Byron Gomez on Burger King Beginnings, Life After Top Chef, and Meeting Michelin Expectations!!

This week on The Chef's Cut, we are talking with Chef Byron Gomez, the Michelin-starred chef and partner of Bruto in Denver, Colorado. Byron is a Top Chef alum, and he is also the first Costa Rican chef to earn Michelin stars. This week, we're talking about his rise from Burger King to Michelin-starred restaurants. I mean, you can't have it any other way, you know? Well, you can have it whatever way you want, I believe. You can have it your way. making creamsicles out of carrots. And that was a childhood memory from ice cream trucks back when I was in New York. And the time he almost got fired by Danielle Bouloud. There's a panic in the room. Somebody stole Chef's phone because I didn't give it back to him. All right, Chef Byron, it is so good to see you. We haven't hung out in a long time. So thank you for joining us. Thanks for having me. What a treat, guys. Thank you so much. Super pumped that you're here, man. I'm very excited to have you on the pod and dig into what has been a really cool career for you so far. So, I mean, Colorado is one of my favorite places, not just from our season of Top Chef. I loved it long before that. But I have one thing about Colorado I want to talk about because I don't know if it's specifically Colorado thing, but it's the only place I've ever seen it and done it. And I don't know if you're familiar with this. So there were places we used to go to back in the day, and I found one of them. It still exists. but there were places where you'd go in and be like a steakhouse but you'd pick out a steak and then you'd go up and they would have a giant grill and you would grill your own steak like you would just pick out a steak from a counter and then they'd like bring you over a ribeye and you'd go up and you'd grill a steak in the middle of the restaurant it was like oh yeah so there's one place it's like right outside of like vale it's called the mid-turn country club i think or mid-turn tavern and i don't know if you've been but you've not been living so i don't think i want to go pay to uh thank you listen listen listen okay i came here for somebody to cook all right so you're not going out for korean barbecue you're not going out for korean barbecue guys how did i know you were gonna bring that up how did i know because it's a good fucking point that's how you knew but i am that person that doesn't cook it i'm the person that just waits around for it because everybody that i go with is super excited and they're like okay you know we're gonna cook for you and i was like yeah go ahead please okay but i'm saying when i was like 15 this was like crazy novel it was like they just you really you got to go grill a steak but the one thing they also have there that it's like i haven't stopped thinking about in 24 years since i've eaten it is they have this dessert they call the mid-turn baked potato and it's ice cream rolled in cocoa powder the like stuffed with sundae stuff but it looks like a baked potato and i think it's maybe one of the greatest i think it's maybe one of the greatest culinary creations i'm looking this thing up um it sounds like like the oh my god you know just that kind of dessert i mean it's like calories it's amazing i don't know if they've baked potato yeah i don't know if they have two or three michelin stars there but they deserve all of them number one restaurant in the world in my in my opinion if i wrote 50 best i'd be like listen it's the dessert baked potato and then everybody else that's how it works like no more work harder it sounds like a definition so uh definitely right worth a special trip so so when adrian comes out there we gotta go we're going i'll grill your steak for you all right you know yeah i'll drive i don't mind driving out there and i don't mind grilling your guys steaks so i'll be i'll be over there i'll be over there flipping them up just wait i'll open water bottles and play dj the whole road trip i'm a great shotgun driver okay so byron i have some new segments joe loves it when i come up with new segments um and you're gonna be our first to do this new segment and i have a great name for this one that i it's not too dad joke corny but it's called it's called in season i like puns so normally my titles are pretty bad but this one is pretty straightforward that's actually reasonable yeah yeah i was gonna call it i was gonna call it tis the season but that's a little too evocative of Christmas. It's unbelievable. Whatever. So Byron, Joe and I are largely on the eastern half of the U.S., right? We're east of the Mississippi, but where you are in Colorado, southwest, high desert, it's such a varied landscape. What is in season right now that you're excited about and you're cooking with Ed Brutto? Crohn's. I have some Crohn's in my refrigerator. Are you kidding me? I can literally go get them right now. Are you fucking kidding me? That's so funny. It's so exciting. It's such a small, you know, vegetable. It's a tuber. It's a root vegetable. We are able to grow it here in Colorado because of the terroir. You know, it's cold and such. I just think they're so interesting. They're like the main character, but also like the leading role or like the assistant role. um we are picking them right now for our main course at bruto yes and uh they just bring such a like nice pop uh they have a beautiful texture when you pickle them they don't get soggy they hold this texture you could even raw um and it's always a curiosity when guests see them they're like wait what is yeah like is that a worm yeah one guest was uh two days ago they're like is this cartilage i'm like no no no no don't worry it's not cartilage we carved out that we're good that's so funny so for anybody who doesn't know crones are a little like tuber they're they look like bumpy they're usually an inch or smaller and they're kind of the texture of a sunchoke or a jerusalem artichoke so they have that crisp watery texture they're not very starchy like a water chestnut texture yeah yeah yeah yeah so super excited to have that on the menu i don't see it often and another one is salsify i don't see salsify often around menu salsify yeah at least here in in colorado uh in the east coast i definitely saw it a lot so uh being able to bring those influences and what kind of marked my career at my early stages of cook from the east coast bringing it here it's super exciting to see how people take it in and that like educational moment that we're able to do at bruto is something that uh it's it's quite magical i felt like the first time i saw salsafia in the kitchen somebody was like oh you gotta peel this and i was like you want me to peel this bag of sticks you know what i mean like what are we doing like i was i was like looking at it i was like what is this bullshit we're gonna we're gonna i'm gonna peel this bag of sticks and we're gonna sell it like what kind of bullshit are you guys up like the uh yeah i had the same reaction when i first saw uh when i was working at cafe blue uh cardoons i've never seen before yeah and that i had i was like what i was like what is this big hairy celery yeah it's like this one's this one's no good should we send it back like why is it like this looks like like celery that grew next to a railroad track you know what i mean where you're just like it looks like celery that grew in chernobyl yeah it's like something's spilled on this that wasn't water like you know like this doesn't oh man that's so funny so talking about you and you know new york and cafe balud you know you didn't just start at cafe balud you got your taste of cooking with open fire before that at one of the great flame cooking restaurants of our generation ever known i mean you can't have it any other way you know well you can have it whatever way you want i believe i believe is is actually you could have it your way at that restaurant i believe i believe if i remember correctly from my time dining there although now their tagline is you rule yeah that's where i i cut my teeth i was uh mid-teens and I decided to take a summer gig in the very famous restaurant called Burger King. And after that, that's where I kind of like was the bing moment in my head and all over me. And it was just trying to be better, trying to be better and never knew that I was going to be where I'm at now, but it's been quite a journey and it's been a fun ride for sure. So where did you go? Like take us for people who know you for your Michelin starred restaurant in Colorado and they know you from television. Take us from Burger King. Like what are the places you worked at after that? Yes. So Burger King, then after that, climbing the ladder, TGI Fridays. The TGI Fridays was the Sheraton Hotel from the line cook to then doing banquets. And I'm just kind of getting those notches on my belt. After that, I moved that way from home and I was living in Long Island. I moved to the Bronx with $800 in my pocket. I would take the one train and then take the six down to 28th and Madison, this Southeast Asian restaurant back in the day called Prana. And that restaurant was like my intro to New York City. With a melting pot, we were doing food from Southeast Asia. So Eastern from India to Laos, Cambodia. We would make our own curries in-house. We would cook rice in these straw, kind of like straw-made kind of hats that were like upside down. And we would put the rice there, put it over a metal container and just cover it with cheesecloth. I've never seen rice cooked like that before. So it was like my intro of what culinary world could be like. After a few years in mom and pop shops around New York City, I tapped into one of my biggest mentors. We call him Papa, Daniel Bollou. And that's when I started working for Dynix. I stayed there for about five years. Then I went to work at a two-star Michelin during the type of Scandinavian cuisine in the early 2010s, mid 2010s. Was this AquaBeep? No, this was Atera. Ah. Yeah, this was Atera with Ronnie Anberg that came from Copenhagen. And super exciting. Never seen that kind of style of service. It was also always classical French. It was flipping burgers to classical French to now Atera. And then at that time, I was like, all right, I did a one star, two star. What else is left? I don't want to go back to classically French. So John George is out of the questions. Danielle is out of the question. And the other one was pretty much, I was like, I'm not going to get into Masa. Just because I just, you know, that's not my thing. And that's when I decided to work at 11 Madison Park. And during that year, we became number one wrestler in the world. And I feel like I just kind of completed the treble. Yeah, you definitely did. So what brought you, you, I mean, you traded in the concrete jungle for the rolling hills and mountains of Colorado. Like what made you leave New York? Did you not want to plant your flag in New York? What brought you to Colorado? Well, during when we got number one restaurant in the world in 2017, we got it that April. And then that summer we closed on the restaurant for innovation. This was planned prior from us getting the award or whatever. And then we did a pop-up in the Hamptons. E&P moved the entire restaurant, Summer House, out in the Hamptons. And that was the first glance that I saw of living outside of New York. The world doesn't revolve around you. There's other things to see. And that kind of work-life balance. That was the first sneak peek. Like I will go in the morning and we'll work very hard, but then it will get darker later on at night. So around 6, 7 p.m., I will go to the beach and surf for an hour or two and they go home. And that was the first time I was like, wow, this is cool we went back to New York that fall the next summer we did the pop-up again and I was part of that team became a sous chef went back as a sous chef and then in the winter we did winter house in Aspen at that time I started questioning myself I'm like okay well it's amazing to work for all these chefs and they're definitely engraved in my career and my story but do i want to give my all to somebody who maybe gets most of the credit and i'm just behind the scenes where there is creativity uh drive all those things which is important it is a team sport kitchens are team sports you need different players to play different roles within that team and execute but at that time i i just felt something inside of me that i wanted to carve my own way and i know what that way what that was it's scary it's a very scary moment is that why intersection of you could fall into your comfort zone and stay at this amazing restaurant that is still very amazing no matter the critics or what people think because it hard to own a business I mean, you both know it firsthand. It's hard to do it, especially at that caliber. Whether I was going to be there five, six, seven years and then be the executive sous chef, maybe another 10 years and be the CDC or executive chef, did I want that and then what's next for me? I would rather take that risk. I would rather take the road less traveled. and I decided not to go back to New York. I decided to stay in Aspen and I took over this restaurant as the executive chef and everybody left that spring back to New York. And it's like when that reality hits, wow, you were just at the top. Now you're down in this valley. What's going to be the next mountaintop? Well, now you have all the accountability on you. Everything falls on you, all the responsibilities on you. How are you going to rise from this? So that's when I started. And then in 2019, 2020 came around and Top Chef knocked on the door. And I was like, yeah, let me take this opportunity, see what happens. And then after that, my life pretty much changed. But I think it was me taking that action of seeing where I wanted to go when life started giving me what I needed. And I have everything that I need in order to succeed or to fail. Like, it's up to me. And that's a question a lot of people have is like, when do I know I'm ready? When do I know that it's my time to open a restaurant? And for everybody, it's different. I wanted to be behind the scenes. I wanted to be a CDC at LaBerna Den and work there for 20 years holding the standard while Eric Repair is the one out front. But some people don't want that. And I mean, I kind of got pushed onto a different path. but everybody asks like how do I know when I'm ready and it sounds like you found your answer there yeah but I mean every day we're still trying you know everybody sees the glory but they don't know the story they don't know that you know they see me now but they don't know that it took 20 years to get to 2021 when Top Chef aired to now from 2021 to 2025 to be able to have these opportunities but 20 years prior to that nobody knew me it was head down it was the sacrifice are you willing to do that trade-off 20 years for a five-year return right and it's you know we me and adrian have talked about it before but it's funny like when you go and do tv it's like people kind of act like oh that's when your career started right like oh you did top chef and then like you became a chef and it's like no i did this for 20 years you know what i mean it's like and then that happened to come about and like i kept doing the thing i was doing and i think like taking that jump you know one of the things like i think i talk about with like you know my friends it's Like when you work for those really big chefs, right, that are prolific, that are, you know, the balloons, the, you know, repairs, the, you know, 11 Madison Parks, like the Daniel Hums. You are in the shadow, right? But you're also, you know, when you leave that, you realize the shadow was from the umbrella that kept you dry and safe. Yeah. So now you no longer it's like, yeah, you're not in the shadow anymore, but you don't have any shade anymore either. This shit's all falling on your head. Like when you got the sunshine, you got the sunshine. That's, that's fucking great for you, bro. But like when it's rated, it's like, brother, get a bucket. Like, cause there ain't nobody coming, you know? And it's like, and I think, and it's a wild, wild feeling that first time when you realize like I'm out here alone now, like I got my team, but there's nobody else for me to look up to and say like, Hey, what do we do? It's like, I'm the, what do we do person now? It's like, Oh shit. it's like um it's like that uh that mike tyson saying uh you know everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face yeah you know and and and staying in those places whether you know like for you agent you got that nourishment you got that safety you you took those risks you put in the hard work like you said everybody's different but there comes a time that you know you have to carve your own way i think and some people that's their way to stay there and that's totally fine you know but it's just just just taking that leap of faith a lot of times of like i don't know this is gonna work out but i'm gonna do it and um it's it's it's reality and it's scary and then you deal with imposter syndrome and then you deal with like man could i should have would up it's this whole mind fuck and people think you're on television yes your life could change but it's like a second and third job because now you're promoting yourself you're working on your personal brand you're learning how to be your own agent your own manager your your own pr you know you you have your your daily job at the restaurant responsibilities but you got to wake up at six o'clock in the morning because you have a call in the east coast and you can meet the west it's 9 a.m there and it's like another job to keep up that's a lot that's the thing that a lot of people don't realize and joe kind of struggles with that like i want to go do this television thing because it helps drive attention to the restaurants but i also don't want to leave my team i'm like yeah you gotta do it like you just gotta do it that's when you start learning how to like surround yourself with people you could trust and and start building that team and also be open-minded that they're not going to do it like you that is your value that's why you're there you could only mentor other people and rub some things off and hope they catch it but they're going to have their own style and as a leader i need to understand that and let them develop into that and and that could be hard at first right it's i think it's super hard of like letting go of anything right we're such control freaks about everything and i think it costs you so much to get there 20 years or whatever many years to open your fresh restaurant it costs you so much right you know every late night you had you know every train ride you took you know what i mean you know everything you missed every self-doubt you ever had sitting on the you know it's like i remember like i was a line cook those long train rides home you know i mean after you just got eviscerated all night and have people just tell you like like people basically be like don't come back tomorrow i don't know why you showed up today you suck at life you're the worst person ever to walk this earth like yeah like yeah you suck your knives suck your shoes suck like you know your haircut sucks like why you know what i mean and you're just like oh yes chef yes chef yes chef are we are we psychotic by laughing at this thing and it's just like and then it's like you gotta go sit through the pain you gotta go sit on a train for an hour let that marry date let us see and just like sit there like like by yourself like you know you can't even doom scroll at this point i didn't go straight to the train i would stop and have a beer and a shot of jack before i got on the train take the edge off of that pain from the day. Yeah. And it's like, they don't, you know, so it's like, you're like every little detail that we're so focused on every little thing we're trying to control. And I think it's like, for me, at least I found, I'm like, I have to remind myself, like, you know, the greatest thing anybody ever gave me was trust. Right. Yeah. And like the trust to run their restaurant when they weren't there, the trust to run a service when they were out for the night. And my biggest moments of growth came when I was afforded that trust. You know, did I do it as well as them? Sure. If you ask them, they would say no. But you know, like, but, but because it gave me that trust, I was able to push myself further than I was ready to at the time, or I was comfortable with at least at the time. And I think like, I have to remind myself that I'm like, if I don't give them space to try to step into something bigger, how could they possibly, you know what I mean? If I don't give them that room to say like, Hey, I'm not there. You got to do it. You have to be the person like you are, you know, as far as anyone's concerned, like this is your restaurant tonight, but that's the biggest part of like our job, right? And what we do, it's like being that person to say, you know what? No, fuck it. We're doing it this way. Let's go. Yep. Right. Yep. But it's super hard. Yeah, it is. It's really, really hard. One thing I want to know also, you've worked in places from Burger King to one, two, three Michelin stars to now having your own Michelin stars that you've earned. What is a kitchen habit or a discipline that you learned at some point in your career and you still rely on every day? This may believe system that humans have that keeps us in order, but there's really no track of what that is, is track of time, a timeline. I treat it like, I mean, what is really 12 o'clock midnight? Is it really 12 o'clock midnight? Or is it just a standard that we know, program, to know that this time is 12 o'clock midnight? Well, that really helps us in the kitchen because that's your biggest enemy. You are literally racing against time from the time you clock in to the time you clock out. Whether it's set up, whether it's getting the order up on the window on time, and whether it's breaking down to get out on time. You're always doing that. And I learned that if I keep a timeline of my day and I break it down into segments, the first week is all data gathering. So I look at the clock. I bought this big red clock at Bruto, and it's hidden in the corner where the cooks are only – they only have to turn their head and look at it. And when we roll out a menu, they have a whole week to draw out a timeline. You come in at this time. This is going to take you – chives are going to take you this long. uh set up your night pants are going to take you this long put everything in a squeeze bottle going to take so then they know within the two hours that they have to set up what that time like is like the next week they turn it in i review it now me as a manager as their mentor and chef i have an idea what the day looks like i'm just not going in blowing on my fucking lid because they're not ready i have an understanding where they're coming from and what they're dealing with and then the week later we start hacking at it it's called a mentality that we practice a lot of brutal it's called kaizen it's a japanese way of being one percent better each day you don't have to be 10 just be one percent better so if that time by took you two and a half hours this week next week it's going to get you two hours and 25 minutes the week after that two hours and 20 minutes and you can see that confidence building in them they're like holy shit i could do it at First is like deer in headlights. Many change. Oh my God. No, you are doing what you need to do and what you're called to do and what you're good at and what you're developing yourself. And that's a cook. So just cook. The time management, that's the hard part. So you start doing that homework, review it every day. Eventually you don't have imposter syndrome anymore because you become uncomfortable and knowledgeable and you gain confidence. You're able to execute. And then all around, the machine just starts working back again. That is huge. It's such a monster skill because it's the idea of like, this is the least you're ever going to be responsible for is just a station, right? Every step you go further on this journey, there's more. So the sooner you figure out, you know, how to like time block yourself and hold yourself to a regimen and hold yourself accountable. Yeah. Yeah. Like the better you are, all of a sudden you're a sous chef. Now you have to be really good at time blocking your day, prioritizing what needs to get done, holding yourself accountable, holding, you know, seven to 15 other people accountable. And it's like, you know, if you're giving, I think giving them the opportunity from the jump of like, hey, these are all like, they might not even see it. Right. You know, it's like the wax on wax off. It's like they don't even understand why it's so important they're doing it. but it's like this is all the building blocks of everything you're going to need to be a good sous chef to not just be a great line cook but to be a good sous chef to be a good chef to be a good manager is going to be because it's all right it's all just organization and communication right and you're putting it on them to do those two things every time you change a menu is fucking awesome yeah that's why you know like you said like you could be doing walks in walks off and you don't know why you're doing it that's why the next week we review it together and be like this is the information you gave me i didn't make this up you gave me this right so now you're going to see your progression day by day by day and then if you're if you shave off 15 more minutes doesn't mean that you get to fuck off and do the thumbs no you get to take on more things because when you're a sous chef that's when people get burned down in that middle management and they say burnout mental health which is very important i went through that myself but it's because they don't have the structure and the foundation how to manage the time the cooking part we're good the showing up part we're good the taking the beating we're good once you get to management it's a mind thing a lot of it it's not because you're not even cooking anymore physically you're not really cooking i miss cooking i don't i don't get to cook as much as small as my kitchen is and i'm like guys just enjoy it and get that foundation that's i think time management is huge the every every station i remember training on a new station i worked in pastry before switching to savory and everything was like here this recipe of this This will take you an hour and a half and then you do that And so I was kind of primed for it without even knowing it And then when I got into fine dining, every station I was trained at, I had my little notebook and it's like 10 minutes do this. It's like you have your prep list on the left side and then you have your time stamps on the right about how long each thing should take. And then getting that like, wow, I got better at this. I got faster at this. I feel it's like it builds your confidence as you go and then fast and accurate. It's like, OK, I did it faster, but did it come at the expense of quality or did I do it faster and more efficiently? And sometimes like you get to the point where you're like, now I can like step back and look at the prep list and I can maybe make it a little bit more efficient than the person who trained me. If I put these two things next to each other that are more related. And that was like, that's one of those moments where you're like, I can figure this out. I can do this. Yep. So you do that enough times. Then five years later, 10 years later, stacks up. You're ready. I remember like being at Girl on the Goat. It's like we all got really good at butchering pig heads because if they weren't done at the end of the night, we all had to butcher pig heads. So you got really fast at them because it's like we just wanted to make last call. yeah like so that's why we got fast at them because it's like man if we don't bang these things out before 120 we're not going to make it across the street before 130 so it's like we got to be able to rip these things so it's like i feel like those shift pay are like it was like you got the benefit of you got to work shorter hours if you could be faster you know what i mean for the same amount of money and now it's like when we're in this era of you know it's like most cooks work four tens or five eights or whatever they do. It's like, you have to teach them how to be efficient within a system that works, right? You can't just be like, Hey, you need to show up when you need to get your prep done. And like, if it takes you three hours, cause you're a newer cook, that's okay. You get three hours. And if you're a fast cook, it takes you an hour and a half, then you can come in later. Like that's kind of what it was, right? Like it was just the natural environment that kind of forced us to do it so i think it's a really smart way to kind of like create that in a more healthy way right where it's not just like yeah oh like hey you suck at setting up your station just work 16 hours well it also teaches uh accountability which is huge what we do here at bruto because i do take accountability onto management and then you know it's just again it's i i tell the guys the reason i give you advice it's not because i'm smarter or wiser you it's because i fucked up way more times than you have so that's right that's it and i think people like you know like when you talk about like culture of restaurants and like great lines that you're on it's like realizing it's like accountability is culture like the only way to keep culture accountability and it's like i think people are like oh like for you right i don't want you to make the mistake i made i'm not targeting you i'm looking out for you exactly Byron, I want to ask because you have such a rich background, originally being from Costa Rica, experiencing all the different cultures that you've cooked in, all the different types of cuisines you've worked in. I want to know when you're creating dishes at your restaurant, where do you normally start? What comes first? Is it a memory? Is it a technique? Is it an ingredient? Yeah, it's so, man, it's such a complex question and answer because right now a bruto is the first thing has to be what is the story? What is the storytelling? So right now the fish dish is only two things, a piece of steamed sablefish with a white asparagus sauce. Well, what is the story there? White asparagus is a very short season in the spring, about three to four weeks. While everybody in the country is having a feeding frenzy, when it's in season, everybody's excited, as they should. We decide to not be part of that. We decide to preserve it, pickle it. We took the peels, each individual asparagus, and we turned it into a powder, which was for our ice cream in our summertime menu. Then we took the pickled and we made a beurre blanc out of it, which we're serving now. To me, that's luxury. When you can't have an ingredient that is not available, it's not in season, but you're able to taste it. So we begin with the preservation, fermentation, all these practices. Another one was in the summer, we had our last bite. It's pretty much whatever trim we have of different ingredients throughout the menu. So we were juicing carrots for our fish dish in the summer. We took that pulp and made a creamsicle out of it with koji that we utilize to make our misos. So it tasted like a creamsicle. And that was a childhood memory from ice cream trucks back when I was in New York. So I could look at a color. I could look at a texture. And if I'm looking at something that's like this vase that is aerated, And I could look at a sponge cake that we could do in a microwave and you tear it. And then I could think about rocks and what is going to be texturally so we could coat something in white cocoa that it has that rock flavor, but it's good in the inside. And all I want is just to invoke an experience, a memory, a feeling, because this industry is extremely competitive. Right now, we are in an age where businesses are suffering because of the labor, the generational labor, whatever you want to call it, competition, inflation. How am I going to be thankful that these guests are choosing my business today compared to any other business when they have a million other options to go dine anywhere? When you're talking about Michelin, you're at another level. People talk about, oh, the accolades, this and that. No, it's like a thousand more pounds of weight that you have to carry because now you're being criticized even in a more focused scale. So I just want to invoke something, whether that's the storytelling, preservation practices. It is my job to manipulate, to cook, to put up the best product and to give those guests a two hour, two and a half hour experience when they're sitting at Bruto. and then they could go back to their lives and go back to the stress and go back to the scrolling. All I'm asking, I want to make you feel human. I want to make you feel cared for. Is that hospitality with service? Absolutely. Are we the best at it? No, but this is what I've been training to do. I'm just trying to tell a story and I hope that we could connect and have that human connection somehow. Yeah, I love that. And it's like, you can just tell, it's like, you know, when you're saying you're trying to invoke something, it's like talking about that creamsicle. It's like, I could just imagine someone eating that and smiling. And like, that's the best feeling, right? Like when you have this idea and you're like, this reminds me of something so specific, right? Like I had a, I had a zucchini dish on the menu a couple of summers ago at Rosemary and we would grill them. And it's just a smell of zucchini and charcoal on the grill. Like made me feel like I was running around my backyard on 84th street. Like it just was like, it was like perfect in my head. Right. And I had a friend of mine's dad came in and he ate the dish, you know, and I went, I was like, oh, what'd you think of it? And he was like, he was tearing up. He's like, I grew up here. He's like, and it's like, it's a simple dish, man. It's grilled zucchini with smoked beef fat and Parmesan fondue to pickled zucchinis on it. It's nothing, you know, it doesn't float. It's not on a river. You know what I mean? Like it's not any. And then he was like, my mom used to make grilled zucchini as a kid over like the Weber. and he's like and it just i haven't tasted something like that in so long and it just reminded me of her and you know she's been gone for years and i haven't had her food in years and he goes it just made me emotional he goes i can't explain it it was like and i was like well fuck me dude like come on like i'm in the middle of the service here i'm in the middle of the service here you're just wrecking me with this like i just want to know if you like the dish like you know when you talk about that that creamsicle it's like i just imagined someone But like, you know, you get that one person who has that same connection. Like, oh, man, yeah, this is that. This is summertime New York. This is the ice cream truck. This is being there's no more thrilling moment than pulling that wrapper off that thing. It was like, man, we are living large. We're living ice cream truck large right now. We get to evoke those childhood-like memories on other people, but also myself. And get it. Guys, running a business is hard. Multiplying yourself. I hope that AI could figure out how to clone myself so I could be more efficient. It's hard. But what a beautiful, we have a responsibility for that. And we also have the skills to give somebody that gift. There's another question that I'm curious to ask you because you've also gone through several iterations of yourself. And we've talked about this, I think, years ago when I met you in Aspen and how, you know, you've worked on yourself. We all want to get better. We all want to unlearn some of the bad habits we learned. We all want to try every day to be 1% better, like you said. And what is something that you had to unlearn? A kitchen habit, a life habit, something you had to unlearn to help you become a better version of yourself. Bruto is an agency counter, open kitchen. People get to see everything, see the performance, see the execution. um although i was already in television when i got to bruto and did a slow disdisposure doing the food that i was doing at that level with that setting one thing that i had to unlearn is to not be so focused on this and actually look up look up and be present because there's so many cues that you miss there's so many reading the room moments that you could miss and i finally kind of understood why when I was working with Daniel Ballou or Daniel Hoom or Gavin Kaysen, they will leave the kitchen. They will leave the pass and go to the dining room because that's able to give you a sense of where you're at, where you're going, what the energy is like in the room, what the pace is, and seeing the guest's reaction from the food that they're having, whether it was bad, not bad, but I'm saying like maybe they didn't like it, maybe they left something. that taught me how to manage my business better, the kitchen better, the team better, the execution, maybe the thing that I thought, and I'm just going to die on this hill because this is the recipe for this dish. Maybe we need to pivot because I need to let my ego aside. And actually, I don't work for the company. I don't work for Bruto. I work for the guests. If I don't have guests in my dining room, I don't get paid. My cooks don't get paid. The business doesn't run. So having that realization of looking up. I'm at a point in my career where I can look up and have all the people and trust the people that could manage the stuff that I don't need to manage. Do I want to? Absolutely. Don't want to be like, guys, you can't fucking figure this shit out. A hundred percent most of my time. But that's not my job anymore. I have a middle person that I could go up to that and they could distribute. They could say the message along the team. So I needed to be comfortable in that. I needed to grow into that role. I needed to accept my place in the kitchen of what is my execution. How am I going to do better? That if Garma J under seasons the salad, then I'm going to go under review and say, little Tommy on season the salad. That's what we're writing this article. They're going to be like, chef Byron Gold. And I'm like, dude, so he's dealing with all of that. And I think it's just being present. Chef Byron's awesome. Little Tommy sucks. So it's never how the review reads. so uh yeah that is just looking up and being present yeah the the the old way of training like keep your head down focus on your station that is a really hard habit to unlearn when you're at the point that you're like oh no i need to look around i need to see what other people are doing and not be focused on this one thing i need to have a big picture view right and especially i think you know you you know doing like top chef and all that stuff it's like now you have a place where it's like people are coming to see you too you know what i mean they want to see you they want to interact with you so it's like there has to be a level of like and i'm not saying people need all access but it's like i feel like you got you got to give them some of that right and it's like that you do you really realize you get like enriches their experience and it costs you nothing to do to just be like hey what's up you know what i mean like you know it's like makes their day makes their day right you know and people you know they tell me like you know i getting like a dm a little bit oh i coming in i be like cool say hi like oh is that cool it like yeah no it be weird if you didn yeah i had people reach out to me and they like on dms and i reach out back and they like oh my god i never thought you would have responded this is so and i was like well we're fucking healings too like right and it's like also you were we're humans who like want you to patronize our business like i want you to come there like it's my whole thing is trying to get people to come to the thing that i'm doing you know so it's like you're like hey i want to come it's like i'm gonna try to figure out how to make that happen for you yeah byron one one question also that i find really interesting is there's different schools of thought in the industry about going to culinary school and skipping culinary school and my mom worked in the industry. I was raised by a woman who was in the industry herself. So, you know, I'm a, I'm a lifer. Um, but I remember her telling me culinary school, you don't go to learn things. You learn to prove to a chef you're applying to that you can stick with something. You're going to learn the names of what to call stuff, but you're not going to learn until you're in a restaurant working. And I know you didn't go to culinary school and you've achieved like some of the highest accolades in our industry. What is your view on culinary school and you skipping it? And did you feel like you wanted to go? Like, can you tell us a little bit about that? Yeah. I mean, I always, story of my life, I always wanted to fit in, whether it was in high school, whether it was with a certain group of friends, then on culinary school, I wanted to fit in and I never got the opportunity to go to culinary school so then i felt like an outsider when i applied to work with uh dinex daniel i was like this guy has interns from neon from switzerland from asia why is he going to take me you know and and as a chef now a lot of it has to do with you showing up that's half the battle and have a good attitude i'm going to teach you all the fuckers that i did and what not to do and I could maybe save you a couple hundred thousand dollars, whether you're changing careers, you know, going to culinary school, whatever that is. I myself, life did not present me that opportunity. So I took the enrollment of School of Hard Knocks. I had no other choice. In my opinion, I'm all for education, but I had a kid who just started working for us, was texting me late spring last year. Hey, chef, I'm done with my internship at Osteria Francescana in late summer. I'm coming back to the US. I'm a CIA. I'm in the middle of CIA. I would love to come and work for you once I get back. We ran to him the stage. He came in. He was able to do his two-day stage. At the end of his stage, he's like, I need to go back and finish culinary school in December. And I was like, okay, well, I need to hire somebody like today. So what's going to happen? He's like, all right, let me go back home. And I was like, okay. He drove from Florida to Colorado for a two day stash and then was going to drive back. I was like, okay. He came back the next day. Chef, I spoke to some people that, you know, I trust and I'm not going to go back to corners. And I was like, cool. I'm taking a risk on you because you took a risk on me. That kind of attitude is one of a go-getter. Did that kid realize that culinary school? I was like, why are you going to finish culinary school if once he came back and accepted the job? And he goes like, I don't know, just to get my name out there. I was like you came from most of the francescana and you're being offered a job at a one-star mission restaurant what do you mean you're there right that's it yeah taking those two samples it's just like what is the right answer everybody has a different path culinary school wasn't my answer wasn't my action this kids he tried it he left it he's in a better place maybe i i don't know but i think um yeah if that makes sense totally definitely makes sense i mean completely makes sense to me i always you know it's like i feel like i've had those interns with like oh well i'm gonna go finish you know two more years at kendall or cra whatever so i can get like my bachelor's in culinary and i'm like for like one is somebody else paying for it if somebody else is paying for it if the buddy doesn't matter yeah go ahead go have two more years of fun you know i mean go enjoy it why not who cares maybe go hang out in upstate new york or chicago whatever go do it it's like but if you are paying for this it's like you're out of your mind because you're not going to take that bachelor's degree and then go to law school or go take your mcats like you know what i mean it's like it's like just get to work you want to be a chef you want to be a cook like start cooking right yeah see i went to culinary school but i was in a work study program so i was working for chefs around new york for free it was like you're short staffed on a saturday You need somebody because you can't pull a sous chef from the restaurant. You need somebody to set up your demo. So it was very hands on. It was very practical. So I feel like I got a lot out of it in that way. So, yeah, I'm just I'm always curious about that because for somebody, you know, some people look at culinary school as it's going to guarantee me success in the industry. And, you know, it depends on the person. Obviously, you have achieved the heights of the industry without having gone to culinary school. So, you know, it's not always necessary. Yeah, I don't think there's anything that guarantees anything in this industry. It's just not that. And even if you look at culinary schools, there's no Harvard. There's no Yale. There's no like, oh, I went to, you know, it's like you went to CIA. It's like, yes, sure. You can say that's the best culinary school in America. But it's culinary school. At the end of the day, hard work only guarantees you a better shot of doing something else and something harder. That's it. It doesn't guarantee you success. it just really does it you know people think oh hard work guarantees you success no it just gives you a better shot than just being on the fucking couch and scrolling through you know netflix so going that gives you a better chance that that's or watching other people cook on instagram or take time right yeah yeah it'll give you the opportunity for something more you know what i mean at least it's just like yeah but it's like you know somebody asked me the other day they came in and they're like, how many of these people on your line went to culinary school? And I was like, I don't know. Because I never ask anymore. I never ask people like, oh, did you go to culinary school? I'm usually like, did you work anywhere before this? And if they worked anywhere before this, we talk about that. And it doesn't matter to me. One of my torn outs right now is a guy I hired who he was. His resume before he worked for me was Bona Beef and Chick-fil-A. The rest of his resume is Rosemary. And now he's a torn out at Bar Tuta. And it's like, he's nasty. And like, it's awesome. And it's like, I don't, he didn't go to culinary school. I don't care. You know what I mean? Like, just like, it's like, can you cook? Are you not an asshole? Like, do you want to hang out with us? Like bonus points. If you're funny, you know, I was quick. We're cool. Like you want to hang out with us. You want to be exact. I always say like, if you're going to be shitty, at least be funny. You know, like if you're going to be a really shitty cook, like try to be a little funny, it'll get you a long way. Like if you at least could be like, you know, a vibes person on the line, you know, of like, like you kind of suck, but you're like, but you're like but you're like you know what like yeah i know gina sucks but like gina's fucking hilarious so it's like we'll let her work karma for nine more months like you know it's like it's funny that you talk about you always need the vibes because you know coming up the ranks like i will use those people as my shield when i will fuck up and i would just say something to trigger the other person so they could take the spotlight and i'll be just in the corner just like i'm fucking everything that i would do it and they put it off so i just reminded me of that when you said that. Well, Byron, we know what you've achieved in the industry. We know where you started. We know where you climbed up to and we know where you are now. But there was a young Byron back in the day, a young Byron Gomez working at his restaurants, doing his thing, maybe in fine dining, maybe before who made a memorable mistake. Right. So we have a segment that we call walk in confessions. And this is where we finally come clean about the mistakes that our younger selves made that we can own up to now no shame no embarrassment you're in a safe space you know shame dies in the light as they say um well something and an instance that kind of taught me something it has I don't know maybe not doing with cooking but I apply it to cooking I was uh working at a pissy river loop on 64th and Broadway. And I took that place almost like my culinary school because at that time, on that corner, it was Bar Baloo, Episcopal Baloo, and Baloo's suit around the corner. So on my days off, I was staged in the other restaurants, whether it was pastry, whether it was on the line, whether it was breakfast. I just wanted to learn. I saw the opportunity and I was like, I'm going to hop on this bandwagon. And Danny Baloo came and there was a, oddly enough, there was a, I think it was season 12 of Top Chef. The cast was having a dinner party at one of the PDRs. So Daniel Ballou comes up and being him, he wants to take pictures and then everybody wants to take pictures. So they happen to pull me to the PDR and they're like, hey, can you take pictures? So I'm taking pictures. I got like 16 phones in front of me, taking pictures, all of that. Everybody takes their phone back. Chef is saying hi. It's just in his own world. I happen to walk away. 10 minutes later, there's a panic in the room in the kitchen somebody took chef's phone somebody stole chef's phone because i didn't give it back to him you know and now i'm thinking my job is on the fucking line the executive chef goes out to be like you fucked up dude like what the fuck byron because obviously you know he's gonna look bad his team is gonna it's just right all trickled out in fact everybody his assistant everybody's just fucking freaking out and uh finally somebody from the cast comes back like 20 minutes later they were like oh we were down columbus circle and we realized we took an extra phone this is somebody's phone it's chef's phone i'm like i'm not fired saying oh my god i am oh my god oh my god that told me a few things it's bro getting fired on your day off when you're snodging too or something uncookie related would be all time all time so i told me a few things it's uh i had this thing i could tell my guys it's like take a penny leave a penny policy if you take something just put it back put it back where you found it put it back where it belongs also if somebody's giving you an order do it right now drop everything and do it right now because you're not going to remember because you have your tasks you have your timeline you have your day just accomplish that and move on to the next thing and then how to organize myself you know now i know what it is i don't want to say an assistant but i have a team of you know i have a pr person i have a manager and and they're all doing their job to enhance my job and if i don't do something they don't eat they don't get paid and things like that so he told me how to like build a team and i remember that assistant how much she was freaking out for something that wasn't even her fault but also it's just like keep your shit on check on my end um don't don't take pictures for daniel will do ever again and yeah give the right person back the right phone i love the idea of you having to walk into an interview at emp after that and explain why you got fired imagine so uh why did why did you leave uh danielle's group fucking lost the phone man I lost the phone. There was like 16 phones. I wasn't even working that day. It wasn't my fault, dude. I don't know where the phone was. I didn't work that day. I'm not a photographer. I'm not a photographer. All right, guys. That's awesome. Chef, thank you so, so much. This was an absolute blast. Me and Adrian, we got to come visit you out there. We got to come eat at Bruto. So I'm going to take you guys both out for ice cream baked potatoes. Watch your heads explode against the wall. Love it. That's it for this episode of The Chef's Cut. Be sure to subscribe wherever you're listening, especially if you're watching us on YouTube, where you can find full-length video episodes of each show. And follow us at Chef's Cut Pod on IG. On behalf of Joe Flam, I'm Adrienne Cheatham, and this has been the Chef's Cup. Life beyond the past.