the-restaurant-guys_2_12-07-2025_132618: 0:58

Hello and welcome back to the Charleston Food and Wine Festival. You are listening to the Restaurant guys. I'm Mark Pascal and I'm here with Francis Shot. Together, we own Stage Left and Capital Lombardi, restaurants in New Brunswick, New Jersey. We're here to bring you the inside track on food, wine, and the finer things in life. You scared me there a little bit, mark, had I do? Oh, I changed it up just a little bit.

Francis: 1:17

Well, I thought you were not gonna do the whole thing and it would've made me so sad. I just, I hear that and it makes me happy. I hope that happens to you guys out there in listener land as well. Today we have a bunch of cool interviews lined up. We have Maneet Chauhan. She is a Restaur TV personality, one of the most important Indian chefs. Uh, she's two time winner of the Tournament of Champions, only one ever. To do that, we have Carrie Moray from Callie's Hot Little Biscuits. We're gonna talk about that in just one second before she even gets here. And, uh, then we have Robert F. Moss. He's a writer editor for Southern Living and he's written a bunch of books and you know, we're a couple of Yankees down here in King Arthur's court learning about this. And he's gonna help teach us. You guys better be ready because we have some high energy people on the show today. Yeah, and like we weren't ready for Callie's Hot little biscuit, which if you are in this town. Oh, breakfast today was spectacular. My. And you know, mark and I, every time we're at a food festival or a food event like that, we're like, we sure not to eat too much breakfast. cause we have like, screw that. I don't know how I'm gonna fit the food in later on. So we, we got, biscuits from Callie's. Hot little biscuits. I didn't know biscuits could be that good. I mean, I know I'm a Yankee, but they were, they were great. Oh my god. They were great. They're savory biscuits and, and they're all made to order, and they run out of the things during the course of the day. That was fun. we even ordered something. Yeah. And then they came back to us and said, I'm sorry. The one we have is not quite good enough. Not up to our standards. I can't serve our standards. And Mark said not for any amount of money. And they said No, that really didn't happen. But I just, it made a nice end of the story. They had a goat cheese one. We had a sausage egg one. We had a sausage egg and Pimento cheese one. We had a buttermilk one, a cinnamon one, and a cheese chi one. It sounds like we had a lot of biscuits, doesn't it? That's only'cause we did. How did we, how did we do that? There were a lot of us. We each took a little bite of, one little bite of the other little biscuits are not light food. This is not a salad, ladies and gentlemen. It's, but yeah, super excited to talk to her later on. Yeah, it's, it's, it's gonna be a fun show. like I said, there's gonna be a lot of energy in the folks we're gonna be talking to today. so. It looks like Monit has arrived and we're ready for our first guest. Let's get right to it. Francis. I'm with you.

the-restaurant-guys_2_11-15-2025_124148: 3:15

Hey everybody. Welcome back. Our next guest is a chef Restaur author television star man. Chohan has built a career that spans continents and cuisines. She's a James Beard Award-winning chef, co-founder of Morph Hospitality Group in Nashville, and the creative mind behind restaurants like Chohan Ale and Masala House. you may know her as a judge in the food networks Chopped. She's authored cookbooks, championed Indian flavors across the American. Dining, landscaping continues to push boundaries. We couldn't be more thrilled to have her on the show. And we can't forget. Two time champion of Tournament Champion, right? Yes. Who's counting? I'm, I'm, I'm just kidding. Everybody's counting every, especially the One Time Champions. Oh yes, absolutely. Or the no time. Oh, oops. Ouch. Yeah. It's the, it's the bubble stalking. Yes. Yeah. Well, so it's crazy. So I just, I came from a seminar with you where you were with some other friends. Uh, were giving a kind of a moss. stories and cocktails and you each presented a cocktail in a story and, um, your cocktail was with food. You cheated. The others were mad. I, I don't, I don't think it was, uh, it was cheating. It was just a, you know, it was like when you are having a cocktail and imagine if you can drink, you know, eat the glass too. Mm-hmm. That's pretty much what I did, and this was an homage to Street Foods of India, and that's something that I grew up with. I think that they are so memorable, they're so flavorful, and they was. Something so forbidden about having those, you know, they're these Lina puffs which look pan. Yeah. Pan PUIs. Yeah. They look like ping pong balls. Yeah. And we put some mi cilantro water with some tequila and, and you have a bite of it and you. To me, I think it is what this industry was about, right? Like, you know, we, we, we were all renegades. Like, it, it, when we started in this industry, it wasn't a cool industry to be. And you were like, oh, you're a chef, really. And now it's become cool. And I think that's what I always correlate the panipuri bites too. my mom scolded me and she told my grandmother that I was working, in finance in New York City. So that she couldn't tell her that I was working in a restaurant. In a restaurant. Yeah. I have since named a restaurant after my grandmother. Okay. Her mother. Still, my mother's like, yeah, when are you gonna quit that restaurant? Yeah. Yeah. My dad, my dad kept asking me if I was gonna go to law school or not until I was in my, almost my forties. But you know, he ate the restaurant. But the panty pour, so the panty pour is a little chickpea thing that you fill with lick it, and you do pop it in your mouth and have the whole thing at once in one bite. It's amazing. So, you know, I had it so. I'm a big fan and I'd never had a Panny por before, but this year we went to Rajesh Bar's place, um, Jan. Jan in New York City. Yes. And they do a little course of three or four of them as an appetizer. And so now I'm a huge, huge fan of the panty por. It is on each and every menu that I do. And it is so interesting. And for the longest time, you know, when I was a young chef, I used to really resist putting this on the menu because I'm like, oh, this is so pedestrian. I'm a chef. I need to be chefy. And then you're like. No, the real chefs are these street food vendors who have limited resources and they still create such incredible flavors. Like we might get the fanciest of, you know, uh, equipment. Mm-hmm. And we are like, okay, you know what? With this, if you can make good food, good for you. I am just like, I am obsessed with the humble like, and this in India is a really humble street ingredient that was one of the cool things about that movie chef, right? Yeah. All of a sudden it was okay. It was cool to create really good food, a very limited space, right? And. You know, we've all been doing that, right? We've all worked in kitchens that were way too small for the amount of food we were putting out. It's, it's just the story of, restaurants, and I think that movie really kind of gave people a little insight into, okay, there's not a lot of space. You gotta, you gotta keep it in a, within a certain boundary, but you can still make really cool food and you are wrong. It was always cool. We just knew it and other peoples did. But secondly, I think that the other thing that you bring, because you are bringing Indian cuisine to America and you know, you talked in earlier about how Indian cuisine is in London and Ireland for 20 years, right? Yep. but kind of coming in some of our cities up to snuff now. But when you talk about, oh, I brought this humble street food, it reminds me of a conversation I had with Mark. So Mark, when we were o uh, gonna, we're looking to open the second restaurant, what was the cuisine gonna be? And his grandmother, Catherine Lombardi, which is the name of our restaurant, was an amazing cook. And Mark said to me, Francis, we can't open a restaurant with just food like this. This is just the food that everybody has at home. I was like, here's where you're wrong, mark. Everybody does not have this food at home. You have this food at home and so it's simple to you, but let's show it to everybody else. And 20 years later, the restaurant's still there. The same thing with the panty pour. The same thing with Raj Baral. Yeah. Yeah. You say, oh, it's just simple food. Everyone will think it's simple food. Nobody else to f it is. Yeah. It could be the most elegant thing in the world. And it was elegant. So you had the opportunity to bring a cuisine that wasn't really known'cause you were so early, and kind of define how America sees real Indian food. It's, it's actually amazing, you know, as you were mentioning earlier, TOC two, when I won that, I won it on two Indian dishes. There was one street food dish, which was like, so goat was one of the ingredients. So it was like this almost an Indian sloppy Joe. Right. And then the second one was, so that was, uh, the everyday food and then like, so it was a low class, high class. Right? Right. And the high class was, I made this saffron and this really rich nut, uh, meatball, which is called a gustaba. I was standing over there when they were about to announce who's going to win, and I was like, in my mind, I was practicing how I'm going to say congratulations, like my speech, because I'm like Indian food at, at this level, right? With 32 of the best chefs in the country, it's not going to to win because in, in my mind there was a time that you're like, you know, you still consider it ethnic food. It's still like not mainstream food. And the fact that I won. To me, it was not that win, which by the way was on my birthday, which Oh, that's awesome. I'm like, I, I keep on telling everybody, I'm like, top that birthday gift, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But to me it was the fact that I have been for so long, talking about the beauty of Indian film. Yeah. That I was able to represent it on such a large scale and unabashedly, Eric Rupe was one of our judges, and he was like. You have never eaten a sloppy Joe. And I'm like, that's it. This is it. Love it. And, and then he, he ate like one of the dish and he's like, this is a happy dish. Mm-hmm. And I'm like, I can die right now. Yeah. Put them up by tombstone and I'm done. Happy. Like, because that's what we are like as you know, hospitality professionals. Yeah. We want to evoke that feeling like deep feelings of. Pride, the deep feeling of happiness when we serve our food or when people come to our restaurant, we want them to feel that. And if in one statement or if in one moment somebody feels that you're like, my job here is done. You know it, it's funny, I often talk about winemakers, right? I, I'll, I'll make an analogy with wines and. You'll find a lot of winemakers, some of them legitimate, some of them made up who have a story. You know, my great-grandfather planted on the steepest hill and the nor the oldest fines, and my grandmother brought it over and he til it with his aunt. Yeah. And what Mark and I always say is I don't care. About your grandfather. Unless the wine is good, right? Yes. So everybody has a, and that sounds cruel, right? But we go to wine tastings and you know, in Italy, it's in Italy is harder than tasting one in New York.'cause they wanna start with the whole saga and then taste you on the wine. I'm like, look, your grandfather was great, you've let'em down. This wine isn't very good. Let's go next guy. So it's making great food or great wine is the starting point to bring you into my story. Agreed. and all this wound up with you making shitty food is not a great story. It doesn't matter, you know, I'm like, don't throw your grandfather onto the bus. That's what, on your grandfather. It's all you. But seriously, you know, we were, we, you know, there's a lot of pressure with naming your restaurant after your grandmother. Okay, and I'll, and I'll tell you, and, and it's a story we've told on the show a couple of times. Somebody made a mistake in my kitchen. Now remember, we have two kitchens, one's on first floor, one's on the second floor. Oh, that's, and it was friends and family and my aunt and uncle. My aunt was Catherine Marty's daughter. And the food comes out and everything's just a little wrong. And one of the flavors in there, everything. And I mean, everything, everything, everything we touch is just we, we did something in the test kitchen. It was great. Ign wrong, something's not quite right with every dish. my aunt is turning to my mom. She's like, he's gonna go outta business. This food is terrible. This is awful. I can't believe how bad this is. You have to tell him how bad it is. It's so bad. Okay? Turns out what had happened was somebody put coriander in a pepper mill. In all the pepper mills, right? So, so somebody refill all the pepper mills with coriander, it a blend, peppercorns and coriander. So whenever you put pepper on anything, you put coriander on everything. And in Italian food, that's the worst thing you could possibly do as coriander. I'm just about this. I know. Now I was friends and family and we, and, and obviously no, there was no snappy snap. There was no snappy snap. Oh my god. What's wrong? She was pulling her hair out for hours trying to figure this out. The pressure of naming something after the, after your grandmother, and the pressure of, of trying to create food that is at the level that she was creating. It is, it's real. And every day I walk into that restaurant and I'll, I'll taste the meat gravy. I'll taste some, some dish, and I'm like, oh no. There's not enough beef in the me gravy. We gotta fix this. I have two restaurants, But it feels different when I'm in Kale. Lombardi, you know, stage left gets it wrong. You're like, okay, this didn't get emulsified. We need to fix it, you know? Yeah. Whatever. but in Kath Lombardi, I'm like, Hey, it's wrong. It's so true. I mean, it's like even with our first restaurant, Johan Alan Masala house. Mm-hmm. Uh, I did not want to name it Johan, first of all. Mm-hmm. First of all, because it's, it's, it's a challenge pronouncing it. Right, right. But. That's my dad than my grandad. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Fact, it's a responsibility. Fact is it's a responsibility. And there is, you know, like, um, and I am one of those people, like by, when, when I got married, um, it was, it was later in life. So, you know, I was already established as Mannie Johansson never went ahead and changed my last name. Right. So. That's a responsibility that you carry. It is the legacy of your family that you carry. And to me, like if you ask me today that, oh, what was your grandmother's cooking? Or What was your grand, I will never be able to pinpoint on a dish. But what I would be able to pinpoint on the fact is that she was a freaking kick-ass lady. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Who was who? Not only in a time when women were not. We're barely tolerated in India. Right, right, right. That she's like, I'm going to start my own business. there was a time I remember on the dining table, my mom was doing her bachelor's, my dad was doing his master's, and my sister and I, we were in school. Right. The four of us around the dining table were studying together. That's awesome. And, and that was because our dad learned from his mom that, hey, women are just such an integral and such a revered part of the society and the community that I've gotta support them in whatever way I can. Yeah. And that, and I think that is what it is. Like we talk about all of these flavors and these memories from our grand, our grandparents. But it's the values that they taught us is the reason why we are sitting over here. Yes. It's like the, the resilience, the, the persistence. Like my grandmom would talk about, partition when India and, Pakistan had a partition and they, and she's like, your, your, your dad was a year old and we walked across the border. I was gonna say, your family was displaced in the partition. And you're like, this is it. And my, my mom's grandmom is like, like she, um, a mom. She's like, we were dressed as men and literally our, dads and our uncles said that if we get stopped by a mob, we'll shoot both of, both of you. her and her cousin before we shoot ourselves like. These are the stories that you hear growing up. Yeah. And you are like, and then you realize how fortunate you are, oh my God, that these are the genes that you live with and these are the genes that you celebrate and, and it's your responsibility Absolutely. To really celebrate it. So, yeah. Well it has served you really well and I, and I, one of the things I, I wanted to touch on just a little bit is. the TV chef. Restaurant chef, right? There's a, there's something that's happening in, in that world right now. We're going through a another change here and. It's a unique skill set, and I think that a lot of people think that, oh, you're a chef. You're automatically gonna be bubbly and friendly and, and connect with people and Right for TV and right for tv. But that's a whole separate skill in and of its own, you have to be able to communicate through your food to people. But most chefs, and what this is, what most chefs lack is to be able to communicate on the same level. To people through your voice and through how you present yourself and how, how you make people feel and your food. Again, in, in Chef world, what you had to do was communicate that through the food. Yeah. Now you have this, this television, food personality where you really have to be both and I, I think that you and obviously some other people that have been on the show really. Show us what that is. I think it's exactly what you guys are doing, right? When you're talking about, you know, your grandmom's food, you know, for us as chefs, because we, for the longest time were in, in the back, right? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And the only way we could show our love or our passion was through that one bite that somebody was taking through the window. Yeah. Right? And that was it. Like that was the starting and that was the end of it. And now it is when you, you go, like on tv, you are. Otting how good your food would be without the whole world. Even getting the opportunity to taste it. Taste it. That's true. But that's not the tough part. Mm-hmm. The tough part is when those people walk into your restaurant, it better be there. You've got to sell the story. It better be there. Right? Yeah. And to me, I think that is one of my biggest things. I feel, I feel really grateful that I have this platform where I can, um. I'm passionate about it, right? Like this is what it is. And if you would have had this conversation with me 20 years back, I would not have been able to have this conversation because I'm like, yeah, coriander, yeah, yeah, yeah. Indian food. Give me all the coriander you have in your restaurant. I'll put it in mine. But now I'm at that stage where I, where I meet people, right? And and, and they are like, oh, we love your food. Have you tasted my food? No, you know that you love food. That's great. That's really funny. That's great'cause, because we've sold the story and there has to always be that follow through. And if there isn't that follow through, then you are not only letting you know your entire team down, you're letting yourself down. And that, I think that is like. The biggest mistake that you can do? Well, one of the things you do when you go on these shows is there's a cadre of people who want to go to your restaurant and have it not be great. Yeah. Oh, yes. Okay. There's, there's a cadre of people like, ah, she's a pretender. There's no way, and. You just have to rise above that. And clearly you have. I mean, you just, you know what I'm gonna tell you, I'm gonna create so much controversy by saying this, go ratings, downloads, downloads to me. I'm, I'm telling you, the most disappointing fact about this entire thing is that I have been such a, a strong. Supporter voice, like I've been screaming from the, you know, rooftops about Indian food, about how beautiful it is. Mm-hmm. About how in incredible it is. But over the years, of course, I have gone ahead and a adjusted my menu based on what my audience is. Of course. Yeah. Our biggest critics are fellow Indians. Right. where they're like, this is not how my grandma made it. I'm not your fricking grandmom. I love that. Uhhuh. How can I, how can, how can you expect me? Because how in India, there were five houses around, you know, around us. And I would eat at everybody's house. And even if it was the same dish, it tasted completely different, right? Yes. So Instead of pulling us down, how about saying that, Hey, you have put Indian food on a national platform and we are so proud that people can come and talk to us about this. It's beyond the chicken tika masala. And that to me, till date, like, you know, it hurts because you're like, your own people are not supporting you and you're like. But you know, the Irish are famous for that. Like, you know, I think everybody say in Ireland, people are like, bono. He's not so great. Yeah. See the Italians, we just wanna put all the rest of you down but there's a, there's a real thing about immigrant cuisine. Immigrant cuisine generally. You are not, I think most people when they open, whether it's an Italian restaurant or a French restaurant, or a Polish restaurant or a Scandinavian restaurant in America, you're not seeking to replicate exactly what the cuisine was, where it came from. You're bringing those principles and sometimes those, some of those ingredients and those methods and that sensibility to a new place where there are new ingredients. You know, and I, and I think that it's supposed to evolve. I mean, do, is that your view of it? I agree. I mean, like when people say that this is not authentic Indian, I'm like. Okay. Hold on. Hold my glass. Let's speak about authentic Indian. Yeah. What is authentic Indian tomatoes are not authentically Indian. Right, right, right, right. They came like, you know? Absolutely. They like chilies. Chilies are not authentic Indian. They came from Mexico. Right, right, right. It is the cross migration that has made a cuisine so much richer. Right. Chicken, tea, ka masala non, which everybody thinks is Indian, is not remotely Indian. Right. It's not Indian. That's, I did not know. 13th, 14th century. Of course. Eating and cooking was much better than, history for me. So don't quote me on the years, but we had that entire mi uh, Persian migration. So if you look at that entire belt, like, you know, if you go, uh, all the way from Persia to India, you will see an entire belt of, uh, breads, which are being made in Thurs, which are under, Under the ground. Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. And then we went ahead and met Ur, which were above the ground. So, so it's not Indian. There is so much of the Mughal influence. There is so much of, I mean, India has, Portuguese influence, right? Yeah, yeah. In Goa, right, there is Goa, right? there is Chinese influence in, in Eastern India there is, French influence in, in ary. So. In the end of the day, if you really talk about authentic food mm-hmm. I would say that it's raw meat that is available in that area. Exactly. Or, or vegetables. Because even when you're talking about fruits or vegetables, it was, it's not, you know, they were seeds which were got, they were ingredients which were got, which were planted over there. So it's, it's really. The beauty about food is the evolution of food and, and I should continue to evolve. And I think that is what makes it so incredible and amazing. So yeah, I'm like authentic food. I'm sorry. You're not going to get authentic food. You're get going to get food authentic to beneath. Yes. I love it. Right. I love it. But you'll not get authentic Indian food because you know, you don't know what the fuck think an info is. Nor do I I by the way,'cause it's like the whole history of you. Okay. I'm totally, you know where you are. Authentic. That's what you are. Okay. Sorry, I'm totally commissioning a t-shirt. Your picture on it with a finger pointing up and it's gonna say, you don't know what the fuck append Indian food is. That's what I want and I'm gonna send it to you for Christmas. Or any append food. Like even if you take, you know, like Italian food, Italian American food is very different from Chinese like noodles and past. Hey, I'm just going to leave it out in the world. Go ahead and do your research on it, Marco. Right? Polo Marco. Polo. Polo, yeah. Um, Mannie. Absolutely. This has been great. You're wonderful. You're a ball of fire and you have to come up on a show. We'll do a longer show on Indian food in general later. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. As long as there's sparkling wine and Wal, you'll get so much content from me. Fantastic. Extraordinary. Alright, we're gonna let you go back to the Charleston Food and Wine Classic, as are we gonna interview some other folks. It's been lovely to have you. Thank you so much. You're terrific. Thank you. You can find out, you can find out more about Maneet of course, in the show notes and uh, more@restaurantguyspodcast.com where you can learn more about us too.

the-restaurant-guys_2_11-14-2025_172608: 25:50

Once again, coming to you from the Charleston Food and Wine Classic. We're excited to sit down with someone who embodies the spirit and the flavor of the south. Carrie Morey is the founder of Cali's Hot little biscuit, bestselling cookbook, author, TV personality, and one of Charleston's most beloved culinary ambassadors. Carrie, welcome to the show. Thank you for having me. This is so fun. Welcome to Charleston. Yes, we're glad. We love it here. This is our second visit. It's not a bad place. The food's great here. It's really, it's really neat. Food is insane and the people are nice. Yeah, of course. It's, we better be. Yeah. Well it's, it's the reputation. All holds true. Mm-hmm. Alright, so we have to start off with, your name is Carrie. Yes. And your shop is Callie's? Yes. Why did you do that To people? Well, or yourself. Yeah, I know, but you know what? It's so much easier to sell. Something that isn't, I'm not really good at like touting myself Uhhuh. So obviously the original recipe came from my mom, Callie, and when I opened the restaurant was years after we started the e-commerce business. And I thought about just calling it hot little biscuit. But my mom, it's, it's really easy to say my mom has the best biscuits. I'm not really good at saying, yeah, everybody's mom says that. True, true. And she does have the best biscuits. So, I don't know, it just seemed more authentic for me to be able to. About her? Well, in, in our restaurants, I will, I tell people all the time and they're like, oh, how's your lasagna? Like. It's the third best lasagna I've ever had. My grandmothers, my mothers and ours. It's, oh, that's a good answer. Can't you? Can't say it's the best lasagna I've ever had. It's not the best lasagnas I've ever had. Right. It's literally the third best lasagna. And Mark's grandmother can cook it for you because she's not around. Yeah. Mark's mother won't because she won't. We'll, and pay for it and have it. There you go. Alright. So I have to say though, um, we don't have biscuits in the north. We went to your shop today and ordered like four different biscuits and biscuit sandwiches. Holy commode. Uh, they were, and again, anybody, any of our listeners knows this. I, if I don't mean it, I don't say it. They were the best biscuits I've ever had in my life. Yeah, hundred percent. Love that. I love that. Period. End of story. Never get sold here and that they were the best I've ever had. why I was gonna tell you, my team, I ran in to get a bowl and some salt and pepper that I needed for this next course. And they told me that. That y'all came in mm-hmm. And y'all ordered the sticky. Yes. And I was so proud of my team because they were like, it's been sitting too long, we can't do it. Tell you, I was so, love you so much. I was so proud of your team, because sometimes you just have to say, you know what, this will not be the way we want it to be. I, I mean, nothing makes me happier and, and I'm sorry I'd rather be out of it. and you come back and have it the way it's supposed to be. Mm-hmm. just like, okay, frankly I don't sell you a piece of fish that's a day older than it. It should have been. Right. Right. you know, I could see somebody getting mad like, well, it's back there. Why don't you give it to me? Well. I, I wouldn't give you an old piece of fish. I'm not giving you a right. a bun that's been sitting around too long and a stale. Well, and, and totally one, one of the things that we always say to, to our chefs, and our chef's been with us for a long time, so we don't need, don't need to preach to our chefs, but doing any consulting and when we began was, I'm like, listen. I would rather risk running out something on a Saturday night than having so much prep that I'm selling day old stuff mm-hmm. That I don't wanna sell. Right. Exactly. You know, if you want a restaurant that, that is seasonal and local and, and crafted, they're gonna run out stuff. Sometimes it's funny. Don't, it's a problem when we, when we get Right. Exactly. When we cook cooks from other places, I think sometimes they don't believe us. When we're like. No, you, you have to run out of stuff sometimes or you're cooking too much stuff, you're selling old stuff, right? Mm-hmm. we had bartenders way back when, who used to make sure they had prepped enough lemon juice or lime juice. Well, they were always selling one or two day old lemon juice or lime juice, fresh squeezing lime juice and letting day fresh squeeze isn't, isn't two day old. This is aged lime juice today. Yeah, exactly. But we, you could just buy it if you're gonna do that. Right. So I was super proud of your team too. I didn't tell them, but I was super proud of your team too. Alright. Alright. So we can describe that they were amazing. Can you tell us what makes your, I mean your, they're. Just the right amount of crunch on the outside. They just fall apart perfectly in your hands. And they're savory in the middle. We don't have biscuits like that. We do not have it. We have a taste that I need to come up and make biscuits y'all and sell'em to your We'll do a biscuit takeover. A biscuit. I love it. Why don't you come up, we'll do a biscuit popup. I would love that. Oh, that's in the making. Let, I hope I'm gonna, this could pop up. I think that's two different. Pieces Bread. That's popover. That's a popover. Yeah. Yeah. So tell us what makes a great biscuit. A great biscuit. So, well, there, there are a few things, but number one, making'em by hand is the most important because then you don't overwork the dough, right? Mm-hmm. If you put it in a mixer, it's just, it's gonna go to hell. They're always dense. And I have biscuits and gravy in the north, like, but they're always dense. I'm like, I get it. How that could be good. But it's not like what you made today. Yeah, they should be super tender. The dough should be really wey when you're pulling it together, and a lot of people will think that they put too much moisture in the dough, but that's what keeps it from drying out and being this heavy hockey puck. It would, yeah, but then you want that good crust on the top crust. It should be delicious. Should like a down pillow melt in your mouth and you take the bite. Well, you know, you're making me hungry, but you also brought us some biscuits. I see here. I did. What did you bring us here today? So, Wes are serving this afternoon at our take on a cucumber sandwich in the south. You know we have tea sandwiches. Mm-hmm. Uhhuh. So this is an open face cheese and chi with my delicious dip, which is. A delicious dip. I got'em. And a cucumber and a potato sticks.'cause I need texture and crunch. Mm-hmm. And I love a potato and a chip. Mm-hmm. So that is the first one. And then amazing. The second is a lemon dill open face biscuit with our pickled shrimp. Now do y'all know pickled shrimp? No. Okay, so in the south that is like, is as important as a biscuit. Pickled shrimp, ham, biscuits. You basically take capers and onions and garlic and bay leaves and vinegar and olive oil. Sounds like a ceviche, but with vinegar. Delicious. And then it's delicious. My wife just put a napkin in my lap, by the way, way akin. That's what we call those. Wow. This is amazing. So you get all that good jus in there and it should just like also be a down pillow, melting your mouth of that perfect little low country shrimp. So is it traditional? So the nice thing about visiting your shop is you have the basic, the biscuits are, the biscuits themselves are amazing, but then. You have them made into different sandwiches and are, is that a traditional way to use a biscuit in the south or, or are you blazing new trails? So what originally happened when we opened the store 11 years ago is we only did those biscuit sandwiches on Saturdays and Sundays, and we only served the hot littles because I grew up with little biscuits. My grandmother was like, it's not lady like diet a big biscuit, and they're tender when they're smaller. But people wanted the breakfast biscuit, so we had to figure out a way to. Make'em big, make'em into a sandwich, but also keep them tender. Mm-hmm. And so bacon, egg and cheese, sausage, egg, and pimento. I spent three years in New York and it was kind of fashioned after like my favorite bodegas in New York. And they were all these like super skinny places, no seeding. Like you sit at the gro or stand at the grown bar and you eat and you have your coffee or even an intake. That's what we did. Yeah. And I did that too, and I just love that. Walk and go. I mean, biscuits are not, I wouldn't sit down to eat a plate of biscuits. I'd get it. And it's like a handheld, yeah, yeah. Well, we sat down, we had a plate of biscuits. Yeah, sorry. Sorry. We sat down. Sorry. I sat down. I love it. I love it. I love it. But I also saw, yeah, that you have. Those are the devil's work. By the way. I saws and I'm gonna open right here. These are cheese wafers. I'm gonna keep eating shrimp cheddar cheese wafers in a bag like Snackables. Like take them on the airplane. Tell me about these. Okay, so my, because I just wanna say they're not inexpensive. Nope. But then I looked at the ingredients and the ingredients are. Butter cheese. Yeah. Flour and spices. Yeah. So this is like, uh, in the south, cheese straws are really big. Mm-hmm. This is my grandmother's cheese straw recipe. It's got a little backend heat with the cayenne. This is, I can eat an entire bag today. Fridays are cheese wafer days. And I walk in and I can s, as soon as I open my car door, I can smell'em and I go straight to the thing and they hand me hot piles of them in my hand and I can't resist. You always know when something's really good because Francis eats three of them before he offers one to anyone else. Hold bag there. They're really good. That's how it goes down. It's, I get one if I'm lucky. In this case, it'll be the fifth one because he offered one to you. I'm, those are the only choices I'm gonna tell right now. You were in the middle of downtown Charleston. You were on, is it King Street? King Street On King Street. I, that was right in the middle of everything. Yes. Literally right in the middle of everything. Mm-hmm. What's it like down here in Charleston doing what you do? You know, and you have obviously have a broader influence than just Charleston. We've been down here twice this year and, um, the quality of the food's amazing and the quality of life walking down the street's. Amazing. what's it like being, being part of this? Well, I grew up here. I mean, I'm born and raised and it, it was very different growing up, but it still had this really small community feel. I love that you said everyone's so nice. I can remember walking down the street down Broad Street with my dad when he was going to work and everybody. You know, hi, how are you? Mm-hmm. And I look up at him and say, do you know them? Say no, but you gotta speak to everybody. Yeah. You know, and it's just, that's the southern way. It's our mentality. Everybody's a friend. Everyone gets invited up on the porch for a drink, come to supper. Like you, we, you know, we invite strangers to Christmas and Thanksgiving dinner. And that's just the way I was raised. And, and that hasn't changed. You know, I don't know why this is ingrained in me, but it, but it, it is, even when I was at college, you know, Rutgers is this big campus with 50,000 students, you know, downtown New Brunswick. I, I would just say hello to people as I walk by. Yeah. And people would say hello back. And you know what? When you're walking from class to class and you're going to the same classes all the time, you walk past the same people all the time. And it's better if you say hello. It's better if you're gracious. And you know what, then all of a sudden you see that guy at the bar and you strike up a conversation. Yes. Or you, you see that other person, uh, in it sits next to you in a class and, and you already have a relationship and it's just being courteous. It's, it's, and you're making, keeping your eyes up someone's day. That's important to, because you just never know who's having a bad day. Mm-hmm. So if you smile at someone and say, hello. it's energy, positive energy that you're putting out, you'll get that back. You know, I'm gonna guess that people like it more when you smile at them and say hello than when I do. But still, you don't believe that. So listen, any final words of wisdom before we, uh, we get, let you go back to the Charleston Food and Wine. Just more biscuits. More biscuits with butter. Eat'em for supper. Eat'em for breakfast, lunch, dinner, all the things. Uh, I, I think that I shouldn't do that one Biscuit a day is not gonna hurt you. Take it from me. The Apple Day may keep the doctor away, but you know. Screw that. Have a have, have a biscuit. Anyway, it's been super nice. Uh, so nice to welcome. I'm so glad I got to meet y'all. Thank you for coming. We're we're really glad you came and joined us today and we had a wonderful time. Your place today, I can't wait to tell my team. I'm so proud. Thanks. It's gonna be grand and you can find out more about Callie's Hot Little Biscuits they ship@restaurantguyspodcast.com. We'll put it in the show notes, uh, and we'll be back in just a moment.

the-restaurant-guys_2_11-15-2025_131025: 37:03

Hey there everybody. Welcome back. Our next guest, needs no introduction down here in Charleston, South Carolina. But for the sake of those just learning about the South and for our international listeners, Robert F. Moss is one of the South's essential culinary storytellers. He's the author of six books, A long time Contributing barbecue editor for Southern Living, and he is a restaurant critic for the Post and Courier, where his voice has helped shape how this city, and frankly, how the whole region understands its cultures. He has, chronicled Pitmaster poets, bakers Butchers, and everybody else down here. It's a pleasure as long as we're down here to talk with Robert Moss. Robert, welcome to the show. Well, thanks. Appreciate you having me on. Yeah, I, this is, uh, this is pretty cool. You're, I mean, you're the barbecue guy in. The Carolinas. In the Carolinas. Yeah. Yep. And you know, we're still living and cover the entire south, uh, but you know, born and raised in the Carolinas. So Carolinas still is sort of the heart of what I cover. I love that such a thing as a barbecue editor exists at all. So you had me at, hello. Can you tell us about what you do as a barbecue editor, by the way? Also, I think. I would like an email from everybody in our listening audience who would themselves, like to one day be the barbecue editor of something. I, I will clarify. I'm the contributing barbecue editor for Okay. For Southern Living. That, that title means, I'm a freelancer, but I write regularly for Southern Living. Okay. Uh, and what I do for them is I travel around the south. This is not making it sound like a hard job. I travel around the south eating barbecue, and writing it up. And, you know, the hard part is the writing it up part, the, the traveling around and eating is a good part. Um, we do a couple different things every year. We do a, uh, top 50 barbecue list every two years or so. Ours just came out in September for 2025. And then in between we'll do like the best new barbecue list and things like that. And then I'll do a whole lot of features. So I'm actually, I'm heading out, uh, tonight. To the Dunlin, to south s our, a big, uh, low country, tailgate, barbecue event and interviewing a bunch of people out there. And some of that stuff will show up in a big feature, story in the magazine. It always takes longer than I think to get into the print, but it'll probably be out sometime May, June. It'll show up in the pages, so I'll write profiles. Well, I wanna tell you, as a Northerner jersey boy, I discovered barbecue. Like I had always heard about barbecue. We had some okay barbecue in New York, but when Danny Meyer brought in the barbecue fest to New York City, yep, we did a restaurant guy's, two-parter from there and we got to meet all the Q Masters and Mark and I went around. We had a great time. But that's when I first learned about the complexity and that there was all this whole world that I didn't know of in barbecue. So I think it's really interesting to talk about what the best of this or the best of that. But can you give us a little thumbnail of like there's what the different types of barbecue, North Carolina barbecue, Texas barbecue, how, what are the different styles and broad strokes. And it's interesting you mentioned the big Apple barbecue Fest and that was at the time where I think the country as a whole was waking up to barbecue. Mm-hmm. Yes. Uh, that had long sort of been. A southern thing that Southerners know about. And then for so long in the South it had been very regionalized. So I grew up in Greenville, South Carolina, which is in the western part of, of the state. Uh, and its barbecue is sort of like the Piedmont of North Carolina. That little region, which is pork shoulders. And then, uh, vinegar sauce. Yeah, with a little bit of tomato in, it's a red vinegar sauce and, and, and things like that. I went to graduate school in Columbia, South Carolina, a hundred miles down the road, and I'd never eaten mustard based barbecue. Mm-hmm. Uh, sauce in my life, Uhhuh. I never had hash and rice in my life until I went down there, and that was in the nineties. Since then, people's awareness of barbecue is just. Sprung up. And so now you, you could have asked that question and most people couldn't tell you more than just the, the style that's in their region. Right. But you know, you often will hear there are four major barbecue regions. There's the Carolinas, there's Texas, there's Memphis, and there's Kansas City, which is grossly reductive, Okay. But be grossly reductive. Yes.'cause we only have a few minutes. Tell me what the difference is among those four major styles. So the major styles, so Texas is gonna be about, about beef, you know? Mm-hmm. And, and these days at least, brisket. The, the Texas Trinity is brisket, uh, pork, ribs and sausage. That's what sort of the classic Texas barbecue plate is. And the Carolinas is pork. You know, and if you say, in fact, when I grew up, if you say gimme some barbecue and you handed somebody a beef of brisket, they say, what's that? That, that, that's not barbecue. Just, you know, I'm one of those guys. Yeah. It's gotta be pork. Do not hand me beef. When I say pork, we don't pull, we don't have pulled pork in the Carolinas. Mm-hmm. At least until recently it's always was chopped up until, until now. But in the Carolinas, it's gonna be. Pork of some sort with a different types of sauce. Uh, but that's what the style here, Memphis style, very similar to the Carolinas and it's pork based. The sauce though is sort of a thick, brown, sweet and tangy mm-hmm. Kind of sauce. And they have a lot of other different, different meats on there. Um, it's, that's sort of been like the, the major ones. Kansas City is a world of its own with, uh, they'll, they'll put basically any animal on a pit and they, and they dress it. And if you think of your Casey masterpiece or your classic Store bought barbecue sauces. Those are all essentially Kansas City style. Okay. That was bar borrowed from Kansas City for complicated reasons to, I took over the commercial world in the, the eighties and nineties. Uh, but then you get all kinds of subregional barbecue styles and know from county by county. You like Kentucky. There's a little counties in Kentucky with the unique things. Florida has unique stuff, so it's. that's the four big ones, but yeah, there's lots of variation in the facets within art. I have a business plan for you. You offer a degree in this stuff and people sign up and you take them around. It's, that's right. The tasting courses, four, six week course over the course of a year. I'm, I'm in, I'm in absolutely and then hill country and places like that. Mm-hmm. Brought Texas style up to, to New York and that was blue smoke and those, those kind of places. So Texas Sort has had its, and daisy rise and Daisy Mace whole hog barbecue. Yep. Yeah, that was great. All right. Enough. Enough of the walk down memory lane. What's the status of barbecue today? Is it, is it, are we losing some of that regional flavor We are definitely changing and evolving now. I wrote a book called Barbecue, the History of American Institution, which is a full length history barbecue going all the way back to the culinary era. And to be fair to our, to our audience. Yep. Okay. Robert starts off as a historian, right? That's right. That's how I got into the, that's the base of this is I wanna know about history and I wanna know how it happened, where it came from. So please continue. So from a historical set it mindset, it's always been evolving. Mm-hmm. And I can talk about how it's changed every few decades over, over the time. We are in a major evolution right now. Um, barbecue almost died. In fact, I say the low point of American barbecue was 1982, which is the year that McDonald's introduced to McRib. All the mighty McRib and barbecue joints were closing left and right. All the pitmaster were stopping cooking on wood and we're starting to switch to gas. Cookers and closing doors and people lost interest in barbecue, but then it started to come back in the nineties and the really, in the two thousands barbecue competitions. What do you attribute that to? Barbecue competitions was a big factor. Mm-hmm. That, that's where it took off. Uh, food network and other wall to wall television. Uh. Ga Fieri, you can't underestimate the impact he's had. Cannot. Yep. Driving around highlighting Barbie, you became cool in the early two thousands. People, it kind of came back at, people were interested in it. It kind of came back at the same time as the blues, like you didn't hear a lot of blues up north in the eighties. It was just about that. And then in the nineties. Every band in a bar was a blues band. Yep, yep. And so we went through that sort of revival, if you will, and you get a lot of the craft barbecue guys who were looking to the past cooking on wood again, but they'd taken it really serious. They trying to use like prime brisket and trying to, you know, slow smoke it, you had lots of guys picking up whole hog barbecue, which is almost outta away. And so it was almost like a neo traditionalist kind of movement where people sort of looked to the past and started creating it. Now we're in this moment where. Everybody makes slow smoked, great prime brisket. Lots of people do whole hogs, by the way, there better be some barbecue at this festival because I'm, there is definitely some tonight I'm, I'm just telling you, there are lots of people who listen to this podcast while driving. They have to pull over and, right. Yeah. I'm sorry guys. I didn't know it was gonna go like this. Well, now we're in this moment though, where everyone has to stand out and do something different. Everybody's been, everybody's mastered brisket. Everybody can do that. So what do you do? So you have lots of these, uh, pit masters who are looking to their own roots. Looking to their own family traditions, bringing some fusion elements to it. Uh, here in Charleston, I have a great guy who's actually cooking tonight at the Southern Living event named Hector Ate, who's originally from Puerto Rico, raised in the Carolinas. Mm-hmm. He sort of brought Puerto Rican flavors as is melding him with, with whole hog. Also, there is going to be, uh, Don Wynn. Is from Coy Barbecue in Houston. He is, uh, was born in Vietnam, but raised in, in Houston. He sort of brought the whole Vietnamese flare to his barbecue place. He is got a, popup right now. So he is working on, on brick and mortar. So what you're seeing is lots of that. There's a great place called Smoke and Ash in, uh, in Texas where it's, it's, uh, Ethiopian. Mm-hmm. Uh, barbecue. And there's Egyptian barbecue. There's all kinds of these flavors going together and then people are trying new and different. Meats, like, uh, one of the best meals I've had in the last year was at, Laro and Lewis in Austin, where he's, he does brisket every now and again, but he's focusing on, uh, new things, sustainable meat from local ranches. This Flatiron steak that he does is just fantastic. It smoked one of the best things I've had in a, in a long time. Flat iron. Uh, just to our audience Oh yeah. Is the most underappreciated state on the planet. Mark. Don't tell. If I see one, the butcher shop, it's so. You know, people come to my, my restaurant and we have a, one of our restaurants is Steakhouse, and they're like, what's the, Steak that's gonna surprise me the most. And I'm like, that Wagyu flat iron is shockingly good. Yeah, it's from Nebraska. It's beautiful. It's so well done. flat Iron is the perfect combination. Of that kind of richness that you get from a ribeye or, or what have you, and that tenderness that you get from, we talked about this Mark. I told you not to tell anyone about it because you remember when Tom Valenti discovered,'cause now the price is gonna be out. Well, Tom Valenti discovered the lamb shank at Allison on Dominic in 1990. And there were garbage thing you could pick'em up for a dollar were they were the shanks and now they're as expensive as you know, rack land. And that's actually what happened with brisket. I mean, no one cooked brisket. 60, 70 years ago. Then, you know, they started making it. And then when brisket took off in the early two thousands, it used to be the cheapest cut of meat and now it's through the roof. Yeah. And what, every time I interview a pitmaster, I ask them, so what are you paying for brisket right now? Because I'm crazy. And they are, and they're just trying. They can't sell it for a price that is going to. They try not to lose money on, but they don't make any margin on it because they're just there to get people in the door so they can sell the things margin. I gotta ask margin. I will say most people are starting to understand that the cost of everything is increasing, and we're seeing that in our restaurants that, that people, people are getting it, it it, I, I say this again on the show quite a bit. In a restaurant, one of three things has happened since COVID. Either the portions got smaller,, the food quality got worse or the prices went up. Right. And unfortunately, in some restaurants, all three of those things happen. But one of those things had to happen. Yeah. It, it just, it's, it's required. There's no way in the world today that you could be operating the exact same restaurant and the exact same prices with the exact same food quality and service quality. As you did eight years ago. Yeah. This steak used to cost 1995. Yeah. And you could get it a soda for a hundred bucks, but that ain't happening anymore. Yeah, that's fine. I do a little thing here Charleston where I track I the cheeseburger index where I price track the price, just Oh, that's funny. Basic cheeseburger in fries over time. Uh, and yeah, it keeps going up and up and up. And I've talked to like Brook Brooks Rights who runs, uh, little Jack Tavern and which has a great cheeseburger and other ones here about the economics of it. And he said, yeah, you know. You got to price what it costs to make it, plus what it costs for rent and what it costs for everything else, all the other things, labor and everything else that goes up and up. And suddenly your cheeseburger is, we are at that interesting moment here of$20 just being sort of this magic line. It's sort of like when Coca-Cola, you know, went above a dollar or can. Right. And back before then, when it above 50 cents a can you sort of at that. Mental mark of 20 bucks. But now you're starting to see lots of cheeseburger. We've we're at the mental mark of 25. we found that the, and I'm curious'cause you are more broadly tasting than we are. You're out in more restaurants than we are. We found that the. Less expensive restaurants have had to raise their prices the most.'cause there's this baseline. So yeah, our burger was$24 for a long time. Right now it's 26 and Right. So our Yeah, and your freight cost is a piece of, is a piece of that. But you know, you burgers will have a lower fruit cost in a steak, but your rent and your, you know, gas bill and your labor is gonna be the exact same regardless of what you're selling. I think guy, think the guy who used to be able to sell a burger for 1395 now has to charge$21. Yeah, yeah. And we used to sell it for 24.95 and now we can sell it for 26 95. It, percentage wise, it's not as. It's not as big a change. But this brings us to another topic that I really want to talk about with you.'cause So you are a restaurant critic, uh, down here. Yes. I started in 2006 or 2007, writing for the Charleston City Paper, which is the alt Weekly here. And did that sort of, as Charleston was bursting on the national scene, I totally lucked into it. Uh, just got sort of a tableside seat, if you will, to Charleston's sort of blooming. Yeah. After COVID jumped over to the posting courier, which is the daily newspaper. I, I don't write as much for them anymore, but I still do the occasional restaurant review for them, and I review restaurants. I have a Substack newsletter that, what's your Substack pitch yourself? It's, uh, well, it's, it's the Robert F. Moss, uh, F as in Francis, which is, there you go. Excellent name. Uh, so the Robert F. Moss, uh, newsletter. Just go to robert f moss.com. There's a big link to it. Or go to the substack and search for Robert F. Moss. You'll, you'll find it. I wanna ask you this question, and this heartens back to a conversation we had with Craig Labon, who's the Philadelphia Restaurant critic. Philadelphia Choir, six 20 years ago when Philadelphia was starting to go from a culinary backwater to it's powerhouse love, Phil. It's, it's amazing. Now it's amazing. But this is 2006 and you know, there, there were only a few guys doing really great cuisine there at the time, and Craig was the. Merciless wine critic at the Philadelphia Enquirer. And he, I think he's still merciless. I don't think that went away. Yes. But he was also excellent. He's, he's fair and he's accurate. And we had a conversation with him. some people called him the most hated man in Philadelphia.'cause here he had people when they were trying to do a world class restaurant and in some cases they would fall short and Craig cut them, gave them no quarter. and we had him on our show and one of the things he said is, listen, this town does not need. A cheerleader. There's plenty of cheerleaders. What it needs is a restaurant critic so that we don't. Waste time patting ourselves on the back. but I think there's a balance there you wanna promote and encourage the growth of an emerging cuisine like you have now in Charleston, or I have over the last 10 years. Yeah. Um, but you also wanna hold your people. The high standard, how do you deal with it? And you go in a restaurant, you're. This fucking sucks. They got this wrong. What do, how, what do you do? What do you write? Well, yeah, and this is actually bit tough'cause it's, it's easy to write the good reviews, right? Yeah, sure. It's easy to praise when you go and you have a wonderful meal and you just, or two or three wonderful meals and you just, you're just praising it. Negative reviews are hard. So what I do is, well, you never want to. If I go to like some mid-level restaurant, it's in a strip mall somewhere and it's just a family and they're trying and it's not very good. I'm not gonna write some stinging, take down a review. If I can avoid reviewing it, I will altogether. Yeah. Um, but usually if I get assigned to something, I've gotta weigh in on it. you know, it'll be nice about it and try to be constructive in the criticism and not just. Make fun of things. that's one piece of it. I thing I, so that's why you do things here in the south here, up in the north. We just make fun of things. Well, I used to do, I mean, it's, it's a lot of fun to just uncork and unload on something. Uh, if you have a bad meal. In fact, my wife is, who's even. More pungent than I am. We'll have so much fun driving home from a terrible meal. She'll just be like riding all the, the lines and jabs. You'd love to hear those, but though most of those don't make it in'cause it's not being fair. It's not being What about the restaurant though, that opens and has and is a very expensive restaurant and charges a lot of money and then you've got, that's spent a lot of money to build? that's where like. I sorta take the gloves off a little bit more is if you're selling food that's mediocre or service that's not so good, but you're putting on the heirs and you're praising how much it is and your service, your service staff is coming over the table and doing like the oldest tricks in the book. Tell me how much you love that steak. You know, those, those kind of things. And, um, God, I hate that, you know, the, the salesmanship mm-hmm. And everything else. So the worst restaurants they were ever written were the ones that were. Mediocre at best, but then presented themselves as we are so great. Especially if they come to Charleston and they talk big about how they're gonna show Charleston. What Fine. Yeah. I love that. We get, we get these and then you go and you're like, eh, guys, it's not so good. Those are the ones I, I don't feel bad about taking down the PE or two. They've got a lot of money about that. And they're also, they're also inviting people in to spend a lot of money. So you have an obligation to the consumer. Yeah. Big commitment. Yeah. If, if, if your check size is$30, you know that's not a big deal. Exactly. But if you're, if you're walking outta there, I walked out one not too long ago,$800. Check for two people. Wow. You better be good. If it was not great, whoa, would you write, it'll be in the Robert Eff Ross newsletter. Sometimes I can that, I'll say which one that is, but uh, it's, you know, yeah. If you go charge. Three,$400 per person for an evening. You know, it, it's, it's gotta be good. You know, it's one of the things I tell our staff, and you, you really have to, get this into the staff, So we have our regular customers and it's very important that we succeed for our regular customers. And then you have, you know, bigwigs and present of this company and, and all those people who come in. And it's important to perform for those people, right? They're, they're important to the restaurant and livelihood and, and all those things. But one of the things that you really have to ingrain into a, into the younger people in your staff is. There's somebody who's been thinking about coming to this restaurant for six years or 10 years. Yeah. Or 20 years or 30 years. In my case, they've been walking past here or, or heard about it or read about it in one of the publications way back when. Your responsibility to that person who is stretching as far as they can stretch to eat in your restaurant. Is greater than any other responsibility we have to any other diner.'cause that person has put themselves out there. They up. Tonight's a special night, they've showed up, they've thought about it for years and years. Sometimes somebody's thought about coming to, you know, you know, 11 Madison Park. I'll give a, I'll give a grander example than our restaurants. Somebody's thought about going to 11 Madison Park for 10 years. Finally, this is the day they're gonna travel to New York. They're gonna go to 11 Madison Park. It's their 25th anniversary and there it's, it's their 25th anniversary. And, and this is where they're gonna have the mo most memorable meal of their life. And if you shit on their head, you have a problem. That's right. You, you created not the memory you were hoping to create, that's for sure. Yeah. I, I have a vivid memory of one of the bad restaurant reviews I gave. Um. Where my wife and I were sitting, it was, it was pretty crammed dining room. Mm-hmm. S the banquette tables, and right next to us was a younger, young couple who I picked up was the anniversary. Maybe they were out, you know? Mm-hmm. For a big night out without their young children or everyth. But you could tell that it was a big night out, special night out for them, and they had all these. Bags and takeout boxes because the server had sort of steered them toward, they'd ask em. That's oversold. Yeah. Of like, oh, well get this and get that. No, it's not too big. And at the end of the night, you could tell, and then the check came, oh, I want to punch that later. I never even thought, and you're like, oh God, why did you, yo, if you had just steered them the right way for what they, they wanted, yeah. They didn't want to take home 14 boxes of, of leftover food and pay for them and paid, yeah. Hundreds of extra dollars.'cause that was a big night for them. And, uh, same with me. Often, these are big nights. That's. Yeah, you gotta think about that. It, it, it's not a chance just to milk'em for a couple extra bucks as a time to make their even special. But that's a shortsighted way of looking at things. Right. and now with the benefit of 33 years of, of doing this, I'm always looking, okay, well that person might come back here in eight years. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. And I want them to say, oh, we spent our, our 25th anniversary here. Now it's our 35th anniversary. And so we wanted to come back and recreate that special that's, the best part of what I do. Right? Yeah, absolutely. I know the regulars are sort of like, you know, that's, mm-hmm. That's who you make your rent on. But for the people, people we're part of their lives. I love the regulars. They're super important to us, and I, and I don't want them to feel disparage in any way, because the. That's a big part of what we do is, is, is accommodate who, but you never know who's gonna be the next regular and you never, and you want everybody to feel like they can join that family. Yeah, for sure. And and you were just talking about the anniversary and stuff though. Charleston Grill here, here in Charleston. Mm-hmm. Just recently closed in August after 36 years of sort of a legend. And my wife and I were there for the last, the closing night, which it had to be. Mm-hmm. Because we, we did our 20th anniversary Yep. Dinner there. We did so many events and we didn't go to the chare that often. It was very expensive. But, um. Boy was a special place, and boy was a bittersweet to to, to have it closed down. So I, I definitely feel that for sure. I I'm glad we didn't miss that one. We, we actually got to go there in March. Oh, good. Yeah. When we were down here I'm glad that we got to check that little box before it, before it went away. And actually tonight. We're going to the Daniel Homan. Oh, you going to the Daniel pop up? Yep. Uh, in that space. So, well, there is a, in the, actually the very first thing I put in my newsletter, so it's still up on online. It was a, is reflection on that last night, the Charleston Grill. Mm-hmm. So you may wanna read that if you, I love it before you go, if you have a, have a chance to Absolutely. Uh, sort of get what it was. What the old place. Well you've been to the old place, but it's sort of the memories of the, of the old place. I have one last thing I wanna talk about. there's an article and I at least wanna refer people to it, that you wrote. So Michelin obviously just came out here in the south. Oh, yes. Yeah. I was up there with the, the IES two weeks ago, I think, up in Greenville, South Carolina. You just wrote an article for, for the magazine. For Southern. Southern, Your, your article is a little scathing, uh, at Michelin, and, and I think one of the questions that I've been asking down here of, of people who won, people who didn't win, who do you think. Should have been mentioned, and you're gonna have to keep this, brief, but there's gotta be a couple standouts of places in your head where you were like, how did they miss this? I talk in that piece a lot about geography. Mm-hmm. I think, you know, they focused primarily on the cities. Mm-hmm. I think one my biggest criticism for Michelin is that they made their God be. Don't, don't pretend to be covering the entire south mm-hmm. In all the different categories. Barbecue and fried chicken and mm-hmm. And high end dining. Just be the guide to high end dining. Mm-hmm. Limit the focus. If they did that, I think they're fine. I have no issue with any one of the restaurants that's in it. There's just so much more Right. In Charleston that, uh, didn't make into the guy. So give us a couple that mix that if you had been, but I think here in Charleston, there, um, fig made it into the guide mm-hmm. But did not get a star, I would've certainly put fig mm-hmm. Restaurant in there. Both from just, it checks all the boxes on the fine dining side of things for me at least. And it's also very, it's 20 years old. It's Right. First restaurant I ever ate in, in Charles. Yeah. Part of the Charleston history and everything else. I think you just miss a lot of The legacy of Charleston here. I would've said Charleston Grill, but it's closed now. Mm-hmm. I would've definitely have put that one on there. I Um, Vern's got a star. Mm-hmm. Which I am a hundred percent endorsed. Vern's is a, is an excellent restaurant. but there's so many. That's the problem is the, uh, the book's only so large. You, there's, there's more I'd wanna get in there. I have no beef with any one particular restaurant. I just would've liked to see ones that were more southern inflected than what got in there. I think Michelin goes more toward the European, mm-hmm. Style, contemporary cuisine. Or Japanese. There's a lot of Japanese restaurants with stars in the south, which is fine, but I would not recommend going to Atlanta and eating Japanese food. You can, but there's so many other. Fantastic restaurants down there that have a little bit more local character. I think that's what, to me, well, is what's missing from the, the guy. That's great. And it was a great article and I recommend that you go to Southern Living and, read that article. Well, thank you. I appreciate it. Well, you can find out more about Robert F. Moss. We'll put all the links in our show notes and you can go to his blog and check him out and you can find out more about us and him@restaurantguyspodcast.com.

the-restaurant-guys_2_12-07-2025_133136: 1:00:13

Okay. These guys were all a tremendous amount of fun. I hope you guys enjoyed them. There was one guy we didn't get to talk to though we've had him on the show before. We had a great experience with Anthony Gilio. Well, we can always talk to Anthony in New Jersey, so we, you know, didn't, didn't. Didn't feel like we should talk to him while we're down here, but we did go rooting for the home team. And lemme tell you something, he is a great speaker, a very knowledgeable guy, and it was nice to watch him control a room. Uh, there have a bunch of different panels and things down here, but very often they'll have people. Guide to tasting or talk about things, and Gilio is a raconteur, and he guided us through a caviar and champagne tasting, which is a perfect way to start the morning. Yeah, it was a great 10:30 AM little class that we took with champagne and caviar, so I, I had a very surprising moment and it, and it reminded me of so many times. You hear the story, right? We, we talk about this all the time. You hear the story and then the product doesn't match the story. Right? Right, right. Or you see the big price tag and the product doesn't match the price. Right. Okay. We had a champagne with Anthony Yep. That he brought to our attention. And, and I've heard about the champagne. It's just one of those things that, you know, never had it, do I really wanna spend$500 on this bottle? that looks to me, is more about the show than the substance. Yeah. It's got a great label and Mark and I have a different reaction. It's like, well that is a, a flashy, spectacular label that we think it probably sucks. Right. But, and so we have never had this champagne. I've never tried it. Ace of Spades. The Ace of Spades. You, you got it right on the head. What a, what a. Pleasant, pleasant surprise. It was extraordinary. Okay. We were in a tasting, I think we had eight or nine champagnes. Mm-hmm. With three or four different caviar's, which was a lovely, well structured, beautiful tasting. And you know, they get these things, champagne more than any other wine you gotta port right before the tasting starts. Yeah. So it's cold and bubbly, but we were both, we looked at each other, we're sitting next to each other. And when we tried the ace of Spades, far and away, the best champagne on the table, it was great. And there were some great champagnes on the table. It was really, really extraordinary. And, you know, if I don't, I don't say it if I don't mean it. And I, I just thought they did a great job. And the, and the champagne's terrific and it really does match the price tag. So thank you Anthony Gilio for taking these two jaded old wine guys and introducing us to something new. And on behalf of the restaurant guys to the Asis Spades brand, we've never said anything bad about you, but we always thought bad things about you and, uh, we were wrong. It's great we were wrong. And, uh, one appeal to listeners. Uh, five Livingston Avenue, new Brunswick, New Jersey to the restaurant. Guys, any of you listeners who would like to send us a bottle of the Ace of Spades, buy it at your local retailer and ship it on over. So anyway, enjoyed this time down in Charleston and we'll be back in New Jersey soon. I hope you guys have enjoyed coming on the trip with us and uh, we'll talk to you back from New Jersey. I'm Francis Shot. And I'm Mark Pascal. We are the restaurant guys. You can find out more about us and our travels and when we'll be in your city@restaurantguyspodcast.com.