Once you stop learning, once you are not curious anymore, life is over. When you ran away from home when you were 14, how did you end up in a kitchen? Was it because it was familiar from working with your mother? I want people to learn. I want people to get better because you do a much better job if you love what you do than if you don’t like it. How did Johnny Carson influence your frozen pizza business? Oh, you know about that, huh? We all gotta eat and we all gotta start somewhere. Today’s guest on the show is one of the most recognizable names and faces in all of food today. You know him, you’ve probably eaten a box of pizza with his face on it. He operates more than 100 restaurants around the world. Please welcome the legend, Chef Wolfgang Puck. Hello. Chef, thank you so much for being here. My pleasure to be here. And I think it looks like we’re gonna get something to eat here. We are gonna get something to eat. We’re gonna get a couple things to eat, because today, we’re sort of telling the story of your life and your success through food. We’re gonna start with a struggle meal from your childhood. Okay. Then get into a meal that you ate during the hustle period as you were building your businesses. And then finally get into the success portion where we actually get to really enjoy the food. And what we gonna drink? Can we get this man some champagne. I’m so sorry. Listen, hospitality is dead. We didn’t offer you a drink on the way in. There’s no amuse bouche here. Okay. But the drink will do. Chef, for your childhood struggle meal, we have one rum and Coke. We’ll get to that story later. but it plays into his childhood inexplicably. And then we have the Kärntner Kasnudlen. Huh? Kärntner Kasnudlen What the are you saying? I don’t know what the I’m saying. How do you say this? You’re a different language. Kärntner Kasnudlen. Kärntner Kasnudlen. Kärntner Kasnudlen. Kärntner Kasnudlen. But you said it pretty good, I’m joking. My Corinthian accent is terrible, but I only speak standard Swiss German. Oh, okay. But this is a potato dumpling from your childhood where you grew up in Austria in a house without running water, without indoor plumbing. Yeah. And I know you dealt with a lot of abusive situations when you ran away from Austria to work in kitchens in the south of France when you were only 14 years old. Yeah. It’s truly an incredible story. Well, I think sometimes hardship makes you work harder and makes you more resistant to failure. And to me it was always, no was not an answer. When I left my home at 14, I said, whatever somebody said, I said, no, I will do it. I will do it. I tried to jump in the river once, and then after an hour looking down, I said, you know, I just gonna go back and see what happened. And then the chef, I was hiding in the vegetable cellar and peeling onions and potatoes and everything. And the chef one day came down and said, “What the heck are you still doing here?” And then I was sitting down and I had my potato bags next to me and he grabbed me in the back and said, “Get the hell out of here.” I said, I’m not leaving, I’m not leaving. I screamed as loud as he did, and I was like four foot eight tall, this tiny little shrimpy guy. Finally he called the owner of the hotel and the owner said, “Okay, we have another little hotel here in town. Maybe we send him there.” And there we had the woman as the chef. And she actually said do your job and be quiet. Everything will be okay. And that’s the beginning. Fast forward, you’re here with me eating Kärntner Kasnudlen. Yeah, Kärntner. Kärntner. Kärntner Kasnudlen. Kärntner Kasnudlen. Yeah. When your mother made this, would she make it look like this with all the frills on the outside, or was it a lot more humble of a dish? It was a little bit more humble. She put parsley on top or sometimes a little salad on the side or on top. We used to fight who gets more, who can eat more. It used to be one of our favorite, for my stepfather who ate the most, and whatever was left over my sisters and me ate them. Now, whenever you eat anything, are you analyzing it or do you ever just get to shut your brain off and just shove food down? I do both. Sometimes I get into it. The filling is very good. It has a little mint taste. So your mother was a pastry chef, I believe, right? A chef, yeah, she made pastries too, in a resort hotel in Valencia. And so every summer I used to go and help her, and for me it was great. I could eat ice cream and I could eat cakes and help the pastry chef and help my mother. That was when I was 11, 12, 13. And as soon as school was over, got my luggage and left the house. Because my stepfather was a terrorist. He was a terror. All right, let’s taste my favorite drink as from my childhood. I shouldn’t say it because I might get still arrested. Statute of limitations has passed. You’re clear. Okay. You have diplomatic immunity here. Okay, thank you. All right, rum and Coke was my childhood favorite drink. I wanna ask, when you ran away from home when you were 14, you could have gone into any profession. How did you end up in a kitchen? Was it because it was familiar from working with your mother? I grew up in a small village, we were next to a farm, and driving the tractor was one of my favorite things, too. Often before going to school, I woke up at 4:00 in the morning, helped a farmer who was like a young guy too, and helped him. And I was driving the tractor, and he was sitting in the back, and put the seeds in the ground for corn or whatever it was. And my stepfather wanted me to become a mechanic, or a mason, or a carpenter, anything except cooking, because he thought cooking is for women. Because every woman at that time from a family, they cooked at home. The men were not cooking. But for me, it was really a way out. I didn’t like it that much at the beginning. When you’re peeling potatoes and onions and cleaning the stove and the floor and everything. And I remember we had a charcoal stove. Yeah. Now you all gonna think that was in the 18th century. It wasn’t that long ago. It was only 1875, it was actually pretty recent. So it was only after three years I moved to France and then first to Dijon and Burgundy. I learned about wine, and I became a real good connoisseur about wine, but only Burgundy wines. Yeah. And then after that I moved to Baumanière, and that changed my life. Yeah, Baumanière, that’s the south of France. South of France, a province, a three star restaurant. The owner was so passionate about food, about the product. He had six gardeners. We got the best green beans, tomatoes, or strawberries, whatever it is. It was amazing. We got baby lamb. I mean, one leg of lamb was for two people. And he was the first one who actually looked at me and said, “Great job.” And whenever he went on vacation, even I wasn’t the chef, I was making the sauces. He said, “Wolfgang has to be here. He cannot take off when I’m gone.” And that made me feel really good. I said, “Oh my God, finally somebody liked me.” Well, no, ’cause I know your stepfather, and also the first chef that you worked for, I know both of them have said something to you to the effect of, “You’re good for nothing.” Which is I think, the worst, most damaging thing you can tell, especially a 14-year-old, somebody who’s developing. I know, I think it’s terrible. And I look back at that and I said, how can a grown up person tell their kid, you’re good for nothing? You’re never gonna be anything in your life. You know, you’re gonna come home and they’re gonna have to give you money and everything. I mean, it’s so sad. Instead of encouraging somebody, they did exactly the opposite. They put you down and the first chef was just as bad. He used to be drunk all the time and say, “Ah, you’re good for nothing. Go back home to your mother.” I said, “Before I go home, I’m gonna kill myself. I’m not going home.” So I didn’t go home and I didn’t kill myself. So I continued So many people who have dealt with abusive situations like that, they end up internalizing it. And then maybe even without knowing, repeating that downward to people who then work for them. Yeah. How have you been able to prevent that? Because by all accounts, I actually interviewed you about 10 years ago at the Hotel Bel Air. I was working for Los Angeles Magazine at the time, and you were doing the Oscars dinner, and I interviewed some of your chefs as well. And the amount of admiration they had for your leadership style was just through the roof. You could tell in the way that you talked about the people that worked for you. Yeah. With so much respect and care, there’s obviously a world in which you could have repeated those patterns of abuse. You know, I was pretty rough when I was really young. I didn’t let them come in the kitchen. They had to write me a note that said, “Okay, Wolfgang, can you make us something for lunch?” So they put me their note and said, “We want fish today, or we want meat today.” And I said, okay, I’ll make it, as long as they don’t come in the kitchen. But then I went to Maxim’s in Paris, And one time I yelled at one of the chefs, the executive chef came over to me and says, “I hear your voice one more time, here’s the exit.” Wow. I said, oh shit, I don’t wanna, I don’t wanna leave Maxim’s. It’s a three star restaurant and everything. And I said, okay, I’m gonna cut down. And from then on, I really got karma and karma over the years. But also, insecurity often makes you act up. Once you feel a little bit more secure, you say, okay, instead of yelling at somebody, you show them how to do it. Yeah. Like the last time I really yelled was when I was at Ma Maison. I remember Cat Stevens, I don’t know if you remember him. Yeah. He was at the restaurant and he wanted some soft boiled eggs. I said, I’m in a French restaurant, you want soft boiled eggs for dinner? Patrick come and says, he goes, “Cat Stevens is gonna leave. It’s already half an hour. He’s waiting for his five minute eggs or whatever.” And finally I got so pissed off, I took the two eggs out of the water with the ladle, and grabbed them in my hand and said, “You want the eggs? Here are the eggs!” The eggs went on the wall. He had egg yolks on his face and everything, it was crazy. Yeah, so only to Cat Stevens can you get a little prickly. Yeah, but after that, when I opened Spago in 1982 in January, I built an open kitchen, the first restaurant with a total kitchen in the middle of the dining room. So we all, I told everybody, we have to be quiet. We cannot swear, we cannot shout. So I had to lead by example. And I did. And you know, the rest is history. Now I’m in a positive mode. I want people to learn. I want people to get better, and I want them enjoy what they do. You know, because you do a much better job if you love what you do than if you don’t like it. Or if you like the person than you don’t like it. If you’re working out of love versus working out of spite. You can get results in both, but only one of those is actually going to last. And I think if you find people, show them what passion means, show them what love means, and show them what hospitality means. And then I think you get that together and you might be successful. For your hustle meal, during the years when you’re really building your business, we have Hachis Parmentier. This is the Francophilic version of a cottage fired shepherd’s pie. And so you made your way out to Los Angeles in 1975, I believe, to helm the kitchen in Ma Maison with restaurateur Patrick Terrail. And you really changed the way that people viewed fine dining, especially in 1982 when you opened your flagship Spago. And this represents the hustle years. Yeah, this represents the hustle years, but also to show people you can make something delicious with very little, really? So this is, you can use leftover meat, or ground meat, or like meat like you would make for chili, or something like that. Just put it on a plate, not on the table, please. I tried. I’m never gonna get that job at Spago. You should see me de-bone a sole though, I’m incredible. Sole meunière, chef, I’m up there whipping it up like a samurai. Oh my God. I lied to you, I’m not doing that. Okay, Byron, I think we’re gonna give him a job. We have problems with people deboning in front of the guests. My hands will be shaking. Yeah, it looks good, it smells good. Fresh out the oven. Yeah. You know, this is like soul food for me, too. You know, you eat that, it makes you feel good. Especially in the fall and the winter. This is a perfect dish, and you also can make it with sweet potatoes. How much have you seen the world of kitchens change since you started to now? Because I grew up in the era where thinking that being a chef was a cool, fun, artistic job, because I grew up watching people like you on my TV. I grew up reading Anthony Bourdain. But when you started as a cook, even coming out to LA in 1975, how were chefs viewed in the world? Well, at that time, chefs were generally in the back of the house or down in the cellar where the kitchen was. They were never out to see the guests. When we opened Spago, the kitchen became the center, the heart of the restaurant. And I thought for me it was perfect, because I could look, see what’s going on in the dining room and in the kitchen. And I also wanted to show people that we use the best ingredients. One time I served Sidney Poitier, and he had the whole group of people, with John Collins and some other famous people. And I served them a dessert with strawberries. I think it was a strawberry Mille-Feuille. And the strawberries, and they said, “Wolfgang, I never saw strawberries so red. Did you paint them or whatever?” I said, no, I just got them from the farm and they picked them really ripe. But you got them in the supermarket tastes like shit. So to me, great cooking always starts with great products. Once you have great products, makes it easy. What’s crazy is, now that sounds so familiar, because again, I’ve been hearing people like you say that for so long, but at the time, that was a very revolutionary idea that you were using local products in restaurants with high-end fine dining. Whereas before it was all about importing luxury items. Totally. And cooking it with the same overcooked vegetable medley, even at the best fine dining restaurants. At that time, did you understand that there was a revolution happening? No, we were part of the revolution then. It was started really around 1980, but where really innovation started was in California. Yeah. And especially in LA, and people always think, oh, it’s New York, or Chicago, or San Francisco. New York, and Chicago, San Francisco, they always had great, they call it continental restaurants, a mixture of. It’s such a dirty word at this point that you have to put quotes around it. Yeah, I know. Nobody ever wrote Californian cuisine. People didn’t know what it was. Like I remember when we opened Spago in Tokyo, all the journalists asked me, “What is California cuisine? We know Chinese cuisine, Italian cuisine, French cuisine.” I said, you know where California is. We use ingredients, main ingredients, what we have in California. But also our cuisine is a mixture of the different cultures who live in Los Angeles or in California. So we have a lot of Asian influences. So when I started Spago, for example, we were the first Caucasian restaurant, or not Japanese restaurant to serve raw tuna. That didn’t exist in restaurants. Yeah. We really changed the way America eats in California. How comfortable were you being, at this point, not just Wolfgang Puck the chef and cook, but Wolfgang Puck the brand, the front man, the effectively the maitre D, ’cause as I understand it, like in France, the maitre D is almost more famous than the chef in certain cases. The Maitre D has all the facing of the customer. In a lot of these restaurants, the owner, manager, Maitre D, you name them, we are the most important people. Yeah. But for me, Mr. Goullier at Baumanière was my example. He also walked into the dining room, talked to the guests. I still remember as a young kid, he brought Picasso in the kitchen. Wait, like the Picasso, Pablo, the one? The Pablo one, yeah. That’s crazy, I just didn’t expect that. Yeah, I was making a duck sauce, and we always put red food coloring in. I said I was stirring the sauce, and he looked in and he said, “Oh, you paint also?” I said, “No, that’s my duck sauce.” That’s crazy. And I remember the best one was when he brought Elizabeth Taylor in the kitchen. One of the most beautiful women in the world. I want to be like him. Not just because of the famous people who used to come there, but because of his passion for food. How did Johnny Carson influence your frozen pizzas? Oh, you know about that? Johnny was one of our regulars, every Friday night he used to come to Spago. Yeah. One time he asked me, he wants to take some pizzas home. A week later he says, “Make me 10 pizzas to go.” Finally, I asked him one day, I asked him, I said, “Johnny, what do you do with 10 pizzas?” He said, “I put them in the freezer.” I looked at him, “You put my damn pizzas in the freezer? I’m not giving you pizzas anymore.” That’s sacrilege. And he said, “No, I put them in the freezer, and when Don Radcliffe, or Bob Newhart, or any of my friends come over, we play cards late in the morning. We get hungry and then I tell my houseman, I said, “Just put the pizza in the oven for 10 minutes,” and we all have pizzas and a little vodka or whatever. Smart, smart guy. Yeah. So I cooked some, took them home, put them in the freezer for a few days and then cooked them and said, you know, it’s a little dry. Then I cooked it halfway and put it in the freezer, and then I cooked it again and I said, you know, it tastes really good. Almost as good as the fresh one. So then I said, okay, let’s try frozen pizzas, because Johnny already freezes them at home. So we started in a few supermarkets, like Gelson and so on, and made frozen pizzas for them. And we became successful, so then we expanded. My dad didn’t know anything about food. We didn’t have any money to go eat out. The Olive Garden was the fanciest place that we went for our birthdays. I took an interest in food, and I’d be watching “Top Chef” and I’d see you judging on “Top Chef” as a wee little lad. And my dad would go, “Hey, we can buy that guy’s pizza in the supermarket.” And so there I am, the guy from “Top Chef” on my screen at home, I’m able to put it in the oven. And those experiences genuinely meant a lot to me. The world is really unlimited. So what was once only a chef in the kitchen somewhere, nobody knew their name. All of a sudden the chef becomes the center of food and restaurants. And these days nobody knows a Maitre D anymore. Nobody knows who the owner is, or the owner is not that important, or the investor is not that important. The only one important is the guy who makes the food or the woman who makes the food, you know? So to me, this is really what chef have become. Not only running their own restaurant. Yeah. But also running a business. Because it is really important for a chef, not just to be a great cook, to be a great manager, but also to be a good businessman. Because if you are not a good businessman, you’re not gonna stay in business. And for the first time in “Hustle Meals” history, we have two success meals here. We have the traditional caviar setup. We have some golden osetra, and some traditional osetra caviar, with the classic blini, shallot, sieved egg and chive. And then over here we have, this is a little bit of a modern invention. The caviar with fried chicken, with some Calabrian chili aioli and black truffle honey. Wolfgang, you now run an operation with more than 100 restaurants around the globe. Every continent, except for Antarctica, I believe. But I’m sure you’re coming there soon with a Wolfgang Puck Express. Your son, Byron, who has a very impressive resume by yourself, having worked at Guy Savoy, Le Bernardin, all across the globe, are preparing to take the reins. What an incredible story. Thank you, I appreciate it. It’s just fun to honestly hang out with my dad every day and fall in love and be passionate about the same industry. I mean, we both love food. We get to eat together three times a day, ’cause we work together every single day. And as you’ve seen, I mean, he’s the plethora of stories. Truly. So, you know, it never gets boring. We’re laughing all day long. Talking about story, where’s the smoked salmon pizza? What the heck? That’s why I came here. We 86’ed the pizza two hours ago, chef. You gotta get here earlier if you want the pizza. Sold out the pizza, all right. So we have the Cruqe champagne as well. Byron, I hate to put you on bartending duties again. But I mean, tell me about champagne as the ultimate sign of success. Everywhere, success is celebrated with champagne. Yeah. Success could be an anniversary, a birthday, it could be in a race, it could be getting a new job. Champagne makes it very festive, very elegant. And especially if you are not cheap, like you, you are amazing. We got a budget. You have an amazing budget, luxury budget. I didn’t know I had to drive to Burbank. I thought we are gonna get some cheap champagne here, but no, better, better than Beverly Hills. We save on rent in Burbank so we can buy the expensive champagne. That’s how it works. Good job. You go to the hills, you gotta serve Andre with the caviar. You are right. Byron, when was the first time you had caviar and Champagne? Honestly, I don’t know if I can remember that. I think my dad always loves to joke, he grew up on potatoes and I ended up growing up on smoked salmon pizzas. I think it was one of the first things I ate when I was like two or three years old, was a bite of that smoked salmon pizza with the black caviar on top. But I mean, it doesn’t get better than that. It’s still my favorite dish in this world is just having that smoked salmon pizza. And you know, the funniest thing, I was talking about Byron and drinking. I remember we went skiing once and I told Byron how to, if you have wine, champagne you don’t do it, but you have a wine glass, you smell the wine, first a bouquet and then you taste it. So we were skiing in a French restaurant and I ordered the bottle of Pinot Noir for the family. How old was he then? Maybe 12. I was gonna say younger, but let’s stick with 12. Okay, okay. The tall 12. The Sommelier says, “Okay.” So he pours him the Pinot Noir. Byron takes the glass, goes like that, smells it, maybe tastes a little bit, and says, “Papa, very complex.” And you should have seen the sommelier said, “Shit, this kid knows about wine.” Gentlemen, cheers. All right, cheers. What an honor. Cheers, thank you. Cheers. Absolutely. Thank you for having us here, look at that. Are you going blini first? Yeah, what do you wanna go first? The blini are homemade, we’re very proud of them. Yeah, okay. You’re very proud of them. Okay, you can have all the blini, we have all the caviar. That’s fine, I just want the blini and the sour cream. Okay. I haven’t had my success moment yet. I’m all in the grind section, so. Hey, me too. We are only at the beginning, you know, that’s what I always tell people. You have to stay curious. You have to learn things all the time. That way you grow. Once you stop learning, once you are not curious anymore, life is over. So we stay curious until the end. Okay, so we’re gonna taste the difference. You can see the different of the color. You can see it has this golden look, and the other one is dark, but at the end it’s the taste. The color doesn’t mean it’s always it’s better or not better. But I like this one. Of all of the luxury items that have the high ticket price, from Piedmont’s truffles to Osetra caviar, which one do you think is actually the most worth it? Do you think it’s caviar? Oof. I mean, caviar you can get so often, so I just love it. But now we’re right into white truffle season. We’re getting really close. Coming up. Yeah. And for me, I mean that’s just such a versatile ingredient. You can use it on so much different. Okay, a little more for you. Different cuisine. Thank you, chef. Okay. So I love white truffles personally. Yeah. I’m more of a shirako guy myself. Yeah, awesome. Shirako? Yeah, good for you man. I love that. Cod sperm, baby. That’s what makes a man. Oh my god. That’s actually really good. Cheers. It doesn’t get any better than that. Truly, hey. Osetra caviar, blinis and cooled champagne. Honestly. Cheers to everybody out there. Everybody should celebrate like us. Anthony Bourdain actually wrote really poetically about the greatest tasting thing in the world is working a hard shift on the line and then that first sip of a cold beer after. He said there’s no way to possibly recreate that. And Byron, like you’re somebody that, you didn’t have to work as hard as you did. I’ve seen your resume. I’m just hearing you talk. I know how much work you put in. What actually drove that? Was it coming from your dad or do you think a lot of that was just sort of your own internal drive? A lot of it was from my dad, but also just being ambitious and wanting to be able to grow. There’s always this sentiment with being second generation, right? A lot of my job might be to maintain, but I always feel like that’s so boring. The best thing for me to do in this life is to try and grow, to try and be better, and to try and build upon the amazing legacy that my dad set forth with all of these different restaurants. I told my dad one day, I was like, “You know, I’d love to try and work in the kitchen. I’d love to learn how to cook.” And I joked at him, I was like, “In a few years I’ll take over. You don’t have to worry.” And then he took it so seriously. The next day he came to me, he was like, “If you think you’re gonna do that, I’ll see you in the kitchen this summer.” And I was like, “No problem, I’ll be there.” Well, had you thought about that before or was that the first time that the idea was introduced to you that, oh, this could be somebody who ran your business? You know what? I did not know. It was the funniest thing. At his bar mitzvah, he announced in front of me, we had 500 people and he said, “And don’t worry dad, I will take over the business.” I said, “Oh great, so everybody now knows.” And I saw Roberta Powers, who was, at that time, the principal of the Center of Education. I saw her and I told her how proud I am of Byron, that he’s working so hard and he’s so passionate. And she said, “What do you expect? He announced it at his bar mitzvah that he’s gonna take over.” We gotta get to this fried chicken. The fried chicken’s been staring me in the face. So this is your success, I’ve made it meal. And this, we’re like, grew up in the same era. We’ve been chatting about all the similar restaurant experiences that we’ve had in the past. The fried chicken with caviar thing. I think the first time I had it was at a food festival. And frankly, I think your dad might have put it in my mouth. That sounds par for the course, frankly. Tender Fest 2019. Oh my god, yeah. Tender Fest! Was it you? Yeah. Were you there? Yeah, that was me at the front, and Chef Ari too. And we were up there, and we were doing, we were the only ones doing pork, actually, for that as well. We ran out of plates or something. I just ended up feeding people. You were hand feeding people, yeah, tender fried pork, some sort of tender. That was awesome. With caviar. So yeah, your culinary contributions have been duly noted in my life. I love that. Don’t get better than that, man. Yeah. You hear so many success stories that start with a story of abuse, of hardship, of running away from home. People get it inside themselves that I am successful because of that hardship, as opposed to, I may be successful in spite of that hardship. Yeah. As somebody who, I mean everybody goes through their own battles and own journey, and I’ve met you 48 minutes ago, but like, having grown up with your dad in the position that he’s in, where do you like draw that sort of idea of success from? I mean, mainly looking at these people that are ultimately happy in life, more than anything. Right, I mean, success, the lines of success can be drawn with just about anything. Yeah. And it’s hyper personal in so many regards. For me personally, I love what I do, and that’s success in and of itself. Yeah. It’s rare that you really get that opportunity, I think in life, to be so completely just utterly in love with what you get to do. So it can be little things, it can be big things. And it’s just for me, and I think for my dad in a lot of ways too, it’s how you define happiness in your life. And if you can approach each day with trying to seek that out, right, in what you do, I think that’s finding a lot of success. Yeah, how would you judge success in Byron taking over the Wolfgang Puck enterprise, now the Byron Puck Enterprise? What does a successful transfer of power look like to you? I love that we have a family business. Yeah. You know, I think hopefully it will continue. Hopefully Byron will grow it and to see, I have four boys, all of them getting along well, and I think they’re all gonna come to Byron for a free meal. I think so. And they deserve it too. You get two comp meals per month. Yeah, exactly. I know. And I think that’s really special to have a family business. And I think he moved in and everybody respects why, because he works harder than anybody. Yeah. He is smarter than the father. So I think what more do they need? Smarter, taller, more handsome. Yeah. I don’t know, he’s gotta. Keep it going, keep it going. Yeah. Better it up. No, but for real. I mean we’re at peak nepo baby discourse in the world. Now, did you feel like you had to overcompensate for that by working harder, or it was always just, I want to get in and do the work? I really think more than anything it was, I know how hard this business is by watching my family for my entire life. And I get asked that question often. Like, it must be big shoes to fill, or it must be a lot of pressure. And I always respond with, my dad wears about a size 10, so I think I’m okay on the shoes front. You wear a size 10? I wear a size 10. Anyways, you were saying. And then, but pressure truly does build diamonds. I think now more than ever, you couldn’t be more correct on the Nepo baby front. I don’t know if it was overcompensation because of that existing in society now, it’s more so that this industry is exceptionally difficult but exceptionally rewarding at the same time if you’re willing to put in the effort to get the most out of it. And that’s really the only way that I see it is, by working hard, you can grow new restaurants, grow people, grow a company and a brand into something greater day by day. But that constant pressure is necessary on everyone and yourself included. It’s funny when you say that this all works because people respect you, but I think a lot of it’s because you have earned the respect so clearly. Yeah. Just from the way you carry yourself, to your resume, to the amount of hard work that you’ve put in. So I just wanna raise a toast about you. Okay, give me a little more. Good for you. We never cheer with an empty glass. Barkeep, listen, he is good, he has respect, he’s earned it. But also he’s slow on the refill. Thank you, thank you. That’s it. There you go. I was only doing it to be polite, but truly this has been such a spectacular meal. Thank you so much for sharing your story. Thank you. Likewise. Such a pleasure, cheers to you. Cheers. Thank you, and good health. To good health. And may the show be number one. Everyone rate us five stars, no. For real, this is fantastic. You got anything to plug? Our famous barbecue. We used to do a barbecue at the Bel-Air Hotel when we were involved at the Bel-Air, but we are not. So now we are doing across from Spago at this Beverly Garden there next to the Mayborn Hotel. So with us at the Mayborn Hotel, plus chefs from Tulum, chefs from Texas, or barbecue chefs, like Eric comes from Tulum and makes this barbecue fish, which is amazing. So we are gonna have a great party, but also we always try to give something back. And I think already with Meals on Wheels for many years we did it. Now we have No Kids Hungry, so we are gonna give money for children or, you know, they cut so many of these things now with the government. So we wanna be sure that we give some money to kids who have less. It’s gonna be an amazing event, too. I mean, it’s, my dad and I are gonna be there and we have Evan Funky coming from Funky in Beverly Hills, and Nancy Silverton, who’s worked with us for ages, and we love, and so many great just artisans of barbecue too. And that’s really what the event is about, sharing in good food, good drink, and then giving back to a great cause as well. So we’re really excited. October 19th. 18 or 19th? 19th. 19th. October 19th. Say it one more time, October 19th. Don’t forget, Beverly Hills Barbecue off of Cannon Drive. It’s gonna be honestly the best food and wine event of the year. Special appearances by me, I’ll be shirtless, covered in barbecue. There we go, perfect. Can I get free admission if I show you my No Kid Hungry lower back tattoo? Okay, good. Yes, perfect. Yes, actually. You might think this is a joke. It’s real and it’s there. Is it actually? Oh no, now we need to know. I mean, free ticket easy for that. They’re very high waisted pants, but if you really sag ’em down. Oh, dude, you’re pulling those low. You gotta be kidding me, now. Yeah, you know. Holy shit, all right. Who would’ve thought. I never thought I was gonna get caught up on that one, but I guess one free ticket. The rest of them going to a good cause. So please come by. But we got one on the books. Thank you so much for liking, commenting, and subscribing. We’re ending every video like that again. “Good Mythical Evening” is blasting off on October 23rd at 10:00 PM Eastern, 7:00 PM Pacific. So get your tickets now at goodmythicalevening.com.