Podcast · Business

Chef's PSA Podcast

by André Natera | Chef's PSA Media · English · Business

The no-nonsense chef podcast for culinary leaders. Chef's PSA with André Natera gives cooks direct insight into kitchen management and what separates the pros from the rest. Featuring conversations with James Beard Award winners, Top Chef champions, and Bocuse d'Or competitors, we reveal the Micheli

New episodes: Weekly
Typical length: 1 hr 9 min
Latest: 9 Oct 2026
Language: English

Latest episode

9 Oct 2026 · 1 hr 26 min

Why Chefs Keep Paying for Buildings They'll Never Own? Sarah McIntosh Ep. 225

Paid partnership with Toast. This episode ends with a sponsored bonus segment on menu pricing, built on data from Toast's Menu Price Monitor and their free Menu Checker tool. Check your menu against the market → https://biz.toasttab.com/us1XN Sarah McIntosh is the chef-owner of epicerie in Austin, open on Hancock Drive since 2012 and running 450 covers on a busy Saturday. She came out of Louisiana, cooked at Bouchon and Ad Hoc, and has spent 20 years in and out of the Austin industry. Last year she flew to Argentina to cook alongside Francis Mallmann. None of that is why this conversation…

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Earlier episodes 29 most recent

E224 · 2 Oct 2026 · 1 hr 2 min
They Said His Restaurant Would Fail. 21 Years Later, He’s Still Here. Abraham Salum Ep. 224
Abraham Salum has one rule he wishes every restaurant would adopt. A friend of his makes everyone pile their phones in the middle of the table before dinner starts. First person to reach for theirs pays the bill. Nobody ever touches their phone. That same instinct for reading a room runs through the whole conversation. Salum opened Salum in Dallas 21 years ago on a block his own realtor questioned and a commercial broker publicly predicted would fail. He ran into him years later. The broker told him he had taken his foot out of his mouth a long time ago. Why he banned the words no problem in…
E223 · 25 Sep 2026 · 1 hr 4 min
Nick Walker, Are Your Line Cooks Still Loyal To You? Ep. 223
Nick Walker is an FSR 40 Under 40 chef who oversaw the James Beard nominated Meridian and now leads 11 Whiskey Cake locations across Texas and Florida. He started in a kitchen at 15, under the table, and cut his thumb open on his first real shift when a slamming office door caught his hand mid cut. They poured kitchen whiskey on the wound, duct taped it shut, and he finished service. Why he believes a cook can cook food, but a chef has to manage people and run the numbers, and why so many talented chefs never make that jump The line he still thinks about from a mentor who caught him publicly…
E222 · 18 Sep 2026 · 1 hr 2 min
Tim Laielli, 1.4 Million Followers, and Next Level Chef. Does He Call Himself a Chef? Ep. 222
Tim Laielli will not call himself a chef. He is clear about it every time someone assumes otherwise, including his own father, who is one. Eighteen months after posting his first cooking video, Tim was on set cooking against professional chefs for Gordon Ramsay on Next Level Chef. He built Bare Food Tim, over a million followers, without ever working a line, and he explains exactly why. His father worked two jobs his whole childhood and told him constantly not to follow him into restaurants. Tim listened, then found a way to work with food anyway. Three things worth hearing straight from…
E221 · 12 Sep 2026 · 1 hr 6 min
Matt Lambert: The Church of Michelin, the Modern Tasting Menu, and What's Actually Worth It Ep. 221
Matt Lambert earned a Michelin star at The Musket Room in New York in four months, a goal he'd given himself three years to hit. He describes what followed as treating the star like a religion, the Church of Michelin, and says he's never felt that emotional high again, chasing it in different forms for years after. Why he thinks the tasting menu has lost the plot. The moment he realized every chef on Instagram was making the same tart with a different color, and what he did about it Why moving back to New Zealand after New York hit him harder than the original move to America ever did André…
E220 · 4 Sep 2026 · 1 hr 14 min
What Working for Jean-Georges Actually Taught Him About Running a Kitchen Bryan Caswell Ep. 220
Bryan Caswell has cooked inside three very different kinds of rooms. Jean-Georges Vongerichten's kitchen in the early 2000s, where he learned that a quiet, organized kitchen beats a screaming one. Seventeen restaurant openings of his own, roughly half of them his own concepts, from Reef to his new restaurant Latuli in Houston. And, less known, rooms full of policy people deciding how the Gulf actually gets fished. Why he thinks the redfish fishery is in the best shape he's seen in his career, and why almost nobody outside the industry knows it A real proposal for cutting aquaculture's…
E219 · 28 Aug 2026 · 1 hr 1 min
The First Latina to Beat Bobby Flay Breaks Down Her Real Numbers Ep. 219
Rosana Rivera runs three businesses under one roof: a bakery storefront, a wholesale bread program, and a catering and events company called Gatheria Studio. Most operators would guess wholesale wins on volume alone. It doesn't. Catering does, by a wide margin, sometimes 30 to 40 percent margins in a good season, more than either of the other two combined at the bottom line. She's also the first Latina chef to ever beat Bobby Flay on television, and the casting process that got her there is worth hearing before you ever get a similar email yourself. The one piece of advice from her producer…
E218 · 21 Aug 2026 · 1 hr 7 min
Eduardo Osorio on Moving From LA to Dallas and Becoming the City's Hottest New Chef Ep. 218
Eduardo Osorio moved to Dallas from LA less than a year ago. Then Kent Rathbun, Dallas royalty, ate at Meridian and posted about it, and the walk-ins started within days. It's the kind of endorsement that doesn't happen for just anybody. He's built a career on adapting fast. Restaurant Daniel in New York, where a chef corrected his micro-green prep on day one and made it clear there wouldn't be a second warning. Eight months in Jeddah, cooking out of what was essentially a shipping container in 130-degree heat, where he learned the hard way that crossing your legs the wrong way gets you…
E217 · 14 Aug 2026 · 1 hr 3 min
Why San Antonio Is Texas's Most Underrated Food City With Enrique Lozano Ep. 217
Enrique Lozano is a Chopped champion, James Beard nominee for Best Chef Texas, and executive chef at Aguazul in San Antonio, with roots at Benny Frank's in El Paso and Mija opening soon in San Elizario. He'd been trying to get on Chopped for over a decade before the call finally came, right after his James Beard nomination. His strategy once he got there: cook exactly what he already knew, nothing more ambitious, nothing borrowed. It won him ten thousand dollars and, once the embargo lifted a year later, a wave of business he hadn't planned for. Why he thinks contestants lose on cooking…
E216 · 7 Aug 2026 · 1 hr 4 min
He Is The Third Generation To Run One Of NYC's Oldest Italian Restaurants Matthew Cutolo Ep. 216
Matthew Cutolo is a third-generation chef at Gargiulo's, the Coney Island restaurant his family has run since 1965 and that has fed Brooklyn since 1907. In 1977, The New York Times gave it three stars, unheard of at the time for a restaurant outside Manhattan. He learned to bake from Mike the Bake, the restaurant's pastry chef of over forty years, who refused to write down a single recipe, including for family. Matthew asked to learn anyway. Mike's answer was, "If you want to learn, you have to watch." For the first two months, Matthew stood at the mixing bowl and watched Mike add…
E215 · 31 Jul 2026 · 1 hr 12 min
The Century Where Food Stopped Being About Food | Bobby Hicks Ep. 215
Bobby Hicks read roughly 800 mid-century cookbooks to write one, and what he found was not a list of bad recipes. It was the exact point where American home cooking lost its thread. The Great Depression ran into World War II with almost no recovery in between. Two generations of mothers cooked without butter, without sugar, without the ingredients their own mothers' recipes assumed. What did not get cooked did not get taught. By the time the post-war boom arrived with canned soup and boxed everything, and women moved from house labor into factories and still had to put dinner on the table,…
E214 · 23 Jul 2026 · 1 hr 20 min
Toby Archibald The Chef Who Traveled the World to Build One Perfect Restaurant in Dallas Ep. 214
Chef Toby Archibald is the New Zealand-born chef and owner of Quarter Acre, a Michelin Guide restaurant on Lower Greenville in Dallas. Texas Monthly named it one of the Best New Restaurants in 2023. D Magazine ranked it a Top 5 restaurant. He spent twenty years working through Michelin-starred kitchens in London, Canada, New York, and Australia before opening Quarter Acre in December 2022. His career includes sous chef at The Greenhouse in London, sous chef at Café Boulud Toronto and New York under Gavin Kaysen and Aaron Bludorn, and Executive Chef at Georgie by Curtis Stone. This episode…
E213 · 17 Jul 2026 · 1 hr 4 min
The Food Is a Bonus. Hospitality Is the Point. Chef Geno McWilliams Ep. 213
Geno McWilliams is the self-taught chef and owner of Lucia's Italian Kitchen in Effingham, Illinois, a 39-seat open kitchen Italian restaurant three hours south of Chicago that has become a destination in rural America. He spent decades as a construction contractor while teaching himself to cook, traveled with more cooking equipment than construction tools, fired pizzas in hotel rooms with an Ooni Koda, and opened Lucia's in November 2020. He is a member of the US Pizza Team and Women in Pizza certified. He attended the Rewiring Hospitality conference in Irvine, California the week before…
E212 · 10 Jul 2026 · 1 hr 1 min
Matt McCallister on Getting Sober, Losing His Restaurant, and Why He Is Going Back Ep. 212
Chef Matt McCallister is the Food and Wine Best New Chef 2014, three-time James Beard Award finalist, and one of a handful of chefs to ever receive a five-star review from the Dallas Morning News. He opened FT33 in Dallas in 2012, followed it with Homewood, and is now opening River Sing, a 24-seat tasting menu restaurant in Fair Park, Dallas, in fall 2026. He has been sober since 2016. This episode is the less glamorous side of the chef world that people do not talk about. How the success of FT33 accelerated access to every vice that was already available, and what that looked like by 2016…
E211 · 2 Jul 2026 · 1 hr 13 min
Lady Line Cook Finally on Chef's PSA Ep. 211
Hanalei Souza is the sous chef, author, and content creator behind @ladylinecook, one of the most recognized culinary humor and leadership voices on Instagram with 88,000 followers. She has been in the industry since 2018, has worked at the same restaurant for seven years in a mountain town, and is the self-published author of the kitchen memoir "Nice Work, Boys!" She started making cooking videos on YouTube at age 14, posted with no audience for 11 years, and went viral on Instagram in 2022. She was flown to Texas by commercial kitchen equipment brand Cuchimix, which is how she ended up at…
E210 · 25 Jun 2026 · 1 hr 15 min
RJ Yoakum on Imposter Syndrome, Meat Cookery, and What Nobody Tells You Ep. 210
Chef RJ Yoakum is the chef de cuisine at Michelin-recommended Sushi Kozy in Dallas, a kaiseki-inspired omakase restaurant from chef-owner Paul Ko. A 2025 James Beard Award finalist for Emerging Chef, he previously led the kitchen at Georgie in Dallas to its first Michelin recommendation and trained at The French Laundry, Angler, and The Clove Club in London. He is 32 years old. He has trained in some of the most demanding kitchens in the world. And in this episode, he says that the more successful he became in Dallas, internally he was broken. Why four excellent elements on a plate always…
E209 · 19 Jun 2026 · 1 hr 11 min
Todd Duplechan and Jessica Maher on What Makes a Great Cook Ep. 209
Todd Duplechan and Jessica Maher are the husband-and-wife chef-owners of Lenoir, a MICHELIN Guide restaurant in Austin's Bouldin Creek neighborhood open since 2012. They also formerly owned Métier Cook's Supply next door and opened Boni's Bar, a Spanish drinks and bites concept, in Spring 2026. Todd is a native Texan who trained at The Danube under David Bouley and served as chef de cuisine at the Four Seasons Austin before opening Lenoir. Jessica cooked through the Bouley restaurant family and at Tabla with Floyd Cardoz and Gray Kunz before moving to Austin. They met through the Bouley…
E208 · 11 Jun 2026 · 1 hr 26 min
Three-Time James Beard Finalist on Building a Hospitality Empire Ep. 208
Chef Brian Lewis is the founder and CEO of Full House Hospitality Group and a three-time James Beard Award finalist for Best Chef Northeast, with nominations in 2018, 2022, and 2025. A Culinary Institute of America and Johnson and Wales University graduate, he apprenticed under Jean Louis Palladin, Marco Pierre White, and Eric Ripert before becoming the founding executive chef of Richard Gere's The Bedford Post Inn, which earned Esquire's Best New Restaurant in 2009 and an Excellent review from The New York Times. In 2015 he founded Full House Hospitality Group, which now operates The…
E207 · 5 Jun 2026 · 1 hr
How to Hire 196 People in One Week: Jason Dady's Playbook Ep. 207
Chef Jason Dady is one of San Antonio's most prolific restaurateurs, having opened 20 restaurants over 25 years through the Jason Dady Restaurant Group. A San Antonio UNESCO City of Gastronomy Chef Ambassador and Food Network veteran with appearances on Iron Chef Gauntlet, BBQ Brawl, and Beat Bobby Flay, Dady most recently opened Mexico Ceaty, a 25,000-square-foot food hall on San Antonio's River Walk at the Shops at Rivercenter. The concept opened April 20, 2026 and includes eight distinct dining and drinking venues celebrating Mexican and San Antonio food culture, with direct River Walk…
E206 · 29 May 2026 · 1 hr
Bocuse d'Or Gold to America's Culinary Cup: Matt Peters Ep. 206
Chef Matt Peters is the first American chef to win gold at the Bocuse d'Or , the most technically demanding culinary competition in the world. He trained under Thomas Keller at Per Se and The French Laundry and at Adour Alain Ducasse in New York before spending over a year preparing for the 2017 Bocuse d'Or in Lyon. He is currently Head Coach for Team USA at the 2027 Bocuse d'Or, coaching Chef Vincenzo Loseto and Commis Tyler Higson, and competed this year on CBS's America's Culinary Cup. This episode is the most detailed inside account of America's Culinary Cup that any competitor has given…
E205 · 22 May 2026 · 1 hr 5 min
Michelin Stars, Brisket Mastery, and the Price of Success Ep.205
Evan LeRoy is the co-owner and pitmaster of LeRoy and Lewis Barbecue in Austin, Texas. A Michelin star recipient in the MICHELIN Guide Texas 2024, number two on Texas Monthly's Top 50 BBQ Joints in 2025, and 2025 James Beard Award Semifinalist for Best Chef Texas, LeRoy has spent nearly a decade redefining Texas barbecue through whole-animal butchery, locally sourced meats, and a cooking philosophy that refuses to treat barbecue as a fixed menu. His debut cookbook, New School Barbecue: Recipes for Next-Level Smoking and Grilling from Austin's LeRoy and Lewis, co-authored with Paula Forbes,…
E204 · 15 May 2026 · 1 hr 34 min
Fancy Chef Calls, $10K Restaurants, and Originals vs. Covers | Chef's PSA Ep. 204
Phillip Frankland Lee is the co-owner and executive chef of Scratch Restaurants Group, the Michelin-starred hospitality company he operates with his wife and executive pastry chef Margarita Kallas-Lee. The group includes Sushi by Scratch Restaurants, Pasta|Bar, NADC Burger, and Shokunin. Lee is a Top Chef Season 13 competitor, San Pellegrino Young Chef 2015 finalist, Zagat 30 Under 30 honoree, and Food Network record holder for most consecutive competition wins. This is his third appearance on Chef's PSA. His argument is direct: you can open a restaurant for $10,000 or less, break even in 60…
E203 · 8 May 2026 · 1 hr 9 min
How Chaos Builds Great Chefs: Josh Sutcliff on 55 Seventy Episode. 203
Chef Josh Sutcliff is the Corporate Executive Chef and Partner at 55 Seventy, a private members club for wine lovers with locations in Dallas and Houston. A Le Cordon Bleu graduate, CultureMap Dallas Rising Star Chef of the Year, and Zagat 30 Under 30 honoree, his career includes chef de cuisine at FT33, executive chef at Mirador, and stints at The Joule and Knox Bistro. He started washing dishes at 13. Federal agents had just arrested his father. His family was living in a camper. The kitchen gave him stability when nothing else did, and the chaotic, pirate-energy environment he found there…
E202 · 1 May 2026 · 1 hr 12 min
From Celebrity Chef to a Bigger Mission. David Bull Episode 202
Chef David Bull is Austin's first Iron Chef America competitor, Food and Wine Best New Chef 2003, two-time James Beard Foundation nominee, and Regional Vice President of Food and Beverage at LaCorsha Hospitality Group. He led the Driskill Grill to three consecutive Austin American-Statesman number one restaurant awards, competed on Iron Chef America in 2006 as the first Austin chef to do so, and has since overseen 16 restaurant and hotel openings with LaCorsha across Texas, most of them historic renovations. He is also co-founder of the Mineral Wellness Center, a faith-based nonprofit in…
E201 · 24 Apr 2026 · 1 hr 11 min
Brandon Harpster on Cooking Smarter How Technology Changes Everything Overnight Ep 201
Brandon Harpster is the National Corporate Chef for Training and Events at RATIONAL USA . He trains chefs across the country, runs RATIONAL's culinary academies, and develops cooking programs that translate connected kitchen technology into repeatable, scalable results for working operators. This episode starts with a brunch disaster. A steamship round failed overnight at a country club, no monitoring, no alert, no way to intervene. Harpster uses that story to frame the entire case for connected cooking, and then spends the next hour proving it. How the iCombi Pro handles delta-T roasting,…
E200 · 17 Apr 2026 · 1 hr 13 min
Cooking for 5,000 Before Culinary School Chef Chad Welch Ep. 200
Chef Chad Welch is an American Culinary Federation Certified Executive Chef and Certified Culinary Administrator, a Jacques Pépin Foundation ambassador, and the executive chef with The Urban Stillhouse, an elevated dining concept with locations in St. Petersburg, Florida and Somerset, Kentucky. Horse Soldier bourbon bottles are formed with steel from the World Trade Center. He did not plan to become a chef. A Navy paperwork error put him in the galley instead of the engine room in 1992, scaling Armed Forces recipe cards to 5,000 portions aboard the USS America aircraft carrier, cutting…
E199 · 10 Apr 2026 · 1 hr 2 min
Building a Restaurant Under Pressure With Emmanuel Chavez Episode 199
Everyone wants the spotlight. Until it actually hits. Andre sits down with Emmanuel Chavez from Tatemo in Houston to talk about what happens when your restaurant gets attention before you’re ready for it. Tatemo went from a tortilla operation to a full tasting menu fast. Recognition came with it. So did pressure. This conversation gets into what it takes to run a tight kitchen with almost no space, how leadership changes when expectations spike, and the mistakes that come with building something in real time. • What early success actually feels like• How to run a tasting menu in a small…
E198 · 4 Apr 2026 · 1 hr 10 min
Emmanuel Laroche on Madagascar Vanilla and Flavors Unknown | Episode 198
Chef Andre Natera sits down with Emmanuel Laroche, host of the Flavors Unknown podcast and author of A Taste of Madagascar , to explore the global story behind vanilla production and the process of writing a food book. Laroche shares his experience traveling to Madagascar, where roughly 80% of the world’s vanilla is produced, including the realities of hand pollination and the challenges of sourcing ingredients in remote regions. The conversation also covers Madagascar’s broader food ecosystem, including pepper, honey, cocoa, and caviar, and explores why many farmers grow vanilla for export…
E197 · 27 Mar 2026 · 55 min
Dan Kennedy on Meat, Fire, and Ego | Episode 197
Chef Dan Kennedy spent over 20 years in high end kitchens, most recently as head chef at Pasta|Bar Austin before the concept closed in February 2026. He is now working on Morri, his own concept in Austin. In this episode, Andre Natera and Dan Kennedy argue that social media has replaced technical skill with aesthetic performance, and duck is the clearest casualty. Why duck is almost always undercooked and how proper skin rendering changes the entire dish Why wagyu and high-fat cuts need more heat than most cooks give them, not less How to build a tasting menu around timing and satiety…
E196 · 20 Mar 2026 · 1 hr 24 min
Top Chef Twins Brandon and Jonathan Dearden Ep. 196
Chef Andre Natera sits down with identical twin chefs Brandon and Jonathan Dearden to discuss rivalry, restaurant leadership, culinary school value, and the realities of running profitable restaurants. Both twins competed on Top Chef and built careers in very different directions. Brandon pursued fine dining and stages at elite kitchens, while Jonathan focused on leadership roles and restaurant management The conversation covers lessons from high-intensity kitchens like Alinea, the real value of culinary school, hiring pitfalls with impressive resumes, and how menu engineering helps…

About Chef's PSA Podcast

Chef's PSA Podcast is a English business podcast from André Natera | Chef's PSA Media. Melo plays each episode straight from the publisher's own feed — no ads added, no account needed — and remembers where you stopped, in this browser only.

Publisher: André Natera | Chef's PSA Media
Language: English
Category: Business
New episodes: Weekly
Typical length: 1 hr 9 min
Latest episode: 9 Oct 2026
Feed: RSS — paste into any podcast app
Apple Podcasts: podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id1637261680
Rights: André Natera | Chef's PSA Media

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