Welcome back to the podcast. Thank you for being with me. Chef Albert Di Meglio is such an inspired leader. And this episode is all about leadership, it really starts with the background and beginnings of a career working for illustrious properties, and really, really famous restaurants with famous restaurateurs and the level of experience that came with mentorship and just a new approach to running our business is just so fulfilling and gratifying and refreshing. And there’s so much advice and key nuggets about running a great kitchen, but not just about a kitchen, it’s about running a great business.

business. So you’re not going to want to miss this episode. So stay tuned. You’ve also probably heard about my profit maximizer. Literally it’s everything that I’ve learned in 30 years, the key nuggets about maximizing bottom line profit in your restaurant. So check that out at restaurantrockstars.com/profitmaximizer.

It’s going to bottom line boost your business. So Don’t miss it. Check that out at restaurantrockstars.com/profitmaximizer. Now on with the episode.

You’re tuned in to the Restaurant Rockstars Podcast. Powerful ideas to rock your restaurant. Here’s your host, Roger Beaudoin.

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Hey, everyone. Welcome back to the Restaurant Rockstars podcast. So glad you’re here. Thanks for being with us. Chef Albert, how are you today? Welcome to the show. I’m doing great. How are you doing today? I’m fantastic. I can’t wait to talk to you because you have such an illustrious background of experiences and training and mentorship, and we’re going to dive deep into what it means to be a really great restaurant chef and just hospitality in general.

So I think it all starts with your grandmother and the Italian roots go deep, and it’s really great story. Take us there and then give us a little bit of your culinary journey.

All right. So yeah, my life has always been about food. Always Sunday dinners, a lot of family together. I was an only child, so I got almost all the food all the time, which was good and bad.

But but yeah, she inspired me and, growing up probably about, even 14, 15, I would hang out at my friend’s house, or we’d do a sleepover, and the mother would come down the stairs, smell food, and I’m like, 14, 15 year old, making food, then we’re eating at three o’clock in the morning.

At first she’s angry, and then she comes down, she’s oh there’s food here. But from there, it’s always been surrounded by food, didn’t even realize. And by the time I was 16, got my workin papers, my mom threw me in the car, dropped me off at a restaurant. It’s okay, you gotta get a job, they’re hiring.

My first job was basically makin pizza. And it’s funny how it’s gonna Come full circle. Oh yeah, absolutely. Wood fired ovens

and a whole,

yeah. All that fun and a lot of burns. Keep going. And so anyway, we I’ve been making pizza for a while and then I met my girlfriend, now my wife, of 25 years, and she’s okay, I love you, but I’m not going to marry a pizza guy.

And she pushed me to go to culinary school at the time. I think it was called New York Restaurant School. And from there I did well. They put me in internship, externship, or whatever it was. And it was in a hotel and it was great. I didn’t feel it. And it was funny enough at that time, Windows on the World was opening.

And I was like, wow, how cool would it be to work in Windows? It was amazing. There’s such

a history to that property. And obviously that’s all pre 9 11 and everything, but That was a showplace hotel for anyone who doesn’t know Windows on the World. You could tell them that at the top of the World Trade Center, the views, spectacular, the hospitality, the service, it was all top notch and you were part of it.

What year would that have been, Albert?

I think it was about 95, 96. I think 95, I did the interview and towards the end. So it was basically on the opening team. Yeah. And I remember. I didn’t have that much fine dining experience and I was doing an interview and I got my way up to Mark Murphy at the time and he’s the one that gave me my first shot and I remember we were having the conversation and he’s I know you don’t have a lot of experience.

I said, chef, please listen to me. I said, give me a shot. If I suck, just fire me. Let’s move on. But I’m sick and tired of everybody telling me I don’t have enough experience. How am I supposed to get it? If nobody gives it to me. That’s a beautiful angle. Yep. Yeah. He turned to look at me, he’s okay, you got it.

He couldn’t

say no. That was beautiful. You put yourself in the room with someone that had influence that could literally take you in and give you a shot. And that was your shot. And you might say that was like a career launcher because it led to some pretty amazing things, but I don’t want to tell your story for you.

Yeah,

For there I worked about two and a half years and and I worked in Cellar in the Sky. So Cellar in the Sky was the the jewel of Windows on the World. You had Windows on the World main dining room, the greatest bar on earth, and Cellar in the Sky. And I got in, I was cooking for Oh, they were, it was just amazing.

And that’s where I got to work with Kevin Zarelli. And, I don’t know, I was what, 18 years old, drinking 10, 000 bottles of wine sometimes and I’m like, what is this? I wish I would’ve took a few more notes, but, you’re 18. But we did that and about two years, I transferred over to Windows On The World because I wanted to know, like, how to cook because they were doing, what, three, four, five hundred covers a day.

So I did that for about a year, started slowing down and they’re like, hey, you want to go home? We got to save some money. I was like, sure. And my next stop, I walked to Le Cirque. And I walked to Le Cirque, and I walked in, and I remember walking in, they’re like, who the hell is this kid walking in? And I went straight to the chef at the time, I think it was Sotokun Danielle’s sous chef for God knows how many years.

And I sat down with him, gave him the same speech, hey, I, I got, I’m off today, I’m, I want to work, I don’t care where I work, I’ll do whatever you want me to do, and he put me on Entremet. Which is basically, just cooking vegetables for the meat guy. And I just put my head down and worked my butt off for the next few years.

And I moved up the ranks. I became a sous chef there and I was fortunate enough that they put me in. Osteria del Churco at the time, as a chef. I was 24 years old running a kitchen at that time, which was mind blowing. There’s a step forward, for sure. Oh, I was scared. I was nervous. You get the attention of the Macchioni family, not only that, plus everybody they know, so I owe a lot to them.

But before I went there, Cereo turned Baptism by fire. Oh, no kidding. Cereo’s yes, you work French dining all the time, and that’s great. I want you to know Italy. So he sent me to Italy. He sent me to Italy for about a month and a half. And he’s you’re going to work in all the restaurants I love.

I was like, sure, let’s do it.

What an experience. Now that was in Tuscany? Yeah. So where would those, would that be sprinkled throughout the hill towns like San Gimignano and Siena and Florence and that whole area or? Yeah.

He obviously lived in Montecatini, right? So I used to commute, I used to commute to Florence.

So he put me in the three star Enoteca Pinchiore, which was amazing. I did like about a week over there. Then I went to oh, Romano Viareggio. So I worked at Romano Viareggio as another Michelin restaurant. I got to see Lorenzo in Forte di Marmi. I traveled on a single train all the way up to Custello.

Because he loved this restaurant called Ambashata and the chef was amazing. So I was up there, I was bouncing around everywhere and I loved every minute of it.

Oh, that was called full immersion in a culture and a cuisine, right? Could it have gotten any more intense than that?

No, I’ve learned so much, the example I give is when I first started my career, it’s just like French cooking, hot pan, hot oil, see the smoke, sear.

And

when I went to Italy, I was yelling at the guys in the kitchen because I started. I was like, Hey, your pan’s not hot. What’s wrong with you? And these are Italian people and they’re looking at me like, What are you talking about?

So when I went to Italy, everything’s different. Cold pan. Oil, cold pan, put the onions, sweat, let the flavors build. And I’m just, it was just a different way of cooking. And fast forward, what, 20 something years, I’m still cooking the same way. I have my French techniques, I have my Italian techniques, but I, that’s what I did.

And, from there I was interested in I always knew I wanted to run a restaurant run a restaurant, own a restaurant. So I thought what better way to learn is to go to the Ritz Carlton. So from there. I did the same thing again. I saw something was open, and I got the job. I became Exec Sue at Ritz Carlton Battery Park.

And from there, I went up to being Executive Chef of Central Park, which was mind blowing, too. It’s just I’m just in this. Now I’m Executive Chef after three years of their, mainstays. That was amazing. That’s where It was more about teaching other people culinary skills, but I was emerging myself in leadership.

And that’s where I learned how to be a leader, not a manager. I don’t think anybody, yeah, nobody needs to be a manager. Everybody needs to be a leader. And that’s how you get people behind you. And you don’t have to babysit anymore, because they’re doing it because they’re proud of it. That was unbelievable.

I think I still have my credo card from Ritz Carlton, which is like all the basics, and I still use that. That’s

the key to accountability because there’s so many restaurants right now. And I say this all the time, but the complaints besides the labor shortages, the people I have, why don’t they show up on time?

Why don’t they do what my expectations are? And I believe personally because people are managing and they’re not leading. They’re the boss that barks orders. They’re not someone that recognizes talent, inspires, motivates, nurtures, gives people additional responsibility and really mentors people through.

And that’s the mark of a true leader. So I’m so happy that you brought that up. And if it were up to me, I would change the entire industry to focus on not delegation, but empowerment and being a true leader. And I think you said it best. So thank you for that.

Oh, my pleasure. One of the biggest things I say is even now I own four businesses with some great people.

Everybody works with me. Nobody works for me. If you think anybody ever works for you, you’re out of your mind.

Right.

Because they’re doing it for them, and they should. But you get more out of them when they have their own passion, rather than your passion and just cracking a whip at the top of the chain.

Doesn’t work. Absolutely. Yeah, and then from there, my buddy yeah. My buddy opened he wanted to do a pizzeria. So Joe and Pat’s in Staten Island. Old school pizzeria. It’s been around 50 years at that time. Now we’re, coaching 70, he wanted to take that brand to make his own. So we opened up Ruby Rosa on Mulberry street and that thing was lightning in a bottle.

I’ve never thought family recipes, great pizza, and then taking family recipes of my dad’s lasagna or AJ’s mom’s cheesecake or anything like that. Turned into this huge monster. And I did that for about four years and then it was like, I was a small partner in that and I loved every minute of it.

And then I had an opportunity to jump into Burano from there, which is my restaurant with three other partners, which all have been great. And I got a chance to take my grandmother’s inspiration from Burano in Ischia. Burano is a community. Barano di Ischia in in Ischia.

The name came from there, in my mind.

Yeah

on the ninth hour, we were going through names.

Yeah.

And I remember one of my partners, Johnny, was like, where’d your grandmother grow up? Where does she live in Ischia? And I was like, Barano. He’s great.

Can I ask you really quick, Ischia, is that the island off the coast of Napoli?

That’s it. Next to Capri.

That’s it.

And the town is called Barano on Iskia?

Yeah, it’s called Barano on

Iskia. Oh, gotcha. I was just in Napoli three weeks ago. Oh, really? A little obvious.

That’s awesome. Yes. Okay, keep going.

This is great.

Yeah, and then from there, we’re eight years now. Barano’s been open eight years and within those eight years, a lot has happened.

But, we got to open Spirit Animal, which is our wine shop. We got to open up Bluebird Kitchen, which is in Long Island, and that’s more an American take on my food. And from there we opened Burano to Go in Manhattan. We partnered with Uber and now it’s like a ghost kitchen in Manhattan.

That, that’s killing it. But there’s so many things between COVID and everything. I think, believe it or not, COVID was a time where a lot of uncertainty, a lot of craziness, especially in New York City and other places, But we really found our stride, believe it or not, because we had nothing. We were there and I remember my friends telling me, I didn’t sign up for this.

I’m like, nobody signed up for this. This is time you put your head down and you realize what you need. And that’s like the really first time where I said, okay, I can’t just be hiding in the kitchen anymore, like making great food. I need to be a full on leader at front and back. So that’s where I had great guys that worked with me 20, 25 years.

And I was like, okay, you’ll, you’re going to help me run the show in the back and I’m going to encompass everything and try to make this work with during COVID. It was myself, maybe two cooks and my GM, Kareem. And I was just like, let’s make this happen. Because obviously we all know as a business owner, you’re not going to get unemployment.

You gotta keep making money. So I was like, I’m just going to work bare minimum, try to figure this out. Be open for the community. There’s so much uncertainty. There’s, there was actually at that, there was no good happening. So I said, why don’t be open? Let’s figure this out. And from there.

I saw the lines on the grocery store and everything. So I partnered with Upstate Farms, which is a small larger, but small vendor of all things up in the Hudson Valley. They do all vegetables. They needed to get their produce out. I was like, let’s do boxes. Send me boxes. So they were getting boxes. I was telling the customers, Hey, you know what?

Call me. You don’t know what to do with the rutabaga? Give me a call. I’ll tell you what to do with it. We got up to almost 70, 75 boxes a week that we were handing out to our customers. Then it turned into, what kind of steak you want? I’ll get some steaks. I got dry aged. Cause all the vendors were dying because we weren’t buying from them.

Of course. I said let’s circumvent the supermarkets and let’s get great. What an idea.

Beautiful idea.

And that helped. And the funniest and the best thing we ever did, I was just thinking, it was like, somebody needs a bartender. Somebody’s got to tell their misery to a bartender and the bartender at the time.

He’s let’s do an outdoor bar. I was like, great, let’s do it. And we had line down the block because everybody was going to the bar, getting a cocktail, talking to the bartender for two, three minutes, and then moving on. So it really got us in the right direction. But

you never lost the pride and the passion because that really devastated, I don’t need to talk about how it devastated the industry, but even the people, the operators that have survived have, beaten up so badly.

It’s like, how do you rediscover that passion? But you never lost it. You never let it, it just fueled you forward. It sounds like.

Yeah, I’ve, I’ve closed the restaurant before. It’s probably one of the hardest things you ever had to do besides losing the money. It’s just that if you feel like a failure, I failed, but I think like everybody else says, and it’s so true.

Failure is this step one of really learning because you’re going to have a lot more failures than you’re going to have success. But those failures drive that success. And because I failed that one time, I was like, I am not closing this restaurant. I’m putting my head down and doing whatever it takes to make this happen.

Yeah. Interestingly. Yeah, my wife and a partner and I had to do the same thing because we bought a restaurant just before the pandemic, cause we can’t see around corners. And then a couple of months later, it’s what? And just like you, it’s like our state shut us down. We had to pull all the booths and all the seats out and.

transition into a market and you do whatever you have to do to make it work and offer that safety and convenience to your customer and just jump through every poop and window you can to make it work somehow. And somehow we did, yeah. And then thankfully we sold and we pivoted out and it all worked out in the end.

You couldn’t see that up front, but it’s you got to believe in the end journey, regardless of how challenging your current challenge is. You got to see the light at the end. Keep pushing forward and that’s exactly what you did too, but in a creative way. You were creative and resourceful. You had big ideas and those ideas worked and they helped other people.

So I think that’s a great story.

 And I think if we always keep that in mind, we can do a lot more than we think we can. Because you’re hospitality, you have to focus, okay, what do people want? What do people need?

What do I want? I think the greatest thing is when I saw a ticket come in, it was just like, two pastas, a pizza, three rolls of toilet paper. Have you ever seen a ticket like that in your life? Nope. Nope. But we were doing it because I was buying toilet paper. You couldn’t get toilet paper. My vendors had cases.

They didn’t know what to do with them. I was like, I’ll keep buying them. I’ll sell them for a dollar a roll. I don’t give a, and it really, it made people remember you,

that you were willing to We sold greeting cards and kitty litter and French baguettes and cheese and beer and wine to go.

And we still did foods off the line. And we totally, completely changed, transformed the model. You do whatever you have to do. Exactly. Yeah.

Yeah. It forged the menu that created Burano part two, right? We opened up, I was like, okay, we have to do this way and this way. And then it was just like, what do you want?

You want mozzarella stick? You want macaroni vodka? You got it. That macaroni vodka can never come off the menu. The total in every month, the macaroni vodka pays my rent. That’s the insanity of I would have never put it on my menu, but it’s what people wanted. Obviously, it’s what people still want, and I think that’s another little nugget.

Listen to what people want, because as much as you want to open a restaurant and cook whatever you want and do whatever you want, you’re not the boss. The people that come in the restaurant, they’re the one that actually signs the check. So you better listen to them.

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Yeah. That’s a really good point.

Also, you don’t fix what isn’t broken. That’s almost common sense today, but it’s so many people that have the dream of opening a restaurant will buy an existing concept or whatever. And this is what happened when we sold our restaurant in 2022. Some, two brothers bought it and they had this idea of transforming it, but it, unfortunately, it wasn’t really ideally suited to the community it’s in.

And they had their own ideas about what would work, but it wasn’t mainstream. It was left center. And unfortunately, I hate to see that happen, but it didn’t succeed. And what you’re talking about right now is Don’t fix what isn’t broken. Don’t, and do the research. You got to do the market research.

You got to understand who your customer is and what they’re looking for. And then you got to deliver in spades and then the word of mouth is going to kick in and the online reviews and all that great stuff is going to happen. But you’ve got a huge sort of a track record and reputation as well, because New York city is one of the, If not the most competitive restaurant cities in the country, it’s certainly, if not the world, how do you stay relevant with your concepts?

And people follow you because of your name, and because of what you’ve done, and because of that reputation, but it’s like you still have to stay relevant, and you’re only as strong as the last amazing meal you serve. Not that every food coming out of your kitchen isn’t amazing, but you know what I’m saying?

It’s is there a formula to that? Is it important or are there just timeless tried and true classic concepts that don’t need to ever shift and they’re always going to work? That’s rare, but it happens, right?

Yeah. I think everything gets old at one point and you have to focus. I think like going back to what I just said, it’s just like listening to what.

Your customer wants, right? And also, your mistakes. As much as you want everything to come out of the kitchen perfect at all times, let’s be honest, you do 200 covers, you’re gonna mess up three things. If you don’t, I want you, I want your secrets. But you can get more from a mistake than you can perfection.

Because the mistake shows humanity, empathy, and you genuinely care. I think if you for me, hospitality is what my grandmother taught me. Your family, what can I do for you? How can I help you? You look too skinny, you need to eat more, you look cold, put a jacket on, don’t go outside without your hat.

I think just paying attention to your customer is priceless and Starting my career as a chef, now, I don’t know, whatever I am right now, just doing what I do, I think it’s very important to service. Service is sometimes more important than food, and I never believed I thought I’d say this because I’ve

always believed that to be true, but tell me your take on that.

For me, service is the entry to your food, right? Great food? Yeah, I love it. You get, a shitty waiter. Nobody wants to deal with that shitty waiter to get to your great food. It’s too much. You’re, they don’t care. They didn’t bring you water. They didn’t bring you ice. They didn’t listen to you.

They messed up your order. But the food’s great. Yeah. But do you really want to spend 20 minutes with this person to eat five minutes of food? So for me, it’s just like the way you come in, the way you’re greeted, the way you’re sat, the way you’re listened to, the way everything happens around it, and then you get great food, then you’re going to keep people keep coming.

Yeah, and training plays a huge part in that. And I, let me, I’m going to give you my take on what you just said. And I totally agree with you. I’ve always believed that the food and the ambiance are just givens in any restaurant. People expect the food and drinks to be good. They expect the ambiance to be comfortable and inviting and all those things.

But the service is this variable where sometimes you’re going to get amazing service and sometimes you’re not. And it all comes down to . The care that goes into the restaurant, the approach, the training, the product knowledge that the staff have, and the restaurant knowledge even, so that they can recognize a new customer that walks in the door.

Just any given day, new people walk in your door every day. You’ve never seen them before, and they came about it in a variety of reasons. But they don’t know the very first thing perhaps of what makes your restaurant unique and special and different. And that’s where the staff are the ambassadors for the business.

And that’s that variable. And if you can do that’s a paradigm shift, but it’s powerful.

A hundred percent. I remember at the Ritz Carlton too, as middle leadership and exec leadership, there’s, your bonus was also based on how. You got judged as leadership, and if your staff loved you, that was part of it because it starts with the staff and also starts with leadership because if the leadership doesn’t care about the staff, how do you want the staff to care about the customers, right?

You’ve got to treat them like family. Everybody is as important as the customer. And if you don’t get that through your head, you’re going to have a hard time in this business.

And now you’re talking about company culture. Tell us about the company culture of all your concepts. They may be different.

There’s some overlap there, but it’s, I’m often saying that it’s not about a mission statement that no one cares about. It’s about the feeling, the aura the camaraderie, the way the guests feel, the way the staff feels, the way they’re treated and how everyone comes together. in this bonding experience called restaurants and food.

So what’s your culture? How would you describe it?

I keep throwing around the word family, but there’s no other way to do it. It’s the genuine, it’s still in my head, like Ritz Carlton. I guess I still bleed blue in a way, but of course, but it’s the, the genuine care and comfort of the guests.

And that’s, I like that.

And

it’s, and it’s customers. If you make an employee feel warm and cared for, they’re going to do great things for you. For me, even as chef owner, I’m back and forth between my restaurants all the time. I don’t know. If you tell me where you are on Tuesday, I’m like, give me a second.

Let me just figure this out. Cause it’s that important to me to be where I need to be when I’m needed.

Yes. And

everybody has my cell phone number. That doesn’t really happen often to have the open door policy of, the chef, the owner, the dishwasher, whatever you can call me.

I pretty much answer three o’clock in the morning, seven o’clock in the morning. It’s insanity on my end, but it shows that care, especially when a manager or leader is calling you like the pipe bursts and, you call the owner, nobody answers like that’s your business. So I instill that along the way we have our SLPs, we have, just everything the way we want things done.

But the most important is to work side by side. Last night, in Bluebird, I’m on the line. I’m on the line, on the grill, training the new sous chef that’s gonna take over, side by side. There is no job too big, too small. If you start thinking like that, obviously we have bigger jobs to do. Do them in the morning.

And at night, try to support your staff, listen, I think the most important thing to do is everybody to have a life. Because if we don’t, and we don’t take care of ourselves, we can’t give as much as we want, but there’s a balance. You need to be there when you need to be there and take off when you can take off.

It’s priceless.

That’s leading by example. That is the definition of leading by example. And I was going to ask you that question because there are so many chefs that. The truth is, there’s a lot of people out there, And at first, they become partners or open their own restaurants, and suddenly they need to be business people.

And they’ve got a passion for cooking and a passion for culinary excellence, but they leave some of that behind to run the business. But it’s so important to stay with your people, like you said, and immersed in the passion of you got you here in the first place and make sure that stamp of quality is on every dish and oversee and mentor and lead And find the bandwidth to take care of the business as well.

And that’s a tall order sometimes.

No, it’s hard, but it’s what I love. It’s it’s never going to change. And I think, even when you look at a resume and you’re trying to bring on somebody new, you have to see fit, and Rest his soul, Tony Hsieh with Zappos, right? He had such a culture where he wrote a book and made every single employee put whatever they wanted in that book.

He was that confident that he ran a tight ship and a good ship. I looked at that and I was like, okay, I want all the employees to be proud of me. How are you going to get that? Lead by example. I think, little tidbits of everything I’ve done, reading books like Stephen Covey, Seven Habits, The Eight Habit, all that.

It’s amazing. And you might not do everything all the time. Yeah, but you get

nuggets from here and nuggets from there. You put your own sort of approach to it, but the common idea literally moves you forward. And it comes, inspiration and true, tried and true ideas come from anywhere and it’s rare to be able to capture all of that, put, make it your own and share that with others that they get it.

And there’s the respect and the mutual collaboration that comes from it. That’s tremendous. Let me ask you a question, Chef. Do you hire for experience or is it approach and attitude? Sometimes a combination of both. What do you look for? What do you expect people to bring to the table when they work for you?

For a cook obviously you’ve got to have some sort of experience. But like. I don’t know how any other way to say this, so I’m going to say it in my chef language. Sure. You can’t fix an asshole, right? So number one, you need a good person, right? So first, okay, this person might fit the bill, bring them in, have a conversation with them.

Do they have an ego? In all our restaurants, there is absolutely no room for ego. Ego will burn you nine times out of 10, right?

Right.

Are you engaged? Do you want to do this? Do you lean forward when you talk to me? Do you sit back? I take a lot of cues, of human cues, and to see what kind of person you are.

You’ll, I think anybody will show you what kind of person they are in the first five minutes of your conversation. And then from there, if you pass that, okay, get on the line and cook. Let me see what you can do. Can you hold a pan? Can you put two things in a pan for front of the house?

I don’t care if you don’t know every single Italian wine. I don’t care if you don’t know every single cocktail. What do you like to drink? Do you have a passion for this? Are you passing through? Cause if you’re passing through, that’s another no. But if you’re a genuinely good person, I could teach you anything.

You can teach somebody that wants to learn almost anything. If you’re a leader, half the time people fail, you’re looking at, look in a mirror, that’s the reason they fail, when they bring them on, because you didn’t train them, you didn’t teach them, you didn’t nurture them, you didn’t follow up on them, and I, overall, I look for the person.

And then this skill.

Now what about calm and cool under pressure? Because now suddenly you’re on the line and the kitchen works under the most difficult conditions, hundreds of degree heat all day, hours long, right? You’re on your feet the whole time. The tickets are on the floor. You got servers that are saying, oh, I need to recook here.

And it’s it’s a pressure cooker. position right So you gotta have a certain element of let it all roll, keep calm, rock on, and not lose your cool. Not lose your shit. We’re human.

I definitely had my flaws once in a while, but I think the biggest thing to do is, yeah, no matter what, listen, the customer’s there.

They just went in their pocket, took 50 bucks, 60 bucks, 70 bucks out. Make them happy. Number one. Number two. Yeah. Sometimes you’re on the line, you’re sweating, you’re hot. Emotions come out. Remember, when that happens, apologize. Number two, when you get mad and the words that come out of your mouth, never attack a person, attack the job.

Attack the job the person’s doing. If you don’t like what they’re doing, go after the skill. Don’t go after the person. It’s not the person, it’s the skill. You want to fix the skill. But for the most part, people say I’m probably the calmest chef they’ve ever met before, regardless of my bursts

but when I do burst and I do, it’s like, hey, you know what? Really sorry about that. I was out of line. My apologies. You own it. Yeah. Own it. That, at the end of the day, If I mess up a ticket, I’m like, yeah, no, that’s me. I’m never going to ride the pony and be like, no, that’s all you. You just making bad blood.

Fantastic. Let’s talk about labor challenges because the industry is still struggling around that. Do you have you had any problems with labor and do you have an issue with retention or is it the way you’re running your kitchen that keeps great people? I already heard you give people a voice.

It’s three in the morning, you can call me, here’s my cell phone. It’s like your opinion matters. That goes a long way with retention and company culture. But finding and keeping great people is definitely a challenge that Many are struggling with, is that even an issue with you now?

It’s always a little bit of an issue.

I think Burano in the kitchen most of my guys are day one and most of the guys have been promoted from dishwasher. It’s another thing I believe in. Yes. Bottom up. My first job. Yeah. Half the time people don’t understand what the dishwasher, how important the dishwasher role is. And then when they forget, they get to work a shift in the dishwashing.

Then I remember, I’m sorry, I’ll scrape that pan out. But I think, running a good leadership program, taking care of your Your employees goes a long way. Like I said, I’ve got one guy in there for about 20 years, one guy, about 15 years, the other guys, about five, six years from almost day one. I don’t micromanage.

I don’t believe in micromanaging. The minute you have to turn on the micromanagement, you don’t need that person. They’re not doing something right. Give them a chance, let them cure. They can’t cure it. Cut bait and go, because you’re just going to wait more, waste more time. Bluebird, Long Island has been challenging.

It’s a different, it’s a different area, right? What community is it in on Long Island? Belmore Merrick, so South Shore by Jones Beach. Okay, so it’s not too far outside the city. No. It’s still Nassau. It’s a great community, but if you’re looking for the skill level, you’re looking in Manhattan, which is, you can look anywhere and get some skill.

Sure. It’s different. It’s different way of cooking. I brought, my way of cooking is the mentality of fine dining through casual food. So all the things. Put the herbs every day, onions one day, throw ’em out after all that stuff. They don’t necessa necessarily been through that ringer. So it’s it’s hard.

And then just, there’s been nobody around. It took me about two and a half months to find the sous chef now, and he’s doing good, and he’s got great experience, but it’s a different world. You can go fine dining, then all of a sudden you’re doing 100, 200 covers with three guys on the line.

That’s not fine dining. Where’s the other 14, so it’s a different feel. But yeah, Long Island’s been challenging. But the people you get, if you wait and you find the right person, I think that’s more key than anything else. Thank you. Don’t just fill a job, filled it with the right person, because the minute you just fill a job, it’s just going to cost you more money.

Totally agree.

And that’s something that a lot of operators right now just can’t get passed. It’s I need a warm body. I need them now. I just need the show must go on and all that. But the damage that it takes. And in likely, in all likelihood, in a couple of weeks, you’re going to be replacing that person again, and it’s just going to keep costing you money, and no operator can afford that.

Take a little extra time and, really, yeah, really vet those people. Because you’re getting someone else’s C player, I’ve always believed, when you’re just We see the signs out there still to this day. Now hiring, it’s that’s not a creative way, it’s not recruiting, it’s just getting people in the door, maybe.

Yeah. Or people aren’t showing up for their interviews because you’re looking for the wrong people. So thank you for sharing that as well. That’s excellent. That’s been the

craziest thing I’ve ever saw before in my life. The amount of people that are like, yeah, I can’t wait and don’t show up. I’ve never seen, I’ve seen it a lot.

I’ve been doing this for over 30 years, but recently the amount of people that just don’t show up for an interview. Just have the common courtesy. Hey, listen, not going to work. Can’t make it. Not going to come Don’t waste my

time.

Yeah, don’t waste my time. Or yours. I actually write that in the the blurb now.

If you’re not going to come, please don’t, yeah, just don’t bother.

Yeah. I’ve always thought that perhaps it’s because they’re collecting unemployment and they have to report where you looked for work, so yeah, I called up Albert and I got an interview on Thursday and I just didn’t, oh, I didn’t get hired there, and it’s just

Yeah.

In all honesty, I can report that I looked for a job. I didn’t want one, but I looked for one. And again, we’re talking about the wrong people. Those are not the people. You never

wanted ’em anyway. Nope. It’s just, exactly. It’s just crazy.

How about cross training? You do any of that?

Yeah. Everybody does everything. Excellent. Yeah. You can’t have one guy do one job anymore or one girl do one job. For me, the kitchen, everybody can bounce everywhere. Now, sometimes there are some skill issues where the salad guy will never touch the grill, but for the most part, they train. They can pick up a pasta, they can do things like that where you don’t have to do the temperatures, and it’s super important that everybody knows everything in front of the house too.

most Almost everybody, so during COVID, we learned this very important thing. It’s everybody needs to be a bartender. You can’t just have a bartender and the bartender needs to come on the floor, right? At one point, I didn’t have food runners, I didn’t have back waiters, it was only servers. Because at that time, if you I couldn’t have a big staff.

You aren’t making money, right? So that money that you pay for that one person needs to do everything. I had my cook. So I did a little something. Basically during COVID I gave a percentage of sales. So like the back of the house can’t get tips for New York city. So basically what I did is, all right, let me take 4 percent of top line revenue and trickle it down to everybody.

You’re going to get paid a little bit less, but as the sales come up, you’re going to end up making more. Instead of minimum wage at the time, it was 15 or 14, I don’t even remember anymore. Sure. Yeah. But they were making 20, 21 an hour with this, but they were running food too. Yes. I had cooks dropping food on tables.

Love it. It was amazing. Yeah. Since then, we stopped because now That’s teamwork. But still. Yeah. But it was amazing. And to this day, my chefs, if they have to run food, because, we’re getting slammed. They’re not going to complain. They’re going to do it. Yeah. And I left I had to change it because then like the sales didn’t start, stop going up and it plateaued and, came down a little bit.

It’s Oh, what happened? I’m getting less money. I was like, you didn’t complain on the flat out of the client, but now you’re going to complain on the 50 cent decline. I said, all right, so I changed it, but I left it with my leaders, all my leaders get a percentage of top line revenue. So they. Rather than, oh, you have to make food costs.

Oh, you have to make this. Yes, you still do, and I’m going to hold you accountable to it. But you’re also there to grow sales. So at 9. 30 and you close at 9. 45, you’re not complaining that person just sat down. You’re like, yeah, let them come in. Let them come in. Oh, yeah. We

all play a part in the restaurant’s success and whatever it takes.

Yeah. And it helps. Let’s talk about bottom line profit and finances and the importance of that in a restaurant, but even more so in a city like New York where the rents are huge and the liquor licenses are huge and the costs of doing business are huge and suddenly inflation hits, right? And you continue to have to, granted prices in New York are what they are, but people still expect value.

Yeah. And for what they’re paying for, but you got to make the numbers work. Do you get involved in that? Do you have a finance person that does that? You probably learned that maybe in school, but it’s like you’re a part of this business and it is a business. You’re not just putting out amazing food.

You’re running a business.

Yeah. Yeah, that falls on me. Pretty hard. I basically I guess I’m like CEO in the morning and line cook at night, dishwasher after that. But for me, the finances my, my face is always in there. So you got the three big expenses, the rent, the labor and goss the rent.

I’m fortunate, my partner’s in real estate, so almost everything we’re in he owns. So that help tremendously during Covid. That does, there’s an advantage. Oh, it’s a huge advantage. And great guy knows his shit. Yeah. And awesome. Definitely helps me on that part. So I could skip over that one. But then we’re labor and food costs.

Labor and food costs have been monsters, especially after COVID.

Yeah.

And I’ve got guys in my kitchen 28 an hour and I remember paying that union wages in the hotels. But so now you have to work with less. And you have to get the guys on the mindset that, all right, everybody’s getting paid well.

There’s going to be less people around. You’re going to have to do a little bit more, but I’ll pay you what you were. I just can’t afford nine of you anymore. There’s four of you. So that, that’s always been a challenge trying to get the level of food you want with the high wages. But it balanced out now, just being a chef.

And a business owner helps because then I connect the dots a lot faster than just somebody that’s not a chef. So menu changes, tweaks, things like that. And same with food costs and beverage costs, it’s okay, I don’t want to five times my wine. Let’s look for those gems.

Most of our wine is natural, organic. You’re never gonna see ’em on the shelves. So I have a little bit more wiggle room to find. I find gems that aren’t out there yet that drink like a $70 bottle of wine. Oh, sweet. But you know there’s a profit center.

Yep.

Yeah. Liquor’s always been a profit center, of course. And it has to be. Yeah, you have to make money on liquor and we do well on that. Food, I try to be as fair as possible, burrano Italian, easy. Flour and water, right? So I can rock a 24, 25 percent food cost, eyes closed. Before COVID, it used to be 23, so now it did do a creep.

There’s nothing I can do.

Let me ask you a question. While we’re on that subject, I know that you’re all about quality and, all the pastas are hand prepared and all that sort of thing, and that, to me, seems more labor intensive, even though the food cost is good. Is it balancing out, or are you finding a way to make that work, making the numbers work?

I make the numbers work because of cross training. All the sous chefs know how to make pasta. Again, we train the, whoever’s at the dishwasher to come up, the prep, do pasta. If I have to do pasta, I do pasta. It’s like the bloodline of the kitchen. Everybody has it and makes it easy.

I used to have, before COVID, I used to have two people that do pasta. Now it’s a, it’s one person she cleans in the morning and then she does pasta and then we pick up the rest. whatever’s dropped. But yeah, you can’t beat a 1. 50 to 2 on a plate and charge what you need to charge.

There’s labor, so it really doesn’t cost 2, but the food cost does. But if you can figure out the math of the cross training,

You’re away. Throw the volume in there and just keep your seats turning and filled. Okay. Very nice. That’s fantastic. I love it. What about you’ve had some media appearances and you’re a judge on Beat Bobby Flay.

Tell us about those experiences.

That’s fun. That’s definitely interesting. Yeah, I I think, I don’t know, it was the beginning of Barano. I had somebody come in for Rachael Ray. And she was gonna do something in the restaurant and they’re like, okay, buh bye. And they met me and they’re like, hey, are you okay on TV?

I was like, talking to you. I guess it’s like talking to anybody else. Sure. Why not? Give me a shot. So I did one. I was nervous. It was so like, it was nerve wracking because now it’s national, right? So I’m like, okay, whatever. And I didn’t know what I was getting myself into, but it’s such a cool, on the back end.

I know everybody enjoys it on the front end, but on the back end, first of all, Bobby’s a great chef. Anybody wants to talk shit about him? Yeah. Go side by side with him and see how you do in 45 minutes. But

I

think like the way he has it so it’s fair. It’s remarkable. So you’re basically in a green room just sitting there chilling and then, okay, let’s go.

And they round you up and you’re sitting down and they just finished cooking. So when you see them done cooking, we get these warm plates and we’re tasting and we’re, you’re getting the food as soon as they’re done and you do his food. You don’t know whose food is whose food. You taste their food, you taste the competitor’s food.

And then you put it on the scorecard. Then you go out. Then you talk about what you talked about in the back room. So you already have the winner, but you don’t know who it is when you’re eating it. But it’s just it’s warm, it’s good. I’ve done about 12? About yeah, about 10, 12 now. I love going there because it’s just It’s amazing what people accomplish in 45 seconds.

You think it’s 45 minutes. It’s amazing what they accomplish. The food is like so good. And sometimes they do braised wild boar. And I’m like, it’s something that needs three hours to do it in a,

in

a, in a fast cooker. But it’s just been an amazing thing to see, and the friends I made.

Let’s talk about the criteria, because as a judge, there’s probably certain parameters, because of course plate presentation, and flavor profiles, and ingredients, and how those ingredients work together.

together and creativity. All those things are the basics for me. And every judge probably has his own sort of biases, isn’t the right word, but what every judge might be looking for something a little different based on experience, based on what they like to eat, based. Again, explain a little let’s unpeel the oven the onion on that.

We’re going to talk oven in a minute, but peel, peel back the onion and tell me what you look for aside from those basics and it does anything really stand out to make a winner just emerge like the, yep, that’s it. No questions about it. Hands down. That’s the one. That’s the chef.

So they make it easy for us, right?

They basically give you a genre. It’s parpedelli, it’s ravioli, right? And they’ll explain what it is to us as if we didn’t know, but, they make it very For me, It’s the initial flavor, it’s smell. How does it smell when it comes to you? What’s the flavor? How’s the texture of the pasta?

How is, the acid levels? Because for me that’s very important, right? Italian food is beautifully simple, right? But for me, Italian food, I need acid, I need a little sweet. I’ve cooked in Thailand, so it did change my mind a little bit. So I’m looking for that umami, salt, sweet sour. But but when I’m looking at something that came to me it’s the whole experience, starting with the nose, then the eyes, how does it look on the plate?

And how true it is to form, right? If we’re going to talk about a nudie how is it prepared to form? Is it what a classic nudie is? Because if we’re doing a nudie challenge, Nudie is a ricotta dumpling with a little spinach inside. Just in case anybody’s listening that doesn’t know what nudie

is.

Yeah. Nudie versus gnocchi naked pasta. And there’s a few times where it’s hard and it’s the slight nuance of this is more true to form than that one is. And one of the things I did forget to say is texture. Texture is everything. How does it feel when you chew? And basically.

It sums up, and that kind of gets me going.

Certain dishes have emanated from certain regions of Italy, and then other regions have put their own spin on it, but there’s an authenticity that falls into this too. Is that important to you or are you more into the creative? We took some creative liberties with this dish.

The basics are there, but we put this spin on it. Does that work or are you more a traditionalist?

No, I’m definitely more, a little more insane in my cooking, but for me, it’s just you have to respect and understand the traditional before you can make a change to it. Because if you don’t know why they did what they did, and it goes for cocktails too, if you don’t understand the original before you change it, why are you changing it?

That doesn’t make sense, and I think that plays a lot into, How I would judge something.

You’re also about showmanship, because I’ve always believed this business is entertainment, it’s show business, and now you’ve got wood fired ovens. Is everything visible? Is it open line in your concepts?

Yeah, actually behind me is Verano. So

If you’re walking around, you can see the oven and the fire and all that. It’s part of the show.

Yeah, you got the middle wood fired oven, and then to the right is the grill, which is wood fired. It’s great. It was funny. It’s I got out in New York City, and I said, okay, now I’m gonna do a restaurant in Brooklyn, and we’re gonna do wood fire.

And there’s not that many people doing it at the time. And there comes Carmelini, which I worked with a long time, huge respect, amazing, Italian wood fired. And here comes Miss here comes Lilia, Italian wood fired and two amazing chefs. And I’m like, Oh man, here we go. I left Manhattan to go to Brooklyn to do something.

And then, two, two of these amazing chefs come in. So I’m like, okay, this is going to be fun, but it’s been great. It’s been I think we do eat, we do our own things great. And wood fire to me was reminiscent of when my grandma used to tell me how she used to cook. And she used to have an oven and she used to have to throw the logs and the coal inside to cook, to boil water, to do everything in a, in Iskia, yeah.

So there was no guests running to our house at the time. There’s a

legacy

there.

Yeah. Yeah.

So I thought that

would be a good

spin

on

doing Burano.

Yeah, I have a sort of similar story. So I lived in Italy in 1988. When I was in grad school. I did an internship and lived in Milano and I ate a lot of pizza.

And of course I traveled through Italy and I picked up some basic language skills. Never thought I’d ever be in the restaurant business. And then I started my first wood-fired pizzeria in 1996 because of all the. Inspiration that I saw, because the, it’s such a part of the Italian culture, pizza, right?

And the ovens are works of art, with the mosaic tiles, and they’re right in the middle of the floor, and all that kind of stuff. And then after I had started this restaurant, a couple of months later, I’m reading a foodie magazine. I think it was called Savour at the time, and I don’t even know if that magazine still exists, but they did this sort of feature on Neapolitan pizza and the birthplace of pizza and the whole pizza tradition, and I was so inspired by that I actually flew to Naples, and the story was about the oldest pizzeria on the planet that still exists to this day, passed down so many generations from the original founders that created the dish we know of as pizza, and I’m like, I gotta go to that place.

And I walked in the door, and there’s the beautiful oven, and there’s the pizziolos, and they’re throwing the doughs, and they’re firing it in the oven, and I’m like, wow, this is like Mecca for pizza, right? And I had very basic Italian skills, and somehow I communicated over the counter that I’ve got this pizzeria in America, and I’d really like to do things the Neapolitan way, so I just Thought I’d check it out.

Next thing the apron gets thrown over the counter. It’s come on back, and I made pizza for hours in the oldest pizzeria on the planet and learned some secrets of how they do it that I then took back to my pizzeria in America. And I’m like, that’s a hook, so I printed that on my menus and my pizza boxes and, it’s just, it’s pride and it’s about marketing and it’s about setting yourself apart from the competition.

And you’re doing that in so many ways. That’s so awesome to talk to.

Oh, thank you. It’s amazing. Talk to you as well. It’s, to share the passion with somebody else that has passion is just one of the best things.

That’s what the podcast is all about. It’s like, how do we share that passion, keep people really fired up about what they’re doing, and give them knowledge and best practices and how people like yourself run great.

and inspire people and have that leadership mindset It’s about all those things and you added a tremendous amount to the podcast. Do you have any parting words for our audience and any advice or anything on operators that are trying to set themselves apart?

Be true to yourself, listen to your customer. And more importantly than anything, I think we all work in a very tough business.

And then the most important person to take care of is yourself. And you need to invest as much time as you do in your business in yourself, because it’s grueling, it’s hard. And if you don’t take care of yourself, time goes quickly. And it’ll make you a stronger operator. If you’re happy with your life, you’ll kill it in your

industry.

That’s fantastic. Chef, thank you so much for being with us. That was the Restaurant Rockstars podcast. So glad you’re with us. Can’t wait to see in the next episode. Stay tuned, stay well. Thanks to our audience. Thanks, Chef Albert, and thank you to our sponsors of this show. See you next time. Can’t wait

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