How Chef Dave Beran Prepped Hollywood Stars for FX’s The Bear

TRANSCRIPT

Kirk Bachmann: Hi everyone, my name is Kirk Bachmann, and welcome back to The Ultimate Dish. Today, we have a special guest – a very special guest – Chef Dave Beran.

Dave’s prolific culinary journey began with a summer job at Latitude Restaurant in Bay Harbor, Michigan, where he discovered his passion for cooking.

After completing his formal education, he rapidly rose through the ranks in Chicago, working at MK and Tru before joining Alinea in 2006. His extraordinary precision led to his promotion to Chef de Cuisine in 2008.

In 2011, Dave opened Next as executive chef, creating fifteen globally-inspired menus that earned fourteen four-star ratings from the Chicago Tribune.

In 2017, he relocated to Los Angeles and opened his first solo restaurant, Dialogue, in Santa Monica.

Dave’s accolades include three James Beard Award nominations, winning Best Chef: Great Lakes in 2014, and leading Next to a James Beard Award for Best New Restaurant. “Food & Wine” named him Best New Chef in 2014. Dialogue was recognized as one of America’s best new restaurants by “GQ” in 2018 and earned a Michelin Star and “Forbes Travel Guide’s” five-star rating in 2019.

In 2019, Dave then opened his second restaurant, Pasjoli. Celebrated for its classic French cuisine and fresh California produce, Pasjoli was named one of “GQ’s” and “Esquire’s” best new restaurants and was a James Beard Award finalist for Best New Restaurant.

Join us today as we explore what it’s like to launch a world-class eatery, Dave’s involvement with the hit TV show, “The Bear,” and so much more.

And there he is. Good morning. How are you, Chef?

Dave Beran: Good morning.

Kirk Bachmann: Can you tell I’m out of breath.

Dave Beran: That was a lot of things.

Half-Asleep Marathons

Kirk Bachmann: That is a lot. I hope we unpack some of that as best we can today. Thank you for spending some time with us. There are tons of Escoffier students that are eager to hear your story. Whenever we have a great guest on this show, we do a lot of homework. We do a lot of research, but ironically enough, you and I were both in Chicago around the same time. There are some things that I think I already know. We’ve read that you’re an avid marathon runner, but weren’t you really into cycling, too, for a moment, or is that part of the triathlon?

Dave Beran: I was a pretty avid marathon runner in Chicago. I wouldn’t say I was an avid marathon runner; I would say I ran marathons because –

Kirk Bachmann: That’s very humble. I like that.

Dave Beran: I was never good at them. I was always half-trained and half-asleep from coming out of work the night before. Yeah. I cycled a bit in Chicago. Obviously, the biking in Chicago is enjoyable, but you’re just riding up and down the coast. When I moved to L.A., I got pretty aggressive into cycling. I haven’t run a marathon since I left Chicago, so it’s been a minute. I’m still hunting for that tenth one.

Kirk Bachmann: Oh my gosh! Most people can’t even think about doing one.

To your point, you’ve got to train to run a marathon, then you’ve got to run the marathon, and then you probably worked the same day. You probably did your shift that night.

Dave Beran: I used to work before and after them. The first marathon I ran was in 2007. It was while Achatz was in cancer treatment. I remember looking at him and being like, “Hey Chef, can I have the day off tomorrow?”

He looked at me and he said, “Are you dying?”

I said, “No.”

He said, “Well, I am, and I’ll be here.” So I was there.

Kirk Bachmann: There you go. That’s not going to stand for it.

Dave Beran: I got to miss prep, though.

Kirk Bachmann: Which is probably a big thing.

Dave Beran: I finished the marathon at noon, stretched for an hour or so, drank two gallons of water, and then [went] to work.

Kirk Bachmann: And off you go.

Dave Beran: A much younger me, though. Now I’m old and tired.

Training Actors in the Kitchen

Kirk Bachmann: Well, you look great. I’m super eager for this next conversation because I left Chicago in 2014. You’ve done some work with the hit television Hulu show, “The Bear.” Anyone who lives in Chicago happens to go down Orleans St. knows that Mr. Beef has been there for – I don’t know – since the ‘70s. Little Italian shop, not necessarily clean, video games in the back, and you needed to know your order when you stepped up to the counter, or otherwise you just got embarrassed and ridiculed. It’s like, “Come on! What are you going to have?”

I read the other day that they’ve gone from 300 sandwiches a day to 800. You’re a big part of it. You had a lot of involvement, training Will Poulter, who I believe was only in Season Three, but he was the Australian chef that came in and got an Emmy nomination for that. Can you tell us a little bit about how that came about? He trained with you in L.A., right, at Pasjoli?

Dave Beran: Yeah. If you back up a little bit, we actually had Jeremy Allen White train with us as well.

Kirk Bachmann: Even prior. Okay.

Dave Beran: Before they started filming any of the show, Chris Storer, he and his co-producer, Cooper, came by Pasjoli. This was the tail end of the pandemic when we all stopped being masks and spaced out. We had this long conversation.

“We’d love to send you an actor.” This long meeting about how they had this idea for a show. It was like they understood the show, but they didn’t quite understand what it was going to be, or they didn’t know how to articulate it yet. It was like, “We have this show. It’s about a chef. He was running 11 Madison Park. Someone in his family dies. He has to move back home to Chicago and take over the family restaurant.”

For a minute, I thought about it, and I was like, “I don’t know. Should we do this? Should we not do this?” I had met Chris because he dined at Dialogue. The beauty of Dialogue is everyone sits at the counter, so you just have these conversations with people. So I thought about it, and was like, “Why would I say no to this? In the worst case scenario, the guy sucks. We don’t like him here. We just tell them it’s not going to work out. In the best case scenario, we have an opportunity, now, to offer some influence.” So many chef/restaurant-focused dramas on TV or movies just kind of make the industry seem a little silly. There’s always the drunk chef and the –

Kirk Bachmann: The loud kitchen.

Dave Beran: Criminal cook, and the loud kitchen.

It was like, Okay. Maybe we can at least give a perspective on how kitchens are professional environments, the focused career, the more realistic side of it. So we thought, Let’s have him come in.

So Jeremy spent a little over a month with us. He was great. Super focused. Method acting, right? He became a chef. He was diving in.

Fast forward to prep for Season Three, and Courtney Storer, who oversees the culinary side of it, she reached out. “Hey, can we send another actor to you?” So Will was in Season Two. He had a good long speech while he was doing pastry. It’s a great scene in Season Two. She was like, “We want to get him a little more kitchen involved. Can he come spend time with you?”

I was like, “Yeah, sure. Whatever.” Will came, and he was incredible. He is the nicest guy in the world. Loves cooking. His passions outside of acting are cooking and charity work. I was like, “Why don’t you pick something fun like race car driving?” This is not…

Kirk Bachmann: Skydiving. Yeah.

Dave Beran: Anything. But Will was great. We ran him through the kitchen. He’s been back since. He’s become a really good friend.

There’s a lot of professionalism around that show. Everyone that I’ve talked to is eager and ambitious but also wants to do things the right way.

An Authentic Kitchen

Kirk Bachmann: Knowing Curtis, too, I know they did some things with Chef Curtis Duffy as well. I’m just amazed because it’s one thing to take a class because you want to become a better cook and get a job in the industry. This is coaching someone to represent our industry, like you said, Chef, in a very professional manner, and an accurate manner. The way that you would like someone to be represented. I can’t believe how incredible the show is. I can’t even believe it.

How did you decide on which particular skills to hone in on? Is it knife skills? Is it mannerisms? Is it, “Heard, Chef. Oui, Chef.” How did you zoom in on that?

Dave Beran: We just treated them like any cook walking into the kitchen trying out their job.

Kirk Bachmann: Really?! Really!

Dave Beran: With Jeremy, he’d gone to a crash course at a culinary school just to get the fundamentals down of how to hold a knife. It wasn’t that basic; he could do stuff. We were at that point only open for five days because we were just reopening. On the days we were closed, we went in and just prepped. The first few days, we just had him in on prep days and gave him a bunch of mirepoix and were like, “Cut this.” Things that he can’t really screw up. Get him acclimated, get him used to the people being around, how we move. By the end of it, we had him cooking the fish station with myself and a sous chef. It’s a two-way street, right?

My goal was to help them feel competent in the kitchen. Also to understand the general demeanor. The big thing about kitchens is how you move around in them, how you don’t run into each other. If the show’s going to have them in close quarters, then he needs to be in a kitchen that’s tight like that. That was a big focal point.

The cool thing about the show is it does relate to that window of time in Chicago. Especially early on, they talk a lot about what it would have been like then, how Chicago was when I was cooking there. I was able to at least talk to Jeremy and Will about what those kitchens were like, what the demeanor was like, the quirkiness of it. How every chef has their little nuance. Keller always clicks his clogs together. How Achatz, at any moment, stands a certain way. That’s his thing. We all have weird little quirks. Just a lot of conversation like that. It was a lot about the responsibility of a chef in the industry more so than, “I’m just the best cook.”

Kirk Bachmann: When you sat down with the producers, being a very respected, successful chef in the industry, was portraying accurate kitchen culture really important to you?

Dave Beran: Yeah. One hundred percent. The thing is you can’t have an industry that is always a carnival act when it’s fighting to not be a carnival act. The whole thing is all of us are trying to make the industry better, whether it’s through better treatment in the kitchen, through quality of life amenities like actually allowing your cooks to take break, even proper pay. Not having people come in at noon but not get paid until three o’clock, which, frankly, was just the way forever. You’re expected to be here at noon, but you only get eight hours of pay.

It’s important that the industry is showing us something that is trying to improve. It can’t just be showing it as the mess that is entertaining but doesn’t allow anyone to take it seriously.

Kirk Bachmann: If Will showed up tomorrow with his knives, would you hire him?

Dave Beran: Yeah, on every side. He was at my house last weekend. He was here last weekend, and at the barbecue and hanging out.

Kirk Bachmann: I love it. I love it.

Dave Beran: Will is a phenomenal cook. He staged at St. John’s in London. He’s from London. There’s another restaurant he staged at, too, that has a star. I can’t remember what it was. He spent time in a couple kitchens in London before ours. I paired him off with one of our pastry chefs to work on a new dish. He was home in London a month later sending me pictures of how he was recreating it for his family.

Kirk Bachmann: No way.

Dave Beran: What are you doing, man? Will is a very good cook and really enjoys cooking.

Kirk Bachmann: Which probably really helped in his role, too. The passion. It’s method acting, but it’s natural. It’s genuine.

Dave Beran: He was telling me at some point that it’s much easier to play parts or become characters that you can relate to. His relationships – his mom is an incredible chef. Very unique background. I believe his mom is from Kenya. The style of cuisine he grew up on is drastically different than your typical person. He has the British side but also the Kenyan side kind of mixed together. He’s very well-versed in the kitchen. Very into dining of any caliber, whether it’s super fine dining or finding a little taco spot.

Foundation and Technique

Kirk Bachmann: What a great story! I’m so glad we’re chatting. What a behind-the-curtain sort of insight. I just love it.

Let’s talk about you, and let’s talk about Pasjoli. I have a quote here, chef, from you. It’s really profound. It’s good. We did our homework, right? There are so many cool stories here. Elevating French cuisine in Santa Monica. Here’s what you said. “None of the food is anything that you’d typically pluck off of a normal French menu. We wanted this to be our version of French food, looking at French cuisine not through the eyes of the classics, but through its more product-driven philosophy which allows you to take more liberties with the cuisine and still uphold the feeling behind it.”

I read that a couple of times, and I thought to myself – running a school called Escoffier where we try to follow the techniques, not the recipes, of Auguste Escoffier. We really try to influence what we cook by respecting local cuisine, local products, but with classic French techniques. I’ll stop there and just have you dive into what your vision was and is and continues to be for Pasjoli. Obviously, being involved with French culinary schools for most of my career, I’m just fascinated. I was in Santa Barbara a few weeks ago. I did not get to Santa Monica, but when I do, I’m calling you first. I can help cook, too, if you want. Just put me in the back. I’ll cut mirepoix all day.

Dave Beran: We need all the help we can get.

I didn’t want to open – when I go to Paris, the places that I go aren’t the corner place for French onion soup. I feel like that’s the tourist place. It’s coming to America and saying, “Let’s go get a hamburger.” You can find it. Obviously, hamburgers are very enjoyable and painfully trendy right now, but that’s not always the pursuit. A great American restaurant doesn’t have to have a hamburger on the menu.

When we were crafting the vision behind Pasjoli, we really looked at our favorite French chefs. The conversation always revolved around chefs like Passard. Does he have to cook your quintessential French dishes, or is he a French chef cooking his food? Our target became foundation and technique, sure, but we wanted to be California produce through the lens of Parisian cuisine. That led us down this path of understanding, first and foremost, what is our own identity? And our identity is not trying to be that stereotypical restaurant.

Sometimes, I probably hurt us a little bit. Every night, there’s someone who says, “Why don’t you have steak frites? Why don’t you have French onion soup?” I’m sure as crowd-pleasers those would have been good things. We may still sneak those things back onto the bar menu every now and then, but for the most part, I just wanted us to be a great restaurant that’s French.

Most importantly, a great neighborhood that’s French. Restaurants like Bistrot Paul Bert were super inspiring to me. L’Ami Jean is really inspiring. Those aren’t restaurants where you are going to get a generic menu that you get at the tourist spots. Those are just great chefs and great restaurants making really delicious food.

Kirk Bachmann: How long had you been thinking about something like this? Did your time at Alinea influence some of this? It’s a brilliant idea.

Dave Beran: Yeah. I don’t do myself favors. Sometimes I overthink things.

Kirk Bachmann: We all do.

A Crash Course in French Cooking

Dave Beran: At the end of the day, people just want French onion soup. At Tru, it was a crash course in Ducasse French. The chef de cuisine was from Ducasse. He was the first American to ever become a sous. He was awesome. It was like learning Ducasse-style jus and learning butchering, and how to truss a bird. Incredible technique and foundation.

Then I go to Alinea. The thing that a lot of people don’t realize about Alinea – I don’t know how it is now – but when I was there, before it started drawing Japanese influence, there was a lot of sneaky French in that menu. I remember one of my cooks there going and staging at this pretty well-known restaurant. We had a cauliflower custard on our menu. He went to this restaurant that also had a cauliflower custard. I was like, “Tell me how they make their custard. I’m curious.”

He comes back. “Oh, they blanch it. They puree it. They add some carrageenan and they set it.”

I was like, “Okay. How do we do ours?” Because it’s a custard. You cut, and you do cubes, we deep fry it. We would make a classic French Laundry cauliflower veloute. Then we would set it. It was a moment like that when I looked at it and I thought, “We’re really actually doing real foundational cooking, and then adding tricks to it.” As opposed to using the trick as our foundation. The more I started looking at what we were doing at Alinea, there was a lot of that classic French in it.

You fast forward to opening Next, the opening menu was Paris 1906 based off of the Escoffier cookbook. That was Achatz and I kind of battling back and forth. Initially, Next was supposed to be the next Paris 1910, which was what some would say is the birth of the bistro because it was right after the Seine flooded. You have a restaurant; I have a restaurant. My restaurant is flooded. You bring your chairs over so we can help each other out. The next thing you know, you have a cramped bistro.

I had an ego. I had a lot of an ego. Alinea had three stars. We were number six in the world. I’m not leaving to open a bistro, which would have been awesome. We started talking about what we felt was important in French cuisine. The thing that kept coming up was [that] when I worked at Tru, when Achatz worked at Laundry, people would always talk about Escoffier. “Oh, this Escoffier thing” or “that Escoffier dish.” When you start asking people, no one knows what the hell Escoffier food is. They are really referencing Bocuse or Fernand Point, the Roux brothers. They are just referencing old French food; they’re not referencing actual Escoffier recipes. We thought, “Let’s cook the French that nobody knows.”

So that led us to opening Next with actual Escoffier dishes. We revisited French food a couple other times at Next. We did a bistro menu. My hunt menu was half French. Really, that kind of fueled this fire for me feeling like there wasn’t a lot of great, really great casual French. A lot of the casual French felt either like, “Here’s a tureen that we bought, plopped on a plate with a little salad.” Or “Here’s French onion soup.” Name your generic French dishes. I really wanted to take the French, as I understood it – the high level – and make it approachable.

Kirk Bachmann: Can I just tell you? I was getting chills. My wife, Gretchen, and I went to your first menu at Next. I don’t want to get anybody in trouble, but I was so amazed by everything. I don’t remember when they came out, but these tiny little rolls came out. We were just mesmerized by everything. I think even the aprons. You thought of everything [about] the way it would be in 1906. The server was telling us different things.

We got this little basket of rolls. We try them. Then I whisper to Gretchen, “They taste a little stale.” Gretchen of all people said, “Well, what do you expect? It’s 1906.”

So I checked with the server. “This is the most brilliant thing in the world. You really did the research here because there is a little staleness to this roll to reflect 1906.” And they said that’s what it was. I hope that’s what it was and nobody brought me a stale roll.

Dave Beran: I think the reality is they didn’t know how to make bread. We didn’t have the right facility. Sometimes stories find you; sometimes you find the story.

Kirk Bachmann: I love that story, though. I love that story, and I’m sticking with it.

Dave Beran: If this isn’t the way we want it to be, then let’s find a reason why it’s the way it should be.

Kirk Bachmann: Oh my God! What a buzz, though, for you! Next was the most insane thing in the world. Not only did you change your menu quarterly; you changed the whole theme. I don’t know. We went four or five times. The first one was the most remarkable for me. It felt like the coolest thing I’d ever done. Congratulations for that. I haven’t been back to Next since we left Chicago, so I’m sure it’s a little different now.

Dave Beran: I haven’t been back to Next either.

The Reality of Opening a Restaurant

Kirk Bachmann: Just from a student’s perspective, starting a restaurant is tough, period. A bistro, a doughnut shop. It’s all tough. What you guys were doing was so creative. I can’t remember if it was Alinea or Next or both that had the reservation system. You changed the complexion of dining in Chicago and across the country.

Can you walk us through an obstacle or two that you faced?

Dave Beran: At Next?! Everything was an obstacle.

Kirk Bachmann: What are some of the things, and how do you approach them? You have a standard, and then you drop into California with this incredible concept. Were there obstacles getting what you needed to execute your vision?

Dave Beran: There are obstacles every day. I look at Pasjoli all the time and I think, “This would be the most incredible bistro in Chicago.” But every day, it’s a struggle in Los Angeles because you’re always looking at…. A great thing isn’t the same great thing everywhere. One of the hardest things is understanding that just because you think it’s great doesn’t mean that the clientele will understand what you’re trying to do. You’re always taking concessions, saying, “Okay, if I want to do this one crazy thing, then I need to find this balance of something that is more of a crowd-pleaser.” Every time you turn around, there’s a hurdle.

When I was running different restaurants and working for someone else, you think about running the restaurant. You think about daily operations. You’re not thinking about the P&L of what the upcoming season’s going to be like because you know that August is slow. You’re not thinking about the hard decisions of what level of health care [we can]afford. If we raise all our prices a dollar, we can afford a better level of health care. There’s so many things that you don’t think about when you open a restaurant.

A chef who owns a restaurant is not a cook. A chef who owns a restaurant is a cook, a therapist, a mechanic, a plumber.

Kirk Bachmann: A business person.

Dave Beran: You’re everything. I think the most important thing that we did and the best piece of advice that I give anyone is: don’t embrace what you’re great at. Understand what you’re not good at, and find the people who are good at those things.

For me, with my background, I have a business degree. I didn’t go to culinary school. I went to school, and I studied business, psych, and philosophy. Then I started cooking. I have that business background on paper, but I looked at the restaurant and thought, “I’m good at cooking. If I’m going to stay here and do a P&L, it’s going to take me a week to figure out how to do that. If I partner with someone who can run the business side of the operations, then I can spend all my time focusing on the tangibles that I’m good at, relinquish[ing] control of the things that I [am not.]” I think a lot of chefs think that they can and should do everything. The reality is the best leader you can be is the person who will relinquish that control and who will acknowledge what they’re not great at.

A Balance of Innovation and Practicality

Kirk Bachmann: That’s great advice. Taking that theme a little further: I don’t know if innovation is the right word, but I’m going to use that word. What’s your approach, or how do you approach innovation with tradition when you’re creating the dishes that you present at Pasjoli?

Dave Beran: Oh. It’s such a tricky balance. For example, we had this dish on the menu that I thought was one of the most beautiful and brilliant dishes we’d ever done. We originally had this caramelized onion tart that was basically a classic tart, but it tasted like French onion soup. One day I was playing with a mille-feuille. The way we whip our mornay, you can pipe it like frosting, like buttercream, even while it’s hot. I made a French onion mille-feuille. [00:26:28] It was awesome. It is this thick mornay with this really creamy caramelized onion and house-made puff pastry in layers. Nobody liked it. Nobody ordered it.

People got it and were like, “This is a dessert. I don’t want it.” It would get sent back to the kitchen before people even tried it because they’d be like, “I didn’t order a dessert.” I looked at that and was like, “This is brilliant. What are you guys doing?” For me, it was such an awesome-

Kirk Bachmann: Please taste this. Please taste this.

Dave Beran: I was like, “Just eat it. Just eat it. It’s a tart. It’s just shaped differently.” So that balance of innovation versus tradition is tricky. Obviously, our goal at Pasjoli isn’t to be this really high-end, innovative restaurant. My dream was to have a great neighborhood bistro. The problem with that is I hate a la carte. I absolutely hate cooking a la carte. I haven’t worked in an a la carte restaurant since 2003. It’s hard for me. It doesn’t come easily. I can’t think about food in that manner, so every day is an uphill battle with it.

So I’m always trying to understand how to create a restaurant in the style of the restaurants that I love. It’s a really tricky line. Having such a strong fine-dining background, it was a really big moment for me, after the pandemic, to accept the fact that we were no longer going to pour all the guests’ water because we just couldn’t afford the labor any more.

“We can’t leave water on the table. Guests can’t pour their own water. Someone has to pour it.” We looked at the model, and we were like. After the pandemic, you couldn’t hire anyone because there was no one out there. Two, we didn’t have the budget for two more bodies on the floor. Two or three more bodies. It’s always been that struggle to understand what refined casual is.

Kirk Bachmann: So well said. I never thought about what you just said about serving a la carte food in restaurants. That really resonated with me. I appreciate the transparency and thoughts there.

Dave Beran: I have a good friend, this guy Justin. He has Anajak Thai in L.A. It’s a very popular Thai restaurant. His family has owned it for like forty years. I think they celebrated their fortieth anniversary. He took it over in 2019. He’s tried twice doing little tasting menus there.

He’ll talk to you, and he’ll be like, “Man, tasting menus, they don’t work. A model doesn’t work. The food costs, labor.”

I look at him like, “A la carte doesn’t work, man. I don’t get it.”

Just because my little brief snapshot of my challenges with a la carte, it’s the same thing for people with tasting menus. For me, tasting menus, story lines just happen. The structure just happens.

Kirk Bachmann: It just makes sense.

Dave Beran: For him, it’s the exact opposite. I realize I’m weird in that regard. The vast majority of restaurants are a la carte restaurants. The only restaurant I currently own is an a la carte restaurant, but it’s a tricky line.

Change Brings Creativity

Kirk Bachmann: But it’s fascinating. I’m immediately going to talk to some of the department chairs. This is a great topic of conversation for students. Lot’s of critical thinking there.

I read something just this morning on the site, and I got really excited about it. Summer of Sous. Summer of Sous.

Dave Beran: Yeah. There are two points in the year [when] we’re always slower. We’re always slower in the summer, and we’re always slower right around tax season because a lot of our clientele leaves L.A. in the summer. They’re in the Hamptons or wherever else. We’re not a beachfront place even though we’re basically on the water. We’re always trying to come up with different events, different things to keep it exciting, keep it fun, keep the staff engaged, keep the clientele engaged. One of my managers, she was talking to me about her ideas for events for the summer. We were talking about another guest chef series. We had a great guest chef series in March and April.

We thought about it, and she’s like, “What if we did a guest chef series, but we did them with our sous chefs.”

I was like, “Yeah. That’s brilliant.” The whole idea was – well, there are a couple of ideas. The internal idea that we’re not presenting to the public is, one, I’m about to have a kid, so I’ll be gone for three weeks. We’re about to open another restaurant. The staff is about to be split in half because some will be at Pasjoli and some will be at Seline. We thought, here’s an opportunity now to give all the sous chefs an opportunity to create their own food, but also run the restaurant for a few days. To really let them say, “Here, you’re in charge of the team. You organize the kitchen. You do this.” And really get a taste for it.

Every time, whether it’s a guest chef, whether it’s a sous chef having an opportunity like this, anytime there’s that change in viewpoint of the restaurant, it brings a tremendous amount of creativity into the space.

Jose, my sous chef that has been with me since Dialogue, he did food based off his last experience in Baja. He loves going down to Baja. We looked at a few of those dishes, and I was like, these, yes, are Mexican-influenced, but these could be French dishes.

He was like, “What do you mean?”

I was like, “Yes, it’s an aguachile. It’s basically like a salsa, but it’s also a peach and chile coulis. Just because it has a little space, take the concept of what is French and reapply it to our local market. You can’t say French food doesn’t have chilies and spice. You have to say French food is technique reflecting the market. Well, our markets have this, so why can we not present this through the lens of French cuisine. Because of this, we have a new stone fruit dish.

Casey, my other sous, is the next one up. He has a pretty strong Italian background. He’s cooking Mediterranean. Jillian, my third sous chef, she’s Filipino. She’s doing a whole Filipino menu. It’s a great opportunity for them to have some fun to cook what they want to cook and have that protection of an established restaurant with a good clientele who wants to support this. Now you can actually cook it for people with a kitchen.

A Variety of Experiences

Kirk Bachmann: I just love it. Talk about an internal mentoring program that creates an opportunity they’ll never forget.

We’ll talk about Seline in just a moment. I’m curious. Such an incredible, diverse career. Tru, Alinea, Next, Dialogue. Did you take the path that you thought you would take? Are there any things that you would do differently or edit just a little bit?

Dave Beran: You can always look back at things and change them and say you should have done something different. When I was leaving Tru, I had tryouts lined up at French Laundry, and Robuchon in Vegas. Then I went after an opportunity at Alinea and got it. In some cases, I look at the amount of time I was at these restaurants and how much I learned. I wouldn’t undo a decade of working for the Alinea group.

I do wish I had seen more kitchens. I find even when I’m designing new restaurants, because I didn’t work in a lot of a la carte restaurants, even Pasjoli has a kitchen that when we do a five-course pre-fix, it runs better because it’s a kitchen more designed for that than a la carte. Because that’s what I know. I wish I could have seen more restaurants at any caliber.

Now the culture of going around and staging and gone, obviously, because you pay people now. Restaurants can’t afford to pay this influx of one-day employees. I totally get that and I respect it, but I do miss that opportunity to say, “Can I come and work for free in your kitchen for a week and see what’s going on?” Because I would do that a hundred times over, and I didn’t.

When I was at Alinea just before Achatz had cancer, he was talking about sending people to different restaurants and staging. Obviously, things happened. That pan out. I was set on going to Fat Duck. I was set on seeing a lot of things that I didn’t.

I don’t look at it with any regret or wish I would have changed it, but those are the things that I think, now, when cooks are like twenty-four and say, “Hey, I want to go do this,” they should go do it. Spend the money. Rack up the credit cards. You’ll figure it out later. Go see those things. Don’t go there to party; go there to learn. It’s a good thing.

Kirk Bachmann: Really good advice. We get a lot of questions like that. Should I pop around the country? What if I find a really great position and they really take care of me and I’m there for a decade? It’s just a different situation for everyone.

Dave Beran: There’s no right or wrong, but I look at it. Prior to owning my own place, I worked at four restaurants, and two were owned by the same group. Granted, it was Alinea. We got to go into a lot of kitchens. I got to see a lot of things. But you don’t start to understand as many different cultures when you’re basically immersed in MK, by Tru, by Alinea. That was really it.

The Heart of Seline

Kirk Bachmann: It’s an illustrious resume, though. When you’re one of the best restaurants in the world, there is really something to be said for that.

This morning, I’m looking on Instagram, and I’m looking at Seline. I don’t know a lot about it, but the Instagram site is insane. It’s incredible.

Dave Beran: Yeah. I have, what, nine pictures right now? I’ve got to work on that.

Kirk Bachmann: There are nine pictures but…

Dave Beran: I don’t really have the time or energy to build it up, but we’ll get there.

Kirk Bachmann: No. It leaves so much for the imagination. These black and white images. The illustrations of the girl, I guess, outlined with the flower.

Dave Beran: That’s my daughter.

Kirk Bachmann: That’s your daughter. Okay.

Dave Beran: I have a good friend that’s an artist. We have four pictures of his, paintings of his, that will be at the restaurant. I was working on the logo. The restaurant is going through a couple of different versions. Originally, it was crafted after this high-end chateau. We have a huge garden that’s all framed in. You walk through that outdoor space. I was like, “We’ll walk through the garden to the house.” One day, I hit this point where I was like, “We’re never going to build a house that feels more high-end than any home in L.A. There’s no reason for people to leave their home to come to our home if it’s not any nicer.” That idea fluttered off, and that aesthetic went away.

I really started thinking a lot about what’s been influencing me lately. I think people who are parents can relate to this. Walking around as a little kid is fascinating because everything for them is a new moment.

Kirk Bachmann: Is new.

Dave Beran: And no one’s ever told them something’s wrong or to think a certain way. So when a kid picks up a leaf and puts it on their head and thinks it’s a hat, until you tell them, No, it’s not a hat, it’s a hat. Airplanes flying over will stop us where we are for two minutes just to look at them.

We really started leaning into this sense of wonder and building the dark and mysterious aesthetic, not because we wanted the place to be really emo, more so because I wanted there to be that sense of mystery and wonder.

With that, the initial idea for the logo, I was thinking about, as a kid, what we do in school, art-wise. I’m old, so they probably have better ways of doing this now, but as a kid they’d shine the overhead projector at the side of your head, and someone would trace your silhouette. Then you’d have your silhouette. I thought, what if we had a silhouette of a little girl – my daughter – holding the moon on a string? This idea that, yes, it’s a balloon, but it’s also this imagination thing. Something you’d never do, that would never be possible but seems so logical.

Anyway, I played with that logo a lot. I sent it to my friend, the artist. He was like, “Yeah, that’s awesome, but it looks like a Banksy. You can’t use it.”

I was like, “Come on. Does it look like a Banksy? How do you get away from the silhouette thing?”

He’s like, “You can’t. That’s the Banksy aesthetic. If you do that logo, everyone will think it’s a Banksy or a Banksy ripoff.” He knows Banksy, he said “you can’t do this.”

He was like, “Tell me about it. Tell me what you’re doing.” So I talked to him. He just sent me over a couple of those drawings. They’re based off of my daughter in her Easter dress. He sketched them and sent them over. “You can use these.” The flower in the background is a sorrel flower, which is one of my favorite herbs.”

Storytelling with Food

Kirk Bachmann: Can I just tell you how much I love that for so many reasons? The personal touch, the memories. I’m older. I have four kids. My kids are older now, but I’m looking over on the wall of my office. What I look at every day are trees, a white polar bear, a giraffe, a fox, and a whale that my children drew and painted many years ago. I probably get more comments on those paintings than I do on Marco Pierre-White back here or anybody else. I love that.

I read something about “The Secret Garden.” Is that still part of it?

Dave Beran: Eater really ran with this idea.

Kirk Bachmann: That’s where.

Dave Beran: Basically, there’s just a big wall and doors. You walk in, and it’s just this garden that you walk through. In one comment, I said, “It’s kind of like finding that secret garden.” They turned the whole thing into Dave Beran makes a secret garden. It’s not a secret garden.

Kirk Bachmann: And then I found it.

Dave Beran: It’s just our garden. We really wanted to play up this idea of mystery.

We have that personal touch. Even the name of the restaurant. My daughter’s name is Harvey, but her full name is Harvest Moon. I didn’t want to name it Harvest or Moon, or Harvest Moon or something like that. Seline is actually a girl’s name in Latin meaning heaven or moon.

Kirk Bachmann: That’s beautiful.

Are your two restaurants relatives, or are they distant cousins?

Dave Beran: They’re siblings, right? Philosophically speaking, you’re still hitting a certain standard and a philosophy. The food will be nothing alike. The feeling is nothing alike. This new restaurant is 38 seats, tasting menu. It’s the full experience. It’s the restaurant that I’ve been pursuing for as long as I can remember.

Kirk Bachmann: I love that. What are you most excited about for that restaurant?

Dave Beran: Getting it open! No, I miss storytelling with food. I miss crafting these full experiences. Everything about this restaurant is super personal. All the plate-ware was made from three different friends. The art comes from two very good friends of mine. Everything about this restaurant is incredibly personal. It’s one of those things where I want you to walk in and I want you – not to sound cliché – but to feel transported. It’s in the middle of main street Santa Monica. When you walk in, you can’t see any of it. You can’t hear any of it. You’re in this 2000-square-foot outdoor space. Then you’re into a restaurant behind it.

Kirk Bachmann: I love it. I love it. I do have one more question for you, but when we air this, we’ll put all kinds of links out there for our listeners. What’s the best way for our listeners to stay up to speed with you on all the things that you’re [working on?] Where do you want them to go? Where do you want them to go?

Dave Beran: I would say either my Instagram, Pasjoli’s Instagram, or if they just go to Pasjoli and sign up for the mailing list, they’ll get everything on Seline and Pasjoli first. We always release it there first before it goes to press or public.

Kirk Bachmann: Perfect. That’s what we’ll do.

I need you to say hello to my wife, Gretchen. She’ll kill me if I don’t say, “Hey, I talked to Dave today. He says hi.”

Dave Beran: Hi, Gretchen. Always a fun thing, right?

Chef Dave Beran’s Ultimate Dish

Kirk Bachmann: It really is. I really enjoy following your career. Having been able to experience Alinea and Next and Avery. Can’t wait to get out to California to try some more of your fun.

Before I let you go, the name of the podcast is The Ultimate Dish. This will be tough, but I think I know where you’ll go. In your mind, what is the ultimate dish?

Dave Beran: Man, that’s tough.

Kirk Bachmann: It is, isn’t it?!

Dave Beran: It’s tough because is the ultimate dish just a bowl of Fruity Pebbles because it’s so nostalgic?

Kirk Bachmann: Can I just tell you that college friends still give me a hard time after all these years in the industry about my passion for Fruity Pebbles.

Dave Beran: I love Fruity Pebbles.

Kirk Bachmann: How can you not? How can you not?

Dave Beran: It’s like Froot Loops. You trick a little kid into loving ginger and lemongrass.

Kirk Bachmann: Right? Right?

Dave Beran: I would say pressed duck. Pressed duck is the dish that always comes back. I’ve been doing it for years. It’s one of those dishes that is over a hundred years old. There isn’t a better, modern way to do it. You need a press. All of the things that you talk about now with food, like proper sourcing, sustainability, ethical raising of product, respect for product and total utilization – it’s all relevant in the conversation of that dish. Yet the dish is [old] – my press is from 1910. It’s an old dish! A hundred years old.

Kirk Bachmann: And it’s on the website. Is that yours, the one that’s on the website on the second shelf?

Dave Beran: Yeah. We have three of them now.

But the thing about it is, it’s not often that you encounter that, without that little machine, you can’t recreate it. The flavor is so distinct and so perfect. It’s finite. The sauce dies after fifteen minutes. There’s no way around it. You have to live in the moment with it. You have to make it to order, and you have to have the right duck. You have to understand your product. You have to understand your farmers. It really, from a chef perspective, encompasses all of your skill sets in order to make that dish work.

Kirk Bachmann: That’s such a great answer. Over a hundred episodes, and no one’s ever talked about the pressed duck. I absolutely [love it.]

Dave Beran: No, probably not! Nobody does pressed duck!

Understanding Beverages – and the Best Bands

Kirk Bachmann: And probably never will. I just love it.

One other question – I lied. We didn’t talk about this at all. Actually, two more questions. One, how important is the wine service? Is that a big piece? Students always ask this question. How much, as a chef, do I need to think about what sort of wine or beverages or mixology that I’m providing to complement my food, or the opposite?

Dave Beran: For me, it’s very important. We have a beverage director. I’m not the chef who can pick up a glass of wine and smell it and say, “Oh, that’s a 2003 Bordeaux.” I’m not that versed. But I am actively involved in all of our pairings, tasting, offering suggestions, different iterations of what I think will be interesting or unique. How to tweak them.

We had this one course where we served a white wine a little bit warm, at room temp. When the second course came and we refreshed your pairing with the same wine, we refreshed it with wine out of an ice bucket. It completely changed the wine.

Kirk Bachmann: Oh, isn’t that something?!

Dave Beran: But it was the same wine. Guests didn’t know what was happening until it happened. Then you talk them through it.

Our cocktail program is very good. It’s definitely an extension of the kitchen. We make these preserved cherries for our duck press. The syrup byproduct became essentially a part of our cognac Manhattan on the menu.

Here’s the thing: I don’t think the chef has to be necessarily actively involved in any of that, but the more as a chef owner that you are involved in these things, the more cohesive the message your restaurant will send. The more cohesive of a message your restaurant will send. That’s the big thing. You want continuity in your vision. The only way that you’re going to have continuity is if there is a shared conversation among all of it. You shouldn’t be a dictator, but you should be a voice at the table.

Kirk Bachmann: Well said.

One final question, I promise. Interesting, the majority of the guests on the show have been chefs and cooks, and that sort of thing. I never planned on this, but I was always surprised at the common denominator of either music, motorcycles, or both.

Dave Beran: Music.

Kirk Bachmann: Music for you. Big music fan. Excellent. What’s your three top bands of all time? Go.

Dave Beran: Oh, God! I don’t even know where to-

Kirk Bachmann: High Fidelity. Great movie. John Cusack.

Dave Beran: Radiohead. The Roots. Man, I’m stumped on the third. There’s always music going constantly. I’m just going to stick with Radiohead and the Roots.

Kirk Bachmann: I get Radiohead. I love it. Absolutely. I’m a U2. I want to move away from U2, but I just can’t.

Dave Beran: I could never get into them. And then, for me, the big turnoff is when you bought an iPhone, and it came with a U2 album. Nope. Done.

Kirk Bachmann: I remember.

Hey, Chef, thank you so much. We’ve stolen an hour of your day. It was super delightful. I wish you all the luck in the world. When I get to Santa Monica, I’ll hit you up. If there’s ever anything we can do for you, please let us know. We wish you all the luck in the world.

Dave Beran: Awesome. Thanks. It’s a pleasure.

Kirk Bachmann: Congrats on baby number two on the way and restaurant number two on the way. Or number three, or number four.

Dave Beran: Never ending. Never ending.

Kirk Bachmann: Excellent. Thanks again.

And thank you for listening to the Ultimate Dish podcast, brought to you by Auguste Escoffier School of Culinary Arts. Visit escoffier.edu/podcast, where you’ll find any materials mentioned during the podcast, including notes, links and other resources. And if you can, please leave us a rating on Apple or Spotify, and subscribe to support our show. This helps us to reach more aspiring individuals ready to take the next step toward their dream careers. Thanks for listening.