like. Try to remember what is it that you’re making that is in any way similar to something that you actually like. People come in here, they always want to add stuff. And I was like, OK, tell me anything that you like that sounds like this. Yeah. And I will happily pursue this way of working because people come in with their influences like I want it to sound like Prince or I want it to sound like a can or whatever. What you’re making sounds nothing like that. Take that little step back. I was working with somebody the other day, the drums started to sound like breakbeat or something like some kind of trip hop thing. I was like, guys, I know that you don’t like this music. Why are we doing that? Why are we here? It’s a question that really stops people and makes them reconsider in a slightly less confrontational way than maybe I’ve just described. Rule Two: Stick to a Vision Part of your guide as a producer and as someone who’s been through the creative process before is showing people how to keep their perspective and not get distracted by trends or things that they might want in the moment, but won’t last in a long time, which makes up a big part of rule number two. Stick to a vision of popular art as a generosity of effects on a simple frame. So that’s a quotation from Clive James. He was actually talking about Louis Armstrong, but that quotation is about Big Spiderbeck, who was very beloved of Louis Armstrong and him talking about his style of playing quite austere style as opposed to slightly more florid playing from louis armstrong. It just really got me thinking about that in terms of music but also in terms of art in general specifically he describes it as being popular art so i’m not really necessarily talking about the deepest kind of art sure this idea that you have And in elaborate frame, like the pop song, this contained little space in which to put your idea across. Yes. And then within that, you get to do all of your special effects. That has really stood with me as a framework for what all of this stuff is. You’re not trying to get too complicated. You’re not trying to change things. this mechanism around your work you’re just trying to give something to someone again that word generosity within there I thought was really important because it’s this idea of no this is something to be enjoyed something where I’m trying to give something to the people that are listening to me I had that as a phrase that was always in the back of my head when I was making things Like verse chorus verse as i’ve heard it sung before. Yeah yeah yeah exactly. Rule Three: Listen, Don’t Change A lot of times when i listen to the art of making music you’ll hear with some of the most famous songs is that it wrote itself in 10 minutes it just came to me in a dream and it was done. Yeah. Being able to pull something from the ether and then sit back and just let it be yeah is a fundamental of your rule number three. Rule three, listen, don’t change. This is something that I learned for sure from James Murphy. Also, I believe that he himself learned from Marcus Lampkin, whose artist’s name is S**t Robot. Basically, hardship. Everybody goes into a room

    12 min
  2. Fermín Núñez

    MAR 2

    Fermín Núñez

    In this episode of Five Rules for the Good Life, I sit down with chef and restaurateur Fermín Núñez to, who shares his Five Rules for a Proper 48 Hour Trip. He talks about traveling with purpose, from taking the earliest flight to packing light to fully disconnecting once you land. We get into why having a clear reason for going, whether it’s a specific restaurant, a soccer game, or a neighborhood you want to understand, changes the entire experience. This is a conversation about using limited time well, finding inspiration through food and place, and returning home sharper than when you left. What resonates most with me is the idea of traveling with intention and having an anchor. I’ve learned that if I don’t build a trip around one meaningful plan, a reservation, a game, or a person I want to see, the time slips away. But if I overfill the schedule, I miss the magic. The balance is having one strong reason to go and leaving the rest open. That structure creates freedom. It allows you to be present, to wander, to notice something unexpected. That’s when a quick trip stops feeling like an escape and starts feeling like a reset. Chef Fermín Núñez of Austin’s Suerte and Este teams up with Jorge Gaviria, the founder of Masienda and bestselling author of MASA, to bring their combined time in professional kitchens and on the streets of Mexico to the page in Vitamina T. They understand that these dishes are not static. They evolve. They travel. They adapt. And here, they show you how to cook them with clarity and confidence at home. Transcript Introduction Hello, and welcome to Five Rules for the Good Life. I’m your host, Darin Bresnitz. It is always a pleasure to see and sit down with today’s guest, chef and restaurateur Fermín Núñez, whose restaurant and bar in Austin are some of my favorite places to hit when I’m in town. He shares his five rules for a proper 48-hour trip. We share the same love of getting up early and getting on the road, the key balance to having an anchor for your trip but not filling up all of your time, and how disconnecting on the road allows you to come back home recharged. It’s a really great conversation for anyone looking for insights about how to travel with intention and how if you have a busy schedule to make getting away matter the most. So let’s get into the rules. Sitting Down in Austin Fermín, always so good to see you. Always a pleasure when we get some time to chat. Thank you for sitting down for the show. Thanks for having me right back at you. Always a pleasure to get to chat a little bit with each other. Whenever I’ve come to Austin, I’ve had such a great time traveling around, hanging out, eating with you, getting to see the city. And there really is this ideal of what it’s like to travel like a chef or be inside the restaurant world because you have all these access to the hidden gems. How much have you found that to be true in your travels? It’s super true because that’s the number one reason why I travel. I travel to places that I want to eat. I’m also very lucky to be in a place where I get to do that. When I get a little bit of brain farts of ideas of what to do next, that is one of my favorite ways to do is get out of my own head, see what other people in other states are doing, and then come back and get right after it. There is that idea of traveling for inspiration. You’ve gone out and you’ve had so many great meals. When do you realize when something’s gone from a really great bite to something that’s inspired you to create something in your own kitchen? Man, I have a few of those. That’s what I really like to mimic at the restaurant. Recreate what I felt, not what I tasted. A lot of the food that you see in the restaurants, one of those dishes most well-known, este is Camarones El Ricas, which are named after a seafood restaurant in Monterrey. which is also a landlocked place, but they also enjoy Maniskas just like we do here in Austin. I enjoyed it so much that I wanted to make my own version of it and not hide behind, oh, this is where I got it from. No, tell people, if you like this one, you’re going to like the ones in Monterey way better. Makes you want to go out there and be like, Like maybe I got to go to Monterey and check this place out, which is also exciting. Making Time to Travel Taking that time, giving yourself permission to go on these trips, you alone have three different businesses that you cook at and oversee. How do you give yourself permission to take time off to go travel? How would you apply that advice to someone who’s feeling they can’t find that space in their life to do the same? The best way to look at those things is realize that you don’t need a lot to do much. I’m very lucky to have a team of people that allow me to take a step back from the restaurants and come back as long as I give them back that energy that they gave me by going away. I love that. I’ve been doing this for a while. I used to also have this mentality. You’re going to have two days off. Most of the time they’re going to be back to back. How do you make the most out of that? I always love traveling. I don’t want to go to Philly and just do what all the touristy things do. I want to go to Philly and feel what is a normal Tuesday they’re like and pretend it’s just my day off in a different city. That’s such a great approach and such a great way to look at traveling in a way that isn’t just hitting the well-known spots, but really going with intention, which is why I’m so excited for you to share your five rules for a proper 48-hour trip. Rule #1: Take the Early Flight As I have talked with people, I have learned that I travel differently than others. What I love about your first rule is that you and I share the same approach to getting up early and getting after it. What’s your rule number one? Take the early flight. Yes. If you only have so many hours, you have to make the most of it. And the thing that’s going to be a little bit pity about that is you waking up a little bit early. I think we have bigger problems in life than that. And you should be very lucky to think that that is the only thing that you’re stressed about. In Mexico, we have a saying, el sol sale para todos. The sun rises for everybody. It’s what you do with that day that makes you different than the rest. If you don’t know how to take a nap on a plane, I’m not saying that’s a personal problem, but get up, get to the airport, skip that coffee, get right in your seat, and go see the world. A lot of times you can look at people’s posts on social media and it seems very effortless. We’re on the road. And I believe that it can be. Sometimes to get that easygoing, free-flowing mentality, when you hit the road, you need to go out with intention. Rule #2: Have a Purpose Rule number two, have a purpose. Everything you see in social media is not real. Agreed. They only show you the parts that are exciting for people to watch. Having a purpose when you’re only going to be there for such a small amount of time, it’s key making it feel like you’re there for a reason rather than feeling a little naughty going for the spur of the moment, which is also fun. I’m very driven by food, so I always have a purpose of, I want to go eat at this restaurant, or I want to check out this place out. But I’ve also started doing a little bit of those trips in regards to, I’m going to go to Vegas for 48 hours, watch a soccer game, and then make the other things work around that. It’s always important to have a purpose of why you’re going there, achieving it, and then the rest will just fall into place. Having that other side of the coin with one side being the anchor and the other side being open is really important to let the unexpected happen and to find something that you may have not known was the purpose of your trip, but ultimately becomes the thing you remember the most. Rule #3: Plan, But Don’t Over Plan Too Much Plan, but don’t over plan too much. Leaving room for a little bit of flexibility is key. Remembering that you’re there for a certain amount of time and not for a week, it’s humbly impossible to do everything you would do in a week into two days. have breakfast and that’s it don’t push it you don’t need to have three different breakfasts if anything that’s a good excuse for you to want to be able to come back to the place that you are just there for 48 hours I think having those limitations knowing that you can’t hit everything is actually freeing in a lot of way. The same goes with being prepared for what you’re going to bring there. There are many times when I’ve gone for a short trip and I am embarrassed by having a full suitcase and a backpack. Paring down can actually free you up. Rule #4: Pack the Day Before, Pack Light Pack the day before, but it’s also important to pack light. I think the only thing you can actually overpack is underwear. How many times do we overpack underwear and feel like we’re going to s**t ourselves three times in the script? And guess what? It actually never happens, but better safe than sorry. Having three different kinds of shoes for the 48 hours because you think you’re going to go to the gym and work out. After you do this a few times, you realize that you’re not going to do It’s always better to have room in your luggage and fill it with things that are exciting that will remind you of the trip than to bring things on a luggage just to carry them around and bring back and be like, oh, I guess I didn’t even need that. Having that room also allows you to bring back specialty ingredients, Mentos, other things that will be a constant tchotchke on your shelf and a touchstone for the time that you went away. Rule #5: Disconnect Your fifth and final rule talks about the importance of when you go away, really be away. Home will be home w

    9 min
  3. Maxine Sharf

    FEB 23

    Maxine Sharf

    Today’s guest is Maxine Scharf, the culinary creator and recipe developer behind Maxi’s Kitchen. She shares her Five Rules for Turning Your Passion Into Your Career, and what goes into making the leap, staying consistent, and creating work people genuinely want to bring into their homes. We talk about the moment her career pivoted, what it actually takes to build momentum online, and how a passion project turns into a real business. We also get into her first cookbook, Maxie’s Kitchen: Easy Go-To Recipes to Make Again and Again, out March 3rd, 2026. There’s a point in every creative life where the idea stops feeling hypothetical and starts feeling like a dare. Betting on yourself sounds romantic until you’re the one doing the betting. It’s uncomfortable, uncertain, sometimes terrifying. But when the passion is real, the bigger risk is often standing still. Belief is the spark, dedication is the structure, consistency is the engine, hard work is the daily proof. That combination doesn’t guarantee success, but it gives you something better, a real shot. Five Rules for the Good Life is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Transcript Five Rules for the Good Life Introduction Hello, and welcome to Five Rules for the Good Life. I’m your host, Darin Bresnitz. Today, I sit down with culinary creator, recipe developer, and the creative force behind Maxie’s Kitchen, Maxine Scharf. She’s here to share her five rules for turning your passion into your career. She talks about the importance of just getting started, how consistency is key, and that the bigger your dream, the better you can get. It’s a great conversation for anyone who’s looking to kickstart their own creative project or grow their followers. She also shares some of the stories and inspiration behind her first cookbook, Maxie’s Kitchen, easy go-to recipes to make again and again, which comes out March 3rd, 2026. So let’s get into the rules. Opening Conversation Meeting Maxine Maxine, it is so nice to meet you. Congratulations on your first book coming out early March, 2026. Thank you so much, Darin. Excited to be here. Thanks so much for having me on. Oh my God. My absolute pleasure. Career Turning Point The Layoff & The Leap Three years ago, back in 2022, you were laid off, something that a lot of people are dealing with now, and started diving into culinary creation full-time. What gave you that confidence to get in the kitchen and then to also share what you were doing? So I had actually been sharing content online for a couple of years when I had gotten laid off. I had built a modest following. I had always said that my goal eventually, like my dream was to be able to focus on maxi’s kitchen full-time but I was always too afraid to take the plunge and like quit my corporate job to do it. Of course when I got laid off obviously I was really upset that day it was like a gut punch crying completely shocked been there. But then the afternoon of that day, I started to get this little internal pull or feeling of, hey, maybe this is my chance to chase my dream and focus on the cooking stuff full time. I told my husband, almost feeling embarrassed when I told him that that was what I was thinking. And he was really supportive. The next day I woke up and I filmed three recipes and basically just started running as fast as I can chasing that dream. I’ve been doing it ever since. From Passion to Profession Realizing It Became a Career From that day after, we’ll call that day one if you’d like. Yeah. Was there a moment when you realized that this passion of yours had become your profession? It started when I was able to focus all of my time on cooking and creating content and sharing videos. My account started to gain momentum pretty quickly and I started seeing videos start to go viral and I felt like I had a lot of momentum that kept me going. About two months into focusing on Maxi’s Kitchen full time, I started having managers reach out. If you’re not familiar with managers in the content creator space, they basically help you pitch you to brands, help with the monetization and some of the high level strategy of your business. Of course. It was a couple months in when I met a manager who I absolutely loved and had just this immediate feeling of, oh, I need to work with this person. And I feel like it was signing with her that made me realize, okay, wow, I think I’m actually doing this full time because now she’s going to help me build a business around the cooking stuff. That’s so amazing to have that turning point work out for you. I don’t want to say relatively quickly because it’s years in the making overnight, as I’ve always found. That’s such a good way to put it. The Cookbook Shaping the First Book What’s so exciting is that you’ve been able to build this organically, you focus it on full time, and now you have your first cookbook coming out in March of 2026, Maxi’s Kitchen, easy go-to recipes to make again and again. With so much content, so many recipes to pull from, how did you whittle it down? What is the story you want to tell with your first book? When thinking about the concept for my first cookbook, right, there’s so many different ways you could go with it or different areas you could focus. Absolutely. When thinking about the people who actually cook my recipes and the people who I’m serving, a lot of my audience, they’re busy, they really just need to get dinner on the table for their family. They’re not professional chefs. The biggest problem is people don’t actually have their go to recipes. Yes. When you have your go-to recipes, and that’s the three to five recipes that you have in your arsenal that your family loves, that you feel really confident making, when you have those down, then cooking starts to become really fun and relaxing and enjoyable because you know what’s in your toolbox. Really, the goal of this book is to help people find the recipes that are gonna be a part of their rotation that they can master and feel really comfortable with, just things to make again and again. The Five Rules Rule Number One — Just Start It’s so incredible that you’ve been able to take it from a hobby into how you run your life, which is why I’m so excited for you to share your five rules for turning your passion into your career. And the first rule in many ways was kickstarted for you with you being laid off from your job, but is really something that people should keep in mind when they want to get rolling in their own project or passion. What’s your first rule? My first rule is just start. It doesn’t need to be perfect. While the being laid off was such a catalyst towards working on Maxi’s Kitchen full time. Yeah. I actually had shared my first video three or four years before that. Incredible. It took me a year to actually muster up the courage to share that first video. Sure. Sure. I used to share on just my personal instagram story clips of my mom and i cooking together and i noticed that a lot of my friends just loved that content and they were always responding to my story and i started having a feeling oh people are interested in this but then for a year i sat on the idea of putting content out there and starting a blog. At first i was thinking oh i want it to be me and my mom i want it to be more youtube style where we’re talking to camera. But the problem was I lived in New York at the time and she was still in California. So that wasn’t happening. There was one low key weekend, wasn’t doing too much. I was just cooking for me and my husband. I was making meatballs in an Italian sauce. And I was like, you know, why don’t I just see if I could film something on my phone and just see if I could put a video together. If you look back at the beginning of the road for me, the video that I put out was, I don’t want to say horrible compared to the way they look now, but it was just very raw. Totally fine though. Yeah, it wasn’t perfect at all. I didn’t have any tripods. I was just holding the phone with my hand. But you have to start somewhere in order to get better. Rule Number Two — Consistency is Key Once you get started, your second rule, it’s the piece of advice that I give to everyone who asks about starting a podcast or doing something creatively and putting it out into the world. To me, it’s my number one rule, but I can understand that getting started has to happen for this one to click into place. What is your rule number two? My rule number two is consistency is key. Yes. Yes. This applies to so many things in life in general to be successful, especially when looking at building a career in social media. As a content creator, consistency is important. I once saw Adam Mosseri, who is the head of Instagram. He said, the right number of posts is whatever you can stay consistent with. Agree. So if that’s one post a month, do one post a month. If that’s two per week, do two per week. He was basically saying it’s better to pick something that you can be consistent with versus posting five times in one week and then going silent for the rest of the month. That always really stuck with me. And I do think finding a manageable cadence that you can stick to is really important. Finding that cadence also gives a certain amount of reliability with the community that you’re engaging with because they know when to expect it, they know what to expect, it becomes part of their routine. For sure. Rule Number Three — Engage With Your Community This allows you to enact your rule number three. The rule number three is engage with your community and connect with others in your field. I would comment and like and just really engage with cooking creators or food accounts. I would actually even reach out to aggregator accounts that would post other people’s r

    12 min
  4. Matt Rodbard

    FEB 16

    Matt Rodbard

    In this episode of Five Rules for the Good Life, I sit down with Matt Rodbard, Editor-In-Chief of Taste, the co-host of This Is Taste podcast, and his sub-stack, Food Time with Matt Rodbard, which is required reading if you care about what’s actually happening in food right now. Matt shares his Five Rules for a Food Writer’s Diet, from dialing in your relationship with alcohol, to balancing dining out with cooking at home, to traveling like a journalist, to permitting yourself to call simple meals “cooking.” We also get into coffee as a daily practice, the kind of ritual that sets the tone before the day starts moving too fast. I love sitting down with Matt because the conversation always lands in that sweet spot between fun, useful, and insider whisperings. We can yap, we can talk scene, we can talk craft, and somehow it always ends with something I always think back on after we part. When food is both your profession and your personal driver, the line between work and pleasure gets blurry fast. Matt is great at naming the difference between mindless consumption and intentional living. Eating and drinking with intention is not about restriction, it’s about clarity. It’s about supporting restaurants, taking care of your body, staying present in the room, and building routines that make the whole ecosystem, your work, your relationships, your energy, actually sustainable. Five Rules for the Good Life is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Intro Hello, and welcome to Five Rules for the Good Life. I’m your host, Darin Bresnitz. Today, I sit down with one of my favorite people to talk about the culinary community with, Matt Rodbard, who is the Editor-In-Chief of Taste, the co-host of This Is Taste podcast, and his sub-stack, Food Time with Matt Rodbard, is must-reading for anyone who wants insider insights for the food scene. He shares his five rules for a food writer’s diet. and talks about the importance of dining out versus cooking at home, that when traveling, how to get the most out of your adventures, and that by having a preferred coffee practice in the morning is the best way to ensure a fantastic day. I love any time that I get to sit down with Matt. It’s always filled with a fun conversation, a professional take on cooking, and some great takeaway tips for anyone who’s looking to get the most out of life when it comes to food. So let’s get into the rules. Catching Up Matt, it is always a pleasure to see you. I knew that we were going to get a late start because we were just yapping away before we even hit record. Welcome to the show. It’s always good to chat with you. I know we were definitely talking about... Oh, no, we’re going to cut that out. But yes, we were having a very polite conversation about the scene out here. I’ve known you for decades now. We ran in similar food circles in New York, and we’ve gotten to spend some time together in LA. You’ve been working in the food media industry for 20 years. Do you remember your salad days and those first few meals of eating out? One of my first food stories was in 2005. I was working at a men’s magazine and I was working with consumer electronics and gadgets. And I took this egg McMuffin maker. Oh yeah. I took it to a restaurant called Chanterelle in Tribeca. Legendary place. Legendary. Run by David Waltock was the chef. I took the egg McMuffin maker there and had him test it out, which is cool. He had some funny thoughts. We wrote a little funny thing. And that was like my first real food media piece, which was 22 years ago. Memorable Meals I’m sure with such a long and illustrious career and you’ve traveled the world for not just taste, but for also your writings, your book, Korea World. Do you remember one meal that stands out that only would have happened because of your experience in this line of work? From Korea world, Dookie Hong and I wrote that book together. And we were in Korea for that book specifically three times. We were outside Gwangju. We had this meal. I’ll tell you a couple of things about it. First, it was like a beck bong, 30 or 40 dishes laid out communal. I don’t drink alcohol. During the shoot, I was the only one not drinking. Yeah. My man, Dookie, had a few drinks. Everyone else got super f*****g s**t-based. Wow. It’s very traditional. We’re sitting on the floor. It was just pure joy to see everyone kind of tipsy. We were hosted by a wonderful Beck Soju maker, and she just started pouring these drinks and kept pouring and pouring and pouring. I just really loved that. The food, of course, was incredible. It was mostly local produce and a lot of like small fermentation dishes. Those are the kind of situations where I only could have gotten into that room with the work I do. It’s so amazing. And I think that’s the addictive part to this line of work is getting access to those rooms and to having all these incredible meals. The other side of that same coin is that at some point your body gets older and you get older. When did you realize that you maybe needed more of a balanced approach eating out for work and being on the road? Did it start with a conversation with my doctor? Like a hard conversation at the age of 30, which is 15 years ago. Perhaps. Perhaps that was it. What really started me on the journey of sorts towards thinking a little better about what I was eating was when I stopped drinking in 2015. I just felt like at the time I was just drinking too much. It was affecting my work. It was affecting my personal relationships. And it wasn’t a falling down drunk moment. People around me were dying. Josh Ozersky was a friend of mine. He died. I literally saw him the night he died at the James Beard Awards. It was the night before. And he looked really great. His spirits were super high. Also, I didn’t like the way the interactions that I was having with people in the industry at parties or at events when I’d had a couple cocktails. And remember, this is a decade ago. We’re like, let’s have a corpse reviver and then have a green point and then maybe have a fourth or fifth classic cocktail because everyone was so down with the classic cocktail revival at the time. And I wrote a lot about alcohol. I felt, of course, hungover the next morning. I felt, did I have meaningful conversations with these people? Or was it just a matter of me being drunk and trying to be funny? And to me, it had taken a toll. Either someone’s going to tell you that your cholesterol is higher than a normal individual, or you’re going to wake up a morning saying, I don’t like the way that I feel. That really makes you think about how you want to approach, in many ways, what is a professional world when you go out to eat and drink, which is why I’m so excited for you to be sharing your five rules for a food writer’s diet. Rule 1: Don’t Drink Much in Your 30s and Chill in Your 40s Now, I know you just touched on this. Everyone is going to come to some reckoning with themselves when it comes to drinking alcohol. Your first rule gives a little bit more of a nuanced approach if you don’t want to stop cold turkey. What’s your rule number one? Rule number one is don’t drink much in your 30s and chill in your 40s. The language is intentionally vague. I’m not trying to be prescriptive here. I’m not saying don’t drink in your 40s. I’m saying basically in your 30s, you’ve got to really watch your consumption. Be aware of what alcohol does to you. You know, learn in your 30s, earn in your 40s. That’s a long time saying. So I think in the 30s, you should be really absorbing what’s around you. You should be finding mentorship, all that. Alcohol can really stop you in your tracks. As you enter your 40s, I’m just saying just chill. Just be chill with your relationship with alcohol. Many people maybe don’t drink at all or drink one day a week. And I think in your 40s, you’re going to actually see a lot, a lot, a lot of results as you really curtail your drinking. You’re setting yourself up for the rest of your life. You want to be healthy. You want to be in a good spot. And your 40s sets that up. Rule 2: Dine Out More, Cook the Most A lot of the times that approach to drinking can be affected of where you are dining, whether it’s at home or whether you’re out and about where you feel comfortable or where you’re in control. And your approach to your rule number two can help you find that balance, not just in drinking, but eating and saving money as well. 100%. Rule number two, dine out more, cook the most. Preach it. Two things are here and they’re in direct opposition, kind of a puzzle, right? Here’s what I’m saying. You should dine out and support restaurants. You should learn about food. 100%. You should go out as much as humanly possible for your budget, be it one day a week, two day a week, three days a week, or more. It’s important. And really, food writer’s diet is a larger ethic I live by. And it doesn’t just have to do with what I’m actually consuming. It’s about the diet being how you consume food in your life. Everything about food. Yeah. Media is part of your diet. Recipes, health and wellness. That’s all part of the diet related to food. Through the years of being a food writer, I’ve definitely figured out that if I go out to restaurants more, I’m just going to absorb all these things better. But cook the most. If you’re eating out and you’re dining on your budget, balance that with cooking meals for yourself. We could talk all day about what cooking means. And it certainly doesn’t mean following a recipe from a cookbook and spending $100 and spending half the day no it could be literally opening three packages and putting them together pre-made rice pre-made sauce doll and some protein that is pre-cooked and you’re just heating it all up t

    14 min
  5. David Utterback

    FEB 9

    David Utterback

    In this episode of Five Rules for the Good Life, I dial up Omaha to chat with sushi chef, David Utterback, to talk about what it means to build a craft without a traditional roadmap. David shares his Five Rules for Being an Apprentice Without a Master, tracing a path shaped by the Saddle Creek music scene, a life-changing trip to Japan, and the decision to develop a personal philosophy instead of chasing someone else’s version of mastery. It’s a conversation about focus, humility, and the long game, told through sushi counters, punk shows, and the discipline of starting over when you think you’ve figured it out. This one hits close to home for me because the overlap between music and food has always been where I feel most grounded. Snacky Tunes came out of that same punk, DIY instinct, make the thing yourself, build the community around it, learn by doing, and don’t wait for permission. That ethos has shaped how I eat, how I host, how I create, and how I move through the world. Punk isn’t just a sound or a look, it’s a way of paying attention, of choosing intention over polish and substance over shortcuts. Applied to cooking, music, or life, it’s about showing up honestly, trusting your taste, and building something that feels true because you made it your own. Five Rules for the Good Life is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Intro Hello, and welcome to Five Rules for the Good Life. I’m your host, Darin Bresnitz. Today, I’m in Omaha, hanging out with sushi chef David Utterback, who’s here to share his five rules to being an apprentice without a master. He talks about how the Saddle Creek music scene shaped his outlook on life, how a fateful trip to Japan changed the course of his cooking career, and how by starting over with a personal philosophy is the best way to move forward in life. It’s a deeply insightful conversation from someone who helped put sushi on the map in the Midwest. So let’s get into the rules. Meeting David in Omaha David, it’s so nice to meet you. Thank you for making the time to sit down and chat. Hopefully you’re keeping warm in Omaha. Yeah, I’m trying to. It’s pretty cold here right now. I first heard of Omaha as the legendary punk indie scene with Saddle Creek Records, and I knew that was a big part of your coming up. What drew you into that music scene as a young guy? Girls. Yeah. You know, yeah, when you’re in high school, you’re just trying to do whatever you can to look cool, I guess. Joining a band was the thing to do. Punk music, we didn’t really know how to play instruments very well. And so it’s a really great place to start because you can build all of those songs with just a couple of power chords. At the time, the music scene here is just incredible. One of the capitals of independent music at the time. So it was a really great time to get into music. From Punk to Sushi That punk aesthetic really influenced your whole life and your approach to cooking in the way that you wanted to make the food you want to make, especially prevalent in a fateful trip to Japan in 2008. How did this approach to life eventually affect your culinary career? Before then, I had no interest in being a lifer in the restaurant industry. Most people who, especially at the time, get into the restaurant industry, you’re a pirate. I was living in a house with all my bandmates and their girlfriends. There’s 10 of us living in this house. Incredible. Didn’t have any money. So got a job at a sushi restaurant. Didn’t have plans to do anything more, but this fateful trip that I had taken to Japan by chance ended up at this famous sushi counter. Kind of put everything into focus. Before then, I had never worked at a restaurant where anybody was a professional. These guys, they sort of blew me away. That trip, it’s where I decided to focus. Instead of trying to do everything, I focused on one thing and that changed it all. It changed it all for the better and it put you on this fateful track to open up sushi and omakase restaurants in Omaha. Yeah. Which is a very punk thing to do because not the first place you would think. And I’m sure there are people who are dismissive saying you’re going to open what type of restaurant where. Yeah. How did that trip and how did your belief in punk music and that DIY approach give you the confidence to do it? Especially coming up at the time in the music scene, it was the perfect time to be a musician. You’re recording your first album on tape. You’re recording your second album on Pro Tools, right? You’re doing everything by yourself. It’s the beginning of being able to make your own music, produce it, record it, and distribute it all on your own. So me and everybody here in the city, we were all doing this. When you go to open up the restaurant and the mindset, everything’s possible. You can do it. You’re only limited by how hard you’re willing to work. Setting Up the Rules That hard work, especially in this field of sushi and omakase, usually comes with a big apprenticeship. That’s definitely one way to do it and a similar path that many people have followed, which is why I’m so excited to chat with you about your five rules to being an apprentice without a master, which is a bit of a unique and novel approach to really learning a hundred year old tradition. But you talk about really setting yourself up in your rule number one. Rule 1: Define a Master, Develop a Goal Rule number one here is, you know, and these weren’t rules where I had made them before. You kind of look back on a career and realize the steps you’ve taken. And for me, rule one was define a master, develop a goal. That trip to that counter that really set a goal for me. It was, these guys are so cool. I want to be just like them. I want to make food on their level. That was back in 2008. I had decided to do that. Came back from the trip and was like, okay, enough with everything else. Not going back to school. I’m going to do this. You know, focus. Rule 2: Become a Student It’s funny you talk about not going back to school because it seems like you are going after a different education. A lot of the times with punk rock and DIY, you can eschew learning and just dive head in. But your rule number two talks about the importance of getting fundamentals and working towards gaining a base of knowledge before you go on your own path. What’s your rule number two? Rule number two is become a student. We live in a time where all information is available. And so becoming a student doesn’t seem like it’s necessary. But when I’m coming up in 2008, I desperately want to be like these sushi chefs, but they have a deep apprenticeship program. Coming back from Japan at that time, there’s definitely less than 10 omakase counters in the United States. There really isn’t anyone to teach this material. And so I quickly realized if I want to know something that I need to teach it to myself. And so that means becoming a student, developing what we call in the sushi game waza or skill. I start buying every book on sushi and fish in English, every single one. Sure. The good ones, the bad ones, the at. home for moms anything that might have a little piece of information and i start doing that in japan too i start buying every book in japanese i can find i take myself to jimbocho which is a an area of town that just has used bookstores And I just spend two days popping in each store, just asking each shop owner, do you have any books on sushi? And so now I’ve got this crazy collection. I’m having to use my mom to help translate. I’m looking at pictures, just trying to get any sort of information that I can to get me closer to my goal. Rule 3: Visit Masters I love this idea of gathering the knowledge on your own, becoming a student and reading up, gathering a strong base before you go out and sit with people who have been doing this for so long. It just seems that it leads to such a deeper conversation and you’re not wasting anyone’s time, which is a fundamental of your rule number three. Visit masters. It really does tie in with rule two. Because music or any other creative art form, you can’t just create. It’s got to come from somewhere. You need someone to influence you. You need to see what you like. You’re not creating whole new cuisine out of nowhere. You need to be influenced. You need to know what’s good. You need to develop. a palate. You need to develop taste memory. From that first trip, I start going and visiting every single one of these counters I can get into in Japan. At the time, these guys are known in Japan, but there isn’t a sushi craze or sushi counter boon that we’re experiencing now. And so I’m eating with guys like Takashi Saito when he has one Michelin star and He’s in the parking garage near the U.S. Embassy right now. He’d gone on to get three stars, lose them all because he becomes too famous. What a time. I’m picking up tricks. I’m seeing how they do it. I’m learning about the culture of the cuisine and the counter and how they conduct dinner, how they work with guests, how they talk, how they present food. Then I’m tasting it. I’m holding on to these things, making notes. and trying to come back home and reverse engineer these things. This abalone liver sauce is so delicious. How do I come home and reverse engineer it from memory? Visiting these guys at the top of the game, they give you a reference point. They help train by actually consuming the food. Having this postmodern approach where you’re doing your research and visiting multiple masters of this cuisine instead of following or working under one person is very, very different than most people who study sushi because it’s one way and you’re just trying to impress your master and work your way up to their level of skill so tha

    12 min
  6. Telly Justice

    FEB 2

    Telly Justice

    In this episode of Five Rules for the Good Life, I’m joined by Telly Justice, executive chef and co-owner of HAGS, one of the most exciting restaurants to come out of New York in the last few years. She shares her Five Rules for Building Trust with your Restaurant & Brand, not through hype, but through how you show up every day. Telly talks about the importance of knowing yourself, being consistent, striving for equitability, communicating early and often, and enthusiastically accepting accountability. She breaks down how those ideas move from a mission statement to the dining room, the kitchen, and the community that forms around the work. This one resonates because it is a reminder that the real flex is reliability. Showing up for yourself, your work, and your team with intention and purpose is not a slogan, it is a practice. When you respect the people who support your projects, your staff, your guests, your regulars, the quiet tables, the loud ones, you build something that can actually hold weight. Everything is connected. The culture in the kitchen shows up in the dining room. The consistency on a Tuesday shows up in the trust on a Saturday. It all works as one ecosystem, and when you take responsibility for your part in it, the whole thing gets stronger. Five Rules for the Good Life is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Transcript Hello, and welcome to Five Rules for the Good Life. I’m your host, Darin Bresnitz. Today, I am joined by Telly Justice, the executive chef and co-owner of one of the most exciting restaurants to come out of New York in the last few years, Hags. She’s here to share her five rules for building trust with your restaurant and brand. We talk about the importance of consistency, that good communication allows for everyone to have a seat at the table, and that by practicing self-accountability lets you keep showing up for your team. It’s a great conversation from one of Food & Wine’s Best New Chefs of 2025 and an inspiring conversation for anyone who’s looking to build a better relationship with their staff, diners, or their restaurant at large. So let’s get into the rules. Telly, it is so nice to meet you. I know you’ve been having a very busy January, so I appreciate you taking the time to sit down and chat with me. Thank you so much. I’m so excited to be talking with you. I’m a big fan. This podcast is awesome. Oh, I really appreciate that. And I’m a huge fan of Hags, your restaurant. It’s been such an amazing thing to see come together and the community that you’ve created both in and around the restaurant. How early into the concept did you start thinking about the relationship you wanted to have with your customers at Hags? Our vision for our relationship with customers predated our decision to open the brick and mortar, especially as initially a pop-up concept that was born in 2020 during the pandemic. We really wanted to get out there and do what we did just to make people feel a sense of community and a sense of care and joy. We knew that we had this talent and this skill, and we wanted to share it with people. We didn’t expect it to turn into what we’ve built over time. We didn’t expect to open a brick and mortar so quickly. Yeah, it came from this place of caring about people first, and that was essential to when we built hags the brick and mortar being able to be guided by a clear mission statement that isn’t necessarily exactly the food you want to cook or the spot you’re going to open I think does lead to this authenticity and this success your mission statement is by queer people for all people yes why was it so important to you to position hags in this way Speaking to the queer people component, the first part of that sentence, we knew that that was going to be the larger food world’s vision of us. And we wanted to own that first and foremost. We wanted to say that part of ourselves out loud and show that we were proud of it and that that was a place of authenticity for us to operate from and a crucial aspect of building our community. But we also wanted to, following up with the second half of that sentence, we wanted to make sure that everybody felt invited and encouraged and a part of what we were building. And we didn’t see it as an exclusively queer project, but we did want to see ourselves as whole and equal in the exchange as queer people doing the work. So that whole sentence really communicates what we were about when we were building the pop-up and what we continue to be about today. You’ve successfully been able to communicate what you’re about, both by what you stand for and the food you cook. So much so that Food & Wine named you one of the best new chefs of 2025. And not that outside acknowledgement is everything, but it is nice every once in a while to receive such an accolade. How did you feel hearing the news and what has it meant to you as a chef and restaurant owner and as a person? won’t lie i’ve been cooking in this industry professionally for almost 20 years now and amazing when you event that kind of time in these kitchens especially high-end fine dining you can’t help but have that dream that goal i want to awards i want to see myself in that magazine so many of my heroes walked that path and they gave me this thing to look out towards they gave me this goal to look to as a I was clawing my way through these kitchens. It’s hard work and you have to have something to dream about. You have to have something to believe in. When I left the fine dining world behind at the peak of the pandemic to do this pop-up, I kind of forgot all of that. I left it behind in a lot of ways. My goals changed and my priorities changed. What I wanted to do, what I wanted to access with Hags, a restaurant in New York City, became very different from the goals that I had as a young cook. And we were able to achieve a lot of our goals in building meaningful community and feeding some really great people that I love showing up and feeding every day in our dining room. When we found out that I was receiving this accolade from food and wine, it was totally out of left field because we just hadn’t thought about it. It wasn’t something that we were actively pursuing. We were pursuing other things. of course it took a moment of recalibrating what this means to me and what it means to me now that i have this deeply personal restaurant not for nothing hags is a business and it’s been an incredible boon to our business it’s brought a lot of people and a lot of attention our way i would say mostly if not exclusively very positive i love that i love that for the cooks in the kitchen they feel their work is meaningful it’s special they see people out in the dining room getting more and more excited about the project i love that for them i still feel like A regular old chef just cooking it out every day. I don’t think it’s changed how I feel about my practice of cooking much, but I do love to see the effects. It’s really cool. Seeing those effects and seeing the dining room full every night is such a fantastic thing to have created and been a part of, and something that takes effort every day which is why I’m so excited for you to be sharing your five rules for building trust with your restaurant and brand stepping away from the fine dining world can be scary especially with all of its guardrails because of those strict confinements it doesn’t always allow you to explore who you really are which could ultimately hinder you from finding your real success which is a big part of your rule number one Rule number one for me is know yourself. Self-knowledge is so incredibly crucial to any personal project, but also be curious about others. It is really hard when you’re struggling to access that self-knowledge to be truly available to your curiosities about where other people are coming from. Starting with who am I? What do I bring to the table? What kind of food do I want to cook? What kind of restaurant do I want to run? How do I want my guests to feel in my space? That’s so essential. It can’t be something you adopt or inherit from a job that you’ve worked or another restaurant that you’ve come from. You have to think critically about what these things mean to you and how you’re going to build a personal space that represents you and communicates your values, your vision, your ethos. And when you do that, you create so much space for other people to be themselves, which is so lovely when you’re curious about where they’re coming from. When our diners come in, we love to ask them more than just how their experience or how the food is, but how was your day? That’s amazing. Where are you coming from? Where are you going? What are you about? What are your interests? What drew you to our space? And by the end of the meal, I find we have more than just diners. We have new friends. We have new neighbors. We have new community members. And that develops such a level of community loyalty, community trust, and a deeper understanding than I think you see at most restaurants. And that’s one of the beautiful things that I get to experience in this space. Having people return, not just guests, but those who work with you and the world at large to your restaurant, to what you’re doing, is such a beautiful thing. But it also comes with a big responsibility of creating the same experience or creating a baseline that people can expect whenever they walk through your doors or sit down with you, which leads into your rule number two. Number two is be very consistent. This is an important follow-up to knowing yourself. It can be really easy to perform what you think you ought to be doing. Yes. But if you know yourself and you know how you cook, if you know how you serve, then when a guest comes in a second, a third, a fourth tim

    14 min

  7. JAN 26

    Katie Parla

    In this episode of Five Rules for the Good Life, I sit down with Katie Parla, a Rome-based writer, guide, and one of the clearest voices on how Italy really works. Not the fantasy version, not the TikTok version, but the real one shaped by neighborhoods, side streets, long lunches, and very good food. Katie shares her Five Rules for Actually Connecting with Italian Culture, from skipping the obvious cities to renting a car to leaving space for meals you did not plan. We talk about how Romans really eat, why oxtail sauce explains more about Italy than most guidebooks, and how letting go of romantic expectations leads to better trips, better meals, and better stories. I love this episode because it is advice you can trust. Katie lives this life. She is not visiting Italy, she is in it, navigating it, working within it, and loving it every day. That perspective changes everything. Her rules are practical, but they are also generous, because they permit you to travel differently, to slow down in the right moments, and to stop chasing someone else’s version of a perfect trip. Listening to her makes you want to book a flight, yes, but more importantly, it makes you want to travel better, with curiosity, humility, and a little bit of chaos, which is usually where the best meals live. You can pick up her new book Rome: A Culinary History, Cookbook, and Field Guide to the Flavors that Built a City, which is available wherever books are sold. Photo by Ed Anderson My latest piece for Pellegrino’s Fine Dining Lovers is out, and it’s a close look at how Brian Dunsmoor thinks about craft, control, and momentum. It moves from his garage pool table to the hearth at Dunsmoor, tracing how his intention and patience shape the way he cooks and leads. It’s about the small disciplines that add up to mastery, and why doing less, better, is often the whole point. Transcript Hello, and welcome to Five Rules for the Good Life. I’m your host, Darin Bresnitz. It is always a pleasure when I get to sit down with today’s guest, Katie Parla, whose new book, Rome, is out on Parla Publishing. You might know her for some of her incredible writing on the food and beverage of Rome, or been lucky enough to take one of her guided tours around the city. She shares her five rules for actually connecting with Italian culture and and talks about the importance of renting a car so you can make your way to lesser known cities, how to avoid the pitfalls of trusting everything you see on social media, and why leaving some room for unexpected meals is the best way to have an authentic adventure. If you’re like me and so many other people, you know that Katie has her finger on the pulse of what’s going on in Italy today. So let’s get into the rules. Katie, so good to see you. Thank you for making time, literally pulling over on the side of the road during your incredible book tour to chat with me for Five Rules. Welcome to the show. Thanks so much for hitting me up. I’m stoked to talk to you. I, like so many others, have hit you up when I was planning my first trip to Rome. And despite you knowing the city so well, do you still feel the pressure to pick the right recommendation for the person who’s hitting you up? Rome is definitely a place that is becoming expensive to visit. It’s becoming increasingly complicated because of social media, blowing up places that don’t do good food or care about their stuff or ingredients. I think it’s even more important to direct people to quote unquote the right places so that the people whose work I really appreciate and treasure are able to compete in that new economy. It’s so tricky to navigate these major cities, especially with social media and all of these best of lists. And what I love about your new book, Rome, is that you say it’s not a best of Rome book. It’s about the real Rome. How would you define the real Rome and how long did it take for you to discover it? I mean, I’ve been chipping away at it for almost a quarter century now. Incredible. There are many real Romes. Everyone who lives in Rome and obsesses over it has a reality shaped by what neighborhood they’ve lived in, where they work. And Rome is really dense and it’s gigantic. When I set about breaking down what I think is the real Rome, I was thinking about sharing with people the widest panorama that I could of how Romans eat, how they encounter their food system, where they shop, what they’re thinking about when they’re at a wine bar. And delivering, of course, recipes. But most of the book, as you’ve seen, not recipes. It’s culture, it’s history, it’s urbanism, all in the service of showing the full picture of Roman cuisine, which is not just at the trattoria. It’s not just at the pizzeria. It’s in homes. It’s in cafeterias. It’s in these small moments, Daniel and cobblestones, eating pizza, attempting not to stain your clothes. I would say I have a couple of white linen pants from a summer in Rome that did not quite come back unscathed. That’s on you. You got to think about patterns. Wear patterned clothes when you’re visiting. I know, I know. But the heat, it’s a balance. That’s real. As you’ve done a deep dive into these homes and side streets in the city, what is the one dish that if you’re going to eat or learn to make that really connects you to the country world? Something that always comes to mind that encapsulates a lot is rigatoni with sauce that oxtails have been simmered in. Oxtails are often written off as peasant food, when in reality, they were enticing to all classes. Popes ate them, peasants ate them. This is one of those myth-busting dishes that shows it’s really delicious, but it also has an ingredient that would be status-driven as well. What’s great about it is you can simmer oxtails for hours... serve the oxtail segments as your main and then just use the tomato based sauce to dress your rigatoni and it’s delicious it’s caloric it’s savory it’s practical and it’s pragmatic because we don’t have a lot of time anymore to hang out in rome and this like dolce farniente b******t that everyone lies about is not how we it’s not how we live everyone’s got a side hustle there’s no permanent work anymore and people have to really struggle to get by and when they cook they want it to have maximum impact and those one pot two meal situations are huge help Understanding the best way to navigate Italy is something that takes a long time to master. It’s something that people want to master, which is why I’m so excited to chat about your five rules for actually connecting with Italian culture. Cutting through all the Instagram, cutting through all the AI nonsense, cutting through all of the lists and guides, really understanding that to travel a country and to dig in is such a rewarding process. When you fly into Italy, you’re flying into Rome or Venice or Florence, one of the big cities. And your first rule talks about, while these places are great, and you’ve literally written the book on one of them, that you should explore other parts of the country. What’s your rule number one? My number one rule, skip Rome, Venice, and Florence, and don’t sleep on the secondary or tertiary destinations. This is a rule that goes against my self-interest. I have a tour company, and so I lead tours in Rome and Venice. Florence isn’t really my vibe, so I don’t bother with it. No, it sucks. I love Florence. Are you scandalized? A little scandalized. I know. There are Florence people and there are Rome people. I’m a Rome people. Now that I’ve turned the audience against me and the host. There are places, Senigalia on the Adriatic coast, Ravenna a bit further north, Campo Basso in Molise. When you’re thinking about regions to visit, everyone says like, oh, I’m going to Emilia-Romagna. And they go to Parma, Modena, and Bologna. And those are all very, very busy and popular right now. But they’re in Emilia. Right. Why not ditch Amelia and go to Romania instead? It’s amazing. It’s coastal. There are delicious lard-based breads everywhere. It’s fantastic. When you’re in these tertiary spaces, there’s a higher proportion of real live people who live and work there that you’re going to be encountering. They’re probably going to be less embittered. They’re going to speak less English, but you’ll still be able to have these experiences, whether it’s at the table or at your B&B or driving around and being at cafes where you’ll encounter the culture in a more profound way than when you’re on the well-worn tourist path. Yeah. People get on this well-worn tourist path. They’re chasing what they saw on social media or trying to get the same shot. But it would be really exciting for you to be the first person to post something on social media that other people can follow. But it’s hard not to get caught up in what is your rule number two. My rule number two is don’t believe TikTok. She lies. There’s so much bad information. The content creators who work in the Italy space, many of them have no idea what they’re talking about. Or they do know stuff, but they know that controversial takes are going to get the most views. So people are always like, Katie Parla, what if I want a cappuccino after 1130? In Rome, you can have that. No one’s going to get mad at you as long as it’s not ordered at a restaurant or trattoria. Go to any cafe. Also, you don’t have to eat 25 maritotsi when you’re in Rome. I couldn’t even name 25 places that do really good leavened buns filled with whipped cream. But you should have one at Santa Palata, which never ends up on social media, unfortunately. That consequently means that there aren’t lines around the block. This is a shame. She’s the best. Sarah Ciccolini rules. Be skeptical about what people say are the rules because there’s so many exceptions. And if you follow the social

    12 min
  8. Kristen Hawley

    JAN 19

    Kristen Hawley

    Technology has quietly rewritten the rules of dining out, and this episode gets into what that actually means when you sit down at the table. I’m joined by Kristen Hawley, founder of Expedite and one of the sharpest reporters covering the intersection of restaurants and tech. She shares her Five Rules for Technology in Restaurants, discussing why following a restaurant’s lead matters, how access has become the real currency of dining, and why taking an issue to the internet before addressing it in real life can cause real damage. These are practical rules for anyone who eats out and cares about how modern hospitality works right now. It’s always a relief to get etiquette advice from someone who actually understands how restaurants operate behind the scenes. Not someone guessing, not someone shouting into the void, but an industry insider who’s spent years watching how diners, staff, and systems collide. Kristen brings clarity without being preachy and context without excuses. These are the kinds of insights that make you a better guest, help restaurants do their jobs, and remind you that a good experience is usually a shared responsibility. Five Rules for the Good Life is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Transcription Hello, and welcome to Five Rules for the Good Life. I’m your host, Darin Bresnitz. Today, I’m joined by my colleague, founder of Expedite and freelance journalist, Kristen Hawley, who’s here to share her five rules for technology in restaurants. She talks about the importance of following the restaurant’s lead when it comes to their policies, how by putting your phone away can ensure a better experience, and if there’s a problem with the dinner, to handle it IRL before you take it to the net. She is an absolute expert at the intersection of technology and dining out, and her insights are well informed and well founded. So let’s get into the rules. Kristen, so good to see you again. Thanks for stopping by. Always a pleasure to chat with you. I’m so excited to talk. Thank you. We met at one of the many restaurant technology conferences, and I couldn’t have found a better person to sit next to because you really report on the emerging worlds of tech and hospitality, which is something that’s really evolved to become ubiquitous these days. What fascinates you about that convergence? I started covering this industry more than a decade ago. The same thing fascinates me that got me started, which is the way that the diner experience changes inside a restaurant because of technology is such a fascinating social experiment and observation. I moved from New York to San Francisco in 2009. I noticed the way that restaurants felt different in San Francisco, which I immediately attributed to technology because it was 2009. Twitter was new. DoorDash hadn’t started yet. And it was really just changing the way that people acted in restaurants and their expectations. So that’s how it started. From the start to where it is today, you launched newsletter Expedite, which dives deeply into these topics. What have you found your readers responding to? What are the trends that you see sitting at the top of your most popular articles? People are really interested in stories about access, which can be reservations. It can just be access to chefs. It can be learning about restaurants. The most popular stories on Expedite tend to be about some form of access to restaurants in new ways, in old ways, in every way. It’s so funny because you talk about the old ways and the new ways, and it definitely is an evolving etiquette. How often do you see shifts? Is it gradual or is it a new app comes out or something drops and all of a sudden it’s a sea change? I would say that it happens in steps, but it’s not driven by technology itself. It’s usually driven by social things. I think the biggest shift was COVID, right? That was the biggest shift in the restaurant industry generally in a lot of ways, but it really changed the way that diners experience and the way that they expect to experience restaurants. They suddenly, very suddenly, expected more from a restaurant on a tech platform. They expected better delivery. They expected fast delivery. They expected, again, access. They expected correct information. There are moments where I can see, in retrospect, a big step change. I don’t think tech is driving that. I think social and environmental changes are driving that. And then the technology is just bolstering how people experience restaurants. I remember a time in restaurants where it was a pretty set rules of social etiquette, but those things have changed in the 15 to 20 years since I’ve been going out, especially as it relates to technology, which is why I’m so excited for you to chat about your five rules for technology in restaurants. Yes. Now, every restaurant is different from the mom and pop places to the Michelin stars. So it’s always good to understand where eating and what their approach is to tech, which is a big part of your rule number one. Rule number one, when it comes to technology, please follow the restaurant’s lead. If they are using a screen or a kiosk or a QR code, God forbid, there is a reason. Poor QR codes. Oh, so maligned. They obviously rose to prominence during COVID. They’ve evolved and some restaurants do use them for ordering for an open tab, for convenience, perhaps when they are short staffed or because they are short staffed. If there is technology inside of a restaurant, please assume that it is there because it needs to be and because the business has made a conscious decision to put it there. Sometimes you could feel even today that the tech is maybe invading your privacy or that you don’t want to share too much. Once you opt in to making a reservation or you get into the system, you’re in there all over the place. Being willing to give that information will actually help your dining experience, which aligns with your rule number two. Yeah, this builds off the first one. The same goes for checking in, follow the restaurant’s leads. You’re probably going to be asked for your phone number or some other identifying information, even if you walk in. It’s because the restaurant wants to link your presence to your profile. You should probably want this. If you’re an avid diner and you’re going out and you’re actively participating in the hospitality economy, it is the modern way to track activity. I can appreciate that it feels a little creepy. It can feel weird that a restaurant’s tracking you. There have been some outraged headlines about this recently, especially with some open table product updates. Restaurants have been keeping notes on diners for as long as they’ve been around. Yeah. This is the modern way. This is how they do it at scale. Just give your phone number. Just give your phone number or email address. They’re not trying to steal or take anything away from you. They’re just trying to give you a good experience. One could argue that the quality of your experience is how much you’re allowing to have tech be at your own table, which listen, we’re probably both guilty of this. I’m not going to sit here and say that I haven’t been super guilty of this, but try to think of a time and harken back to an era pre-computer in your pocket, which is your rule number three. Put your phone away. I am so, so, so bad at this. I am so bad at this. Big rule for someone who works in the industry who needs to take photos of food. I’m gonna put an asterisk on this for several things. Photos, sure. Checking your email every five minutes, probably not. I am a frequent solo diner because I travel a lot for work. And I will say too, I try to not use my phone when I’m sitting at the bar. I try to catch up on some print New Yorkers or maybe a Kindle just for reasons of trying to appear slightly more social. Yes. Everybody has a different tolerance for dining alone. But generally, if we’re going to complain about QR codes, if we’re going to complain about intrusions, keep the tech intrusions in your own pocket out of the experience. You bring up a good point because sometimes it is for work. Sometimes you are there working at a dinner, restaurant critics, secret diners, influencers, things like that, especially when a new restaurant pops up. If you’re going to have to shoot or make a video at the table, please keep this in mind for your rule number four. If you must film an influencer video or similar, consider your fellow diners. Book an early reservation, visit on a Tuesday, clear any additional lighting with a restaurant ahead of time. I recently got a confirmation email for a reservation. They like banned outfit changes. And I was like, what? What? That’s a thing that happens frequently enough that it’s in the FAQ that is emailed to a person who makes a reservation. Something I never considered. Influencing is a job. Reviewing is a job. Videos are a job. Photos are a job. I appreciate the hustle, but you got to consider the people that are dining around you. And in a dimly lit restaurant, when you break out the ring lights to take a photo, it is very intrusive and very distracting. You’ve had your meal. You’ve gotten the content. You’ve tried to read a book with your phone in your pocket. Let’s just be honest. Maybe it was a good meal. Maybe it was a bad meal. Maybe your job is to review meals. And we’ve seen this of recent where diners have taken to the internet to spread their grievances. We’ve all seen that this can really hurt a restaurant. Putting something out there in the digital space can leave a nasty footprint. And your fifth and final rule suggests dealing with this in real life before you take it to the web. What’s your rule number five? Talk to the manager before you review online if it is bad. If s

    10 min
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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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