13.2022 Edition

Hey Reader,

I’ve written before about the concept of “multiplying by zero” in your personal life. The decisions you make that have irreparable consequences:

• Driving drunk
• Not setting an alarm before an interview
• Serving food that isn’t safe

The idea being: the other little details can be slightly off or with a certain margin of error, but if you multiply anything by zero, you end up at zero.

I was watching Max Shapiro’s Instagram recap of his meal at Noma, and had a similar thought with how there are “multiply by zero” elements in a tasting menu experience. Spoiler alert: he didn’t enjoy several of the dishes.

You might try this thought exercise this week by asking yourself: “where are those moments in my execution?”. You might already call these “non-negotiables” or “rules”, but I find this reframe to be helpful because it can give a lot of clarity on what you should actually focus on.

For Max, it was the fact that multiple dishes during the menu at his meal at Noma didn’t taste good.

Think about all of the elements being executed during a meal like that:

• The chairs you sit in
• The spoons used on the soup course
• The flower arrangement next to the host stand
• The paper products used in the bathroom
• The placement of the overhead lighting

The list goes on.

The thought and care that goes into each of those details can be staggering; but I’d argue that none of them on their own, if executed or presented poorly, will multiply by zero.

Now, let’s look at some examples of productive elements you should prioritize:

• Does the guest feel valued and “seen” during the experience?
• Is the food delicious? (Note: not pretty, “cool”, soigné, or “innovative”)
• Is the environment pleasant to spend time in?
• Are expectations being accurately met on objective measures? (ie: If you’ve marketed a 14” pizza, do I get a 14” pizza? If you say you’re sourcing line-caught fish, is that what I’m eating? If the menu says 1lb of brisket, is that what I’m getting?)
• Have you taken the necessary sanitary precautions to make sure I’m not going to get sick?

When I think of unpleasant experiences I’ve had, or heard about from friends, 97 out of 100 fall into one of those buckets ^^

Side note: This is why Grant Achatz talks about how he prioritizes “deliciousness” over everything else when he’s creating a new dish. If it’s not delicious, who cares about what hydrocolloid or piece of equipment we used to create it?

I think this is so difficult is because none of those productive elements are “binary” - they’re on a continuum for the people in charge of executing them.

It’s not: “are we making the guest feel seen or not”.

It’s: “to what extent are we attempting to make the guest feel seen?”.

However, for the customer, it is a binary outcome. Either the food was delicious, or it wasn’t. I either enjoyed the environment or I didn’t.

The lesson here is: list out your “potential zero’s” and identify where the "water line" is on each element. If anything falls below that line, you’re risking a bad customer experience. Then, you can focus on the fancy details.

P.S. - Notice I didn’t mention price once during this monologue. The funny part about each of those productive elements is that they can actually bridge the gap between price and value. If you charged me $45 for a burrito, but I had a great conversation with a FOH team member, the burrito was delicious, I could taste the difference in the ingredients that you say you’re using, and I had a phenomenal time in the space, I would probably come back again for that experience, and I’d also bring a friend.

This burrito analogy is over the top to illustrate the point, but think about how cocktails get priced, or how the mark up on a bottle of wine works. Use this to your advantage.

​

Highlights from the week to share 💥

​J. Kenji López-Alt Says You’re Cooking Just Fine | The New Yorker - Kenji Lopez-Alt built his career based on upending the received wisdom of the kitchen. This includes the “reverse sear” method, which meant cooking steaks gently and then achieving the Maillard reaction quickly at the end. His column “The Food Lab” broke down popular American recipes and rebuilt them.

His second book, which came out in March is all about one tool - The Wok, and the science behind it.

Check out this interview with Kenji, where he talks all about the idea of optimization, food science, self-awareness and writing a book focussing on a tool.

Here’s an interesting quote from the interview: “Sometimes I want really crispy, double-cooked fries, and sometimes I want a soggy, salty, greasy, limp pile. One is not better than the other, but it’s good to know how to get to those places, if you want to.”

​What The Restaurants Of The Future Will Look Like - Over the past 2 years we saw huge changes in restaurant design. Pandemic life made restaurant owners think about ways to be more inclusive and compliant with the ever-changing rules and it defined the future of restaurant design. More restaurant owners than ever say that having outdoor dining areas saved their business. 

Yannick Benjami, who is the owner of East Harlem restaurant Contento says: “We have a lot of customers who have compromised immune systems, and if someone called and said, ‘I need to have 6 feet of distance,’ we could make that happen, We just move a couple tables. It’s [about] making sure every customer is getting their money’s worth.”

However, this change didn’t come without challenges. After 2 years of use, many of the outdoor dining structures are falling apart. What do you folks think? Respond to this email, we read every single one.

​Why the Food in Pixar’s ‘Turning Red’ Looks So Good - Turning Red follows 13-year-old student who transforms into a giant panda when she expresses any strong emotion. What makes the movie so interesting is the look of the food depicted in it- it looks very realistic and enticing, fresh and glossy. 

In this interview production designer Rona Liu talks about challenges and different methods they used to create realistically loo. “Real lettuce is not that green, but we made sure ours was — it’s so saturated it’s almost broken.”

However, saturating the scenes also came with some difficulties - cured pork started to look like raw, bloody meat if they made it too red.

I'm particularly interested in seeing how this will influence a digital products in the future:

• Product photos on websites
• Interactive menus (AR elements on tables)
• NFT's that look hyper-realistic and can be created based off a signature menu item
• Purveyors getting wise to how using visual media can make them a preferred partner

ICYMI

​Massimo Di Costanzo | Di Costanzo Wines, Forming Identity and Building a Brand - Ep. 147 - Massimo Di Costanzo is the owner of DiCostanzo wines. Massimo and I have actually been acquaintances for a while, he used to come in as a customer to this butcher shop that I used to work at in Napa, and this is a testament to how small of a world this is: his wine was served to us during my meal I had at The French Laundry.

Massimo had the video recommended to him on YouTube, he watched it, and then reached out on Instagram!! So obviously I wanted to catch up with him, and we’re kind of using this episode to not just do that, but get his lessons on B2B business models, starting your own thing, and more. Watch the full video episode here, or listen to audio-only version.

Quote I'm Pondering 💭

Thanks for reading,

👊Justin​

P.S. ➡️ Different Types of "Work", and Why it Matters - Discussing a bit I learned from Jason Fried about the difference between "hard" work and "challenging" work and how it applies to hospitality. Then, my guest, Ray Delucci, talks about opportunities he's found outside of the kitchen.

You can find the full bit from Jason here.

​

​

​