October 14, 2025 • 36 mins
In this episode of Fugitive Chefs, host Furqan sits down with Sormeh, a private chef and supper club host from Iran, whose journey shows that you don’t need a restaurant to create magic through food.
Sormeh’s story begins in her teenage kitchen — where cooking became her safe space and escape — and evolves into building one of Iran’s first supper clubs, introducing a new culture of dining built on intimacy, storytelling, and community.
What makes her path so powerful is how she turned fear into fuel — from hosting her first dinners at a loss just to build trust, to inspiring a whole new wave of supper clubs across Iran.
We talk about:
🍽️ How food became healing — and later, purpose.
🏠 Building community and culture through supper clubs.
💡 Pricing, trust, and the challenges of creating outside systems.
🌍 Redefining what it means to be a “chef” without a restaurant.
📱 The role of social media in scaling a one-person creative business.
💬 Why success for her means guests leaving with a memory, not just a flavor.
If you’ve ever wondered what it looks like to build a life in food on your own terms — this episode is proof that creativity thrives beyond the pass.
🎧 Fugitive Chefs is your window into alternative culinary careers and bold food innovation. New episodes every Tuesday.
👉 Follow, rate us on Spotify, subscribe & comment on YouTube, and share with someone who dreams of cooking differently.
🎙️ Hosted by Furqan from the Fugitive Chefs Podcast
📸 Furqan’s Instagram: https://bit.ly/4dtiyTv
🎧 Podcast Instagram: https://bit.ly/43ndATO
🎵 Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3F6j25A
🍏 Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/43vBtbT
🔗 Connect with Sormeh
Instagram: @sormehthegourmet
Chapters
00:00 The Journey into Culinary Arts
00:27 Cultural Perspectives on Cooking in Iran
05:03 The Concept of Supper Clubs
09:21 Challenges and Pricing in Supper Clubs
14:13 Social Media's Role in Culinary Success
18:28 Defining Success Beyond Traditional Metrics
22:53 Advice for Aspiring Chefs
27:12 Closing Thoughts and Reflections
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
So hello everyone and welcome back to Fugitive Chefs, the show
where we talk to chefs and food people in general who have
stepped away from traditional restaurant kitchens or never
chosen to be in traditional restaurant kitchens in the 1st
place to create something more personal, independent and most,
most of the times more creatively fulfilling.
Today's guest is Sarmeh. So welcome to the podcast,
Sarmeh, first of all. Thank you.
(00:21):
I want to say hello to everyone who's listening.
I'm sore man. I'm looking very forward for
this podcast. Sorry.
Yeah. Thanks.
Thanks for joining us. Thank you for having me.
From what I know about Stormy, she's a private chef and also a
supper club host, which is, which is also an interesting
concept we like to speak about. I think a supper club club
started years ago, mostly in thestate, then gone, got big
regionally in many places. But still, it's something which
(00:44):
I think it still has its own niche of something so exclusive.
And I think the exclusivity of asupper club is what makes it
that people want to dine into a,into a concept like that.
And she's her, she's built her career around it.
And I've seen some of her Instagram posts and that's
actually how the 1st place I came to know about Stormy to one
of her reels, which popped up onmy algorithm of the, of the
podcast page actually. And I was very, very interested
(01:05):
in the work that she does aroundstorytelling, hospitality also
tricks that she was sharing around how these supper clubs
work, the recipes she shares. And it kind of Dick, you know,
matches the point of the podcast.
They don't. You don't really need a
restaurant. You don't really need a massive
investment behind. You don't need a structure of
the typical restaurant to kind of have your voice or like
create the magic that you can dothrough food.
(01:27):
So I would say this is a podcastfor anybody who's listening and
maybe working in restaurants. Maybe you're freshly coming out
of school and you were very muchinto the idea that you have to
be in restaurants or have to find an investor who opens a
restaurant for you to to prove yourself or to show people what
what kind of food you can cook or how you can make that your
career. So I think Sorme is going to
definitely show us an alternative to that that she's
(01:49):
built. But before we dive deep into all
of that, Sorme, tell us about the beginning.
Like, what was your first connection to food?
Was it a person, place, memory, anything, any anything of sorts
that shaped how you think about cooking as a profession today?
I mean, as long as I remember, Iwas really passionate about
cooking and I was always a foodie.
But when I'm thinking about my first connection, I think I was
(02:11):
about 13 or 14. And at that time my parents got
separated. And for me, like cooking was
this. Cooking and being in the kitchen
was sort of like this safe space.
And it was really therapeutic for me.
And it made me like not think about anything.
And it was sort of the escape from my personal life.
And at that time, it really helped me get through a really
(02:34):
like tough time in my life, thattough period of my life.
And at that moment in Iran, we didn't have like a lot of
products and ingredients. For example, we didn't have
different kind of cheeses like burrata or ricotta or fresh
pastas and these sort of things.And something inside me was
like, OK, I, maybe I can make them from scratch.
And, and at that age, I started to experimenting and like making
(02:58):
burrata from scratch for the first time.
That's then I was like, OK, thisis something that I'm really, it
gives me so much joy. And I think that was my first
connection with food, but I'm gonna think of it.
Yeah. And like starting from that, you
don't like coming, coming from anecessity of having to learn all
these things from scratch just because you don't have it around
you. Was there an idea of like this
could be a career at that point?It was just like, I want to make
(03:19):
my ends meet and I want to have something I'm looking at it,
which is not reachable for me. Or was that an idea to make that
a professional? Or when did that idea come come
into your head? You know, the, The funny thing
is that I never wanted to do this for a living and I never
wanted to make a Courier out of food or I never wanted to be a
chef. But The thing is, I mean,
cooking was like this really joyful thing for me and I and I
(03:42):
always thought that if I made itinto a Courier, it would
complicate thing. It would complicate things and
it would it would take away the joy.
So when I also like, I don't know if you know or not, but I
studied industrial engineering and university and after that I,
I studied interior design. And at the moment that I started
my very first supper club, I actually was working and I
(04:05):
wanted to become an interior designer and I was working in
that path. So I'm, and I also remember that
a lot of people have told me that you should definitely have
a restaurant or you should definitely do something with
cooking, but it was not, it was something that was not on my
mind. And I never wanted to do that
because, as I said, it was something that I really loved
and I and I was afraid if I madeit into a career, it would take
(04:27):
away the joy. Yeah, definitely.
And how does that idea like, where does that idea come from?
Like what is your exposure? Just to tell us a little bit
about somebody growing up in Iran who has an idea of like
cooking and they enjoy cooking. How common is it?
Like how, how big are culinary schools?
How big is culinary jobs, like being a chef as a profession?
What's, what's the image of being a chef in Iranian society,
(04:48):
for example? Because I honestly, I have.
I'm only asking out of curiosity.
Because I have no. Idea what it is like.
I mean, it's what? Would be your parents reaction
if you said you wanted to study being a chef instead of say your
industrial engineering you know?I mean, my parents were not like
this, but a lot of parents in Iran want their children to be
like doctors or engineers and like being a chef or being in
the food industry is not something like parents would
(05:11):
wish for their children. So it's like not very common and
it's not sort of like a very bigcareer money making job in Iran.
Like in this past few years, it's been evolving a lot and
it's getting much better. Like people are giving them more
credit and right now, currently they're giving more credit to
having food experience, experience and these sort of
(05:31):
things. So like it's evolving, but it's
still not like we don't have a lot of like good culinary
schools. We we have good universities for
being in an engineer or these sort of things.
So I think it's not like the perfect thing, it's not the
perfect job to have in Iran. Interesting and like just going
a little off road from this whole product, which is about
(05:53):
you and we'll get there. But just to know a little more
about about Iranian cuisine. I mean itself is AI mean a lot
of cuisines around around the whole Silk Road and the whole
whole I think Eurasia has come through a lot of things from the
Persian cuisine, a lot of food that my my own country in India,
we have samosa biryani have comefrom their origins in Persia,
you know, So how is that side ofcooking?
(06:14):
Like, I mean, there is always these societies have a respect
for traditional cooking and the the food is the center of all
conversations. But it's interesting for me to
know that it's still not an ideal career.
But how is the role of like, arethere celebrity chefs?
Are there cooking shows? Are there, is there like an
elitist class of Persians, Iranians who have, I don't know,
fine dining restaurants and things like that or how, how,
how new is all that over in Iran?
(06:36):
I mean, the food culture in in Iran is like really big and it's
like really impressive. Like the food that we have, as
you said, is because of the SilkRoad.
We have a lot of, we actually have a lot of similar dishes to
Indians as well. But I mean, we definitely have
like some cooking shows, but I don't remember any.
Like it's not something that we watch often on TV, As I said,
(06:59):
like in the past few years, I think like the past decade,
decade maybe it's sort of evolving and it's like getting
better and it's elevating. Currently we have like, and you
know, The thing is in Iran, likeone of the one of the things
that you can do is just go, go to a restaurant because we don't
have like cops or bars or anything.
So like the first thing that comes to so our mind is like, we
(07:21):
have to go to a restaurant. So we have a lot of good
restaurants in Iran actually. And we have a lot of great chefs
And it's, it's start, it's getting better by day.
And I think it's, it's going in a really good path.
And I think it's going to get better each day.
But as I said, it's not like a job that it's really, really
like common, yeah. Understandable.
(07:42):
And so my when like and like knowing what all that you've
shared right now, right. So there is a culture of food,
there are people who have restaurants, there are people
who have a system around doing things like this and hosting
people, especially in a restaurant setting.
So from that to you having an idea while doing a full time job
to have say, host a supper club.How what are the first fears you
had? Like for me, this is very
interesting to know because these could be the fears the
(08:03):
people who are listening are sharing that how do I put my
name on a menu or how do I kind of self myself sell myself, You
know, because it's a very difficult conversation with
yourself when you have a stable career.
Firstly, when you're not doing it for the living, but you're
doing it because it's a passion you have.
You think you do it well, you want to share it with others.
What were the first fears you had?
Was it like, how do I run a business like this or how do I
(08:24):
market this event? Or will I know how to play
numbers? Maybe I'm good at cooking for my
family, but can I do that for 12people?
So what kind of fears did you gothrough at that point?
I mean, a lot of fears, but The thing is that me and my friends
were sort of like in a community.
So we, we spend a lot of money on food, as I said, because it's
like one of the, one of the hobbies that we usually do.
(08:45):
It was, and I always love to like gather people around at my
house and I'm always like hostedfor like a lot more than 12
people. So I was really confident in
that part. But the thing was that the
challenge that I have and the fears that I have was that a lot
of people didn't know what a supper club is.
I mean, honestly, I neither did I when I was starting it and
(09:06):
after I, I was, I graduated fromthe industrial engineering and I
was working to be an interior designer.
I was just like, OK, so I love to like gather people around on
my food and I was like to put a theme on it, for example,
Mexican nights, Taco nights, pizza night.
And I was like, OK, let's just for a hobby and to just cover
the costs and everything. Maybe I could just purchase to,
(09:27):
to do this like in a platform where people like buy tickets.
So it would cover the costs. And in that way, I'm sorry.
In that way, I can do like the thing that I love, but at the
same time, I can like cover the costs.
But as I mentioned, it was just something really joyful to me.
And I never thought that would it would grow this big.
(09:47):
And I never thought that after two years I would be standing in
the place that I am. Yeah.
But I really worked a lot to defined the meaning of supper
club to people. And after, after a short amount
of time, I saw other people starting their own supper clubs
in Iran. And that was really joyful for
me. Like, people were like, aren't
you mad? Like they're copying you?
(10:08):
When I was like, I feel so powerful that I brought an idea
to Iran that it didn't exist before.
And now people are starting their own businesses.
I mean, that's really great. And, and then I'm, it's really
like really nice for me to see that people are doing these sort
of things and they're not just seeing food to fill their
stomach. They're seeing it as an
experience or doing these sort of things with food.
(10:30):
And that's really, I mean, I've done my job.
No, that's, I mean that's the best kind of impact you can see
when people are doing the stuff that you started in the 1st
place and asking more about it. Sorry, what is the experience
like? What are these magic ingredients
you would say that a supper clubhas to have?
Because again, it's not, it's not just food because when you
go to a restaurant, you possiblyorder something and you get the
food and you might not even see the person who's cooking it for
(10:52):
you. Whereas in a supper club it's
much more intimate. So what would you say are the
few things you need to or other things that you check for in a
in a good supper club? I mean, I think the most
important thing is the communityof people that come to that
supper club because like if the people are people are sort of
like they cannot connect, the night wouldn't go as much as
nicest as you imagine you imagine.
(11:14):
So I think the first thing is tosort of like have that community
because supper club is one of the one of one of the few places
where you can meet new people and you can find new friends.
So for that to happen, you have to have sort of like, that's why
we call it a club. You can sort of have sort of
have to have like community of people that are sort of similar,
(11:36):
but they don't know and they don't necessarily know each
other all the time. So I think that's the first and
most important thing is becomingsee of the people that you have
in your members club. The other thing is like like
paying attention to the details,the atmosphere and the ambience
that when they come into your home or if it's a small studio
that you host your supper clubs in, that's really important
(11:56):
because you don't know the host,you may not know the host.
So you have to feel at home. You have to be in a good
atmosphere that you can enjoy and feel comfortable to talk to
you talk to new people. So I think like if you just keep
these things in your mind, you can just definitely be like
started very good and successfulsuffer club.
(12:16):
And The thing is you just have to start it because when you
start it, you sort of good like you sort of whenever you're
good, whenever you're like goinginto this path like the path
will open its way to you. You don't have to figure
everything out like in the beginning, like when you're
doing it, it's sort of like comes to you, you you have more
experience. You find out the troubles that
you had and you them and you perfect them and for the next
(12:40):
supper club you can use them andmake the next one better.
So it doesn't have to be perfect, you just have to start
it and go for it and just learn from your mistakes and make them
better. Yeah, no, super.
I mean super interesting all that you've said.
And I'm also curious over here like reaching where we have that
with a supper club club like yours.
But I mean, definitely the firstsupper clubs you did to the ones
you do today. After two years, your experience
(13:01):
has built, you have more confidence to kind of create
these themes in the menus. But how do you count that the
factor of pricing in these menus?
Like because for example, with restaurants, I see a lot of
restaurants. I mean, I see a lot of supper
clubs, for example, or private caterings being a little shy
with prices because again, with the restaurant, you always have
consistency or you can go and Google reviews, you can talk to
(13:21):
people who've had over there with supper clubs instead, most
probably you're going with therewith kind of trusting the person
who's hosting will have created a menu for you.
You're not really choosing your dishes, so it again becomes
difficult to package all these things which you're specially
creating for this limited set ofpeople with a lot of limitations
of not having a professional kitchen.
So what is that? Is there a struggle between the
(13:42):
pricing and the kind of hopes people have?
Do you like matching those expectations?
How do you see that side of things with these kind of
setups? I mean, obviously we have a lot
of problems because of the things happening in Iran as
well, like the price of the dollar increasing every day.
So economically, like Iran is not doing great.
So it's, it's really hard to have this sort of things and
(14:02):
experiences because the majorityof people are like struggling to
even have a meal at the end of the night.
Of course, like this is not for like all the people in the
capital of Iran, which is Tehran.
And that makes me, of course, that makes me really sad that
it's not. But you're sort of like making
us like you're targeting the community that they could, they
(14:23):
like made them, maybe they can easily like buy the ticket.
But for the first supper club that I hosted, my price was like
really low. It was, it didn't, I think it
didn't even cover the cost of the night.
But it was sort of like a marketing strategy that I had
because I know that a lot of people didn't know what a supper
club is. So I have to like start with a
(14:44):
like a like a minimum price increasing and increasing
throughout the supper clubs thatI hosted and throughout the
years. I mean, of course it increased.
But at this, but still at this moment, I struggled with the
pricing because as I said, I'm not currently that I'm in Iran,
I'm not working with like a normal economic thing.
I mean, a lot of people, as I said, are start struggling to
(15:06):
have like the minimum things that every person should have in
their life. So till now it's really hard to
like do the pricing and the logistics and everything.
But I think I did a good job andI managed it sort of good.
But. And The thing is because it's
sort of like the people that canlive the life that we do in
(15:26):
Iran, we are we are so little that we sort of like sort of
knew all the people. I mean, not, not not exactly
knowing them, but like it's, it's, it's it's a very small
community. And and that way like we sort of
have the Google reviews, but just with the talking.
So yeah, yeah. And I think and in this way,
(15:48):
it's, it's like a really hard thing to do, but you have to
just manage it. And I'm pretty sure that it has
a lot of challenges doing this currently in Iran.
But I mean you're, I am. Yeah, I mean it, it companies,
it really makes sense. I mean the way you said that in
the beginning you priced it so low that you could not cut for
the cost of of the of the expenditure for the for the
event. I think that itself is an
(16:09):
investment to be able to build that trust.
Because especially when you say,even if you know, if it's a
small community where you know, the people who might end up
being your potential guests, these pop ups, I think, yeah,
you need to build that trust upon that so that you might have
to explain a little extra the first few times.
But then again, then especially if people are like imitating you
and doing concepts like these shows that people trust in the
(16:31):
concept you've built and people ask fewer questions, I guess
once you build that sort of trust.
But I'm also curious over here, like, how do you see what is
your exposure? First of all, because we do not
know each other personally. I'm, I'm curious like what is
your exposure to professional chefs?
Like do you have friends who in kitchens working in restaurants?
Or even if not that, have you seen, like, I don't know,
Anthony Odein's kitchen confidential or seen things like
(16:54):
the bear or the menu or like, I don't know, whatever's happening
in, in, in food culture and restaurants with kitchen
burnouts, people leaving kitchens, Like what is your
exposure to that? First of all, do you know how
real that is in Iran or or beyond in the world, and how
close or far is that to your reality of also being somebody
who works with food? I mean, The thing is because
(17:16):
this idea was like really new inIran, It rolls so fast, faster
than I thought. And I sort of like, came to the
realization that some chefs, like some big chefs that I know
are like reaching out to me and,and, and that way I, I started
to get getting to know like a lot of like really good chefs in
Iran. And I'm really rightful for
(17:36):
that. And me personally, I have never
been to a culinary school and I've never like before, before
the, before I started hosting supper clubs, I've never worked
in a restaurant or anything likethat because as I said, it was
not something that I had on my mind.
So I never, I never, I never thought that I have to work in a
restaurant or to go to culinary school.
(17:56):
I mean, because I've, I loved it.
I of course to some courses, some online courses, made some
bread courses or ice cream courses, but I did that just
because I loved it. I never thought that I would do
this for a living. So but I think after that, after
the time, the time passed and this so I messed up.
(18:17):
Her club started to grow. I got to know a lot of really
great chefs that were always like really good to me.
And I always thought that like, they were amazing and they had
these ideas like that were like really impressive to me.
And I was like, okay, so now these people are reaching out to
me. They know who I am.
I mean, that was really a big thing for me.
(18:37):
And in this path, I started to know a lot of chefs and the
people that have really great restaurants.
And how do you see their lives now that you know them
personally? I mean, these are people who
work out of five to six days a week.
They work weekends, they work New Year's, they work Christmas,
they wake, they work in high, I guess, a very massive
environment with a lot of people, a lot of heat.
(18:59):
Like how do you see that realityof those people who who might be
famous or not, but they are chefs working in restaurant
kitchens, Their life or their work life balance or their kind
of career, their understanding of what it means to serve food
from yours. Because your your case, I guess
you choose your times, you choose, you're going to serve,
you choose, you get to choose a lot more factors than somebody
working in restaurants. Have you had conversations like
(19:20):
these with them? Because I'm very curious because
I feel what's good about being aprivate chef or being doing
these supper clubs is that you get to choose a lot of factors.
You get to choose for who you cook and you've got to also
choose what to cook with. You don't need to, I don't know,
you don't have guests demanding things that you do not enjoy
cooking. So how do you see that relation?
That's why I'm curious, like, have you had these
conversations? I've just seen them.
(19:40):
Like even maybe not have the conversation, but have said, you
know what? This is where I don't want to be
or this is where I want to be. But you know, one of one of the
many reasons that I never wantedto own a restaurant or to run a
restaurant was that I always knew that running a restaurant
is really hard. Like you sort of have to choose
between having a life and running a restaurant.
Because like you have to dedicate all your all your time
(20:03):
to a restaurant. I mean, during the holiday or
any time of the week, you're invested in a thing that you
cannot get out. And that's what that's the thing
that I know currently like nevermy, my goal is never my goal was
to have like a restaurant or anything like that.
But actually when you're right now that the career that I met
(20:24):
it made is getting bigger and bigger.
I mean, it happened a lot of times with that.
I didn't choose the time that I wouldn't want it to work.
Because when you're when you're in the past and you have to be
professional, you have to work on New Year's, you have to work
on Valentine's. So currently, even for being I,
(20:44):
I want to say that I'm not sort of like a private chef because I
don't like to, I, I, I don't accept jobs like that very
often. I'm just for like a very small
amount of people that I know andI know that they have the
culture of fine dining because Ithink you have to know you have
to have the culture to intend tofind dining restaurant.
(21:07):
I mean, you can be like, if you don't, the person attending a
separate club, like why the portion's so small?
Like am I going to get food likethe things, things like this?
So I don't accept a lot of private chefing jobs.
But as I said, and as I mentioned earlier, like when
you're in this job and you want like right now, I want to make
(21:29):
this much more bigger. I'm doing this internationally
and I want to make it bigger, even bigger than it is.
And I have bigger goals for thisbusiness that I made.
So it's right now, I think it doesn't have a lot of difference
from, I don't have a lot of differences from the, from a
chef who's running restaurant. Maybe, maybe just I'm a little
(21:50):
bit more free. But at the same time I have to
keep the pattern and I have to keep going and I cannot cancel
anything like really soon. Yeah, I know, definitely.
I mean, definitely makes sense, especially if you're doing a
single handedly and I mean you even if you have some help in
some fronts, but you being the face of it and you being the
person who runs it, I think it'sa little, it's a lot to handle.
(22:11):
But also that also leads me to wonder, like what is your source
of education? Like for example, you mentioned
you look at certain topics whereyou need possibly more resources
and you can do online courses. But then I would like to know,
first of all, like where what isyour source of kind of getting
information and also inspiration?
Because it gets a little lonely when you're the only one person
ideating the menu or the theme or what ingredients to use,
(22:32):
what's what to mix and match, how to deal with allergens or or
dietary requirements and things like that.
But what is your source for inspiration?
Like, how do you stay inspired to stay with the change of
consumer interests and demands, you know?
Yeah, You know, I never thought that I was capable of creating
these sort of things. And I never, I never thought
that I was a creative person at the first thing.
(22:53):
But as I was, as I was, as I wasproceeding in this career, I was
like, OK, I think you may have AI think you may have some
talent and I think you're much more capable than you think.
And it's, it's sort of like the creativity came to me and like,
I was like, OK, so I think you can, you can create a set menu
based on this, this concept likenaturally and OK, you can, you
(23:15):
can be creative. So I think whenever, because my
supper clubs are always different, whether it's based on
a different cuisine or whether it's inspired from a concept or
an idea, they always have like astory.
It's not just, it's not just thefood, it's it's sort of like an
experience that you have. And my goal for people that are
(23:35):
attending the separate club is that I don't want them to leave
with just a favor. I want to leave.
I want them to leave with a memory.
So whenever I want to get inspired, I usually like
brainstorm a lot. I browse in an Internet for like
hours and hours for days maybe until the idea comes to me and I
can write the menu. But, and I think that because
(23:57):
one of the things that helped mea lot is that I'm really
confident. And when I'm like when I'm
curating a menu and when I'm done with the menu, I'm like,
OK, let's test this recipe. I'm pretty sure it will work
out. And after some time past, I was
like, OK, now I can, I don't even have to taste the food.
I can just imagine how the textures and the flavors would
go together. And I can create a dish.
(24:20):
And of course, if it's like a very large supper club or
anything, I definitely test it like a lot of times.
But it's not I came to this talent that I have.
It's like I don't have to alwayslike physically taste the food.
I can like imagine it and see like how the flavors and the
different textures will work together.
And in that way, I would just curate and create the menu.
(24:42):
Yeah, super. Interesting and and certainly
like one of the big themes of the podcast itself is how chefs
are kind of stepping away from the system.
In your case, you didn't step into the system knowing that you
you had an image of the system and you felt like you could
define conditions for yourself better.
You could define something whereyou have more liberal freedom,
more creative freedom to to create something.
(25:02):
But for me, it's very, very important that guests like you
and others who've joined the podcast define what for them is
to be a chef. Because I feel there's a lot of
people out there who want to be a chef or who want to cook or
who want to do a career that involves cooking as it's
something they enjoy and they would like to share that with
others. But they don't really relate a
lot with the definition that's out there, which only sticks to
(25:23):
working in a restaurant. So how would you define yourself
being a chef? What makes you a chef?
What a tough question. I think whatever you do, you
cannot like defer the nature of this job.
Like the people that are quitting being a chef or being
in an industrial, industrial kitchen, in my opinion, they
can, they cannot, they cannot bear serving like A5 course set
(25:45):
menu for 40 people. So I just want to mention that I
don't think that being a privatechef or like doing some food
related stuff outside the clicheand the traditional structure of
being like a chef in a restaurant, it's not easier like
I don't think it is in many ways.
I think it's much harder becauseyou'll have to serve 120 plated
(26:09):
courses in a fine lining way that they all of the all the
dishes of the plates have to be perfect.
They have to be served warm. Like in a restaurant, you plate
4 sort of plates at the same time and you serve them and you
move on on to the next order youget.
But in a supper club or in a in a private dining thing, you have
(26:30):
to serve 44 guests one dish at the same time and the dish has
to be served warm. So I know that it's not easier,
but maybe in some ways even harder.
And they're going back to the question you asked, I think the
the definition of me being a chef.
(26:51):
I don't know if I used to say I don't really like to call myself
a chef chef, but for me, like the joy of that food brings
people together and to share this love that I have towards
food to other people that defines everything for me.
I mean, that's that, that's the whole whole thing that keeps me
(27:13):
going to share this thing that Ilove so much to other people.
And I'm pretty sure they can, they can taste the love that I
put on all the dishes and all the things that I did.
So I think for me that defines the whole thing, yeah.
Definitely. I mean, I'm completely in
agreement. I mean, you went beyond the
question that I asked, which wasvery good for me because I feel
(27:34):
you put a lot of focus on how for a lot of people, I think
that is also kind of what hinders people from being more
creative because they feel that it's like it's going to be seen
as a cakewalk. It's going to be seen as I'm
choosing to quit something difficult because I can't manage
it and run into something easier.
But most jobs which are outside the restaurant system are the
are the most challenging ones because you don't have to a team
(27:56):
to fall back on. You're possibly serving people
for lesser, lesser, lesser covercharges.
You don't have a system around it to support, to make your
price reasonable. You don't have, I don't know, a
list of suppliers, supervisors or people running numbers for
you, people recruiting people for you or doing all these
activities. So I feel, I think creating a
career out of a skill, you know,without falling into the the
(28:19):
typical way of how this how thisworks.
I think that is a hell lot of creative.
And yeah, thanks, thanks for bringing that point in.
And also I feel of sorts, I mean, yeah, chef is just a very
it comes from French. It's a word for somebody who's a
boss, which is completely, it just got overused into our
career. But I feel it doesn't make
anybody no less a cook or no less a chef if they don't work
(28:41):
in restaurant kitchens. I feel somehow, as Dan on the
podcast said earlier earlier this year, that he said that how
stupid it is that we give the most important importance to the
people who cook for the least amount of people for the most
amount of price. And we forget everybody else who
doesn't do that, do that pattern.
So, yeah, it's a dressing for meto hear how you defined it.
And also, I was a little interested, especially in your
(29:03):
profile when I was looking at it, to, to hear from you because
I think it's something you're experimenting, something you're
trying out. As you said, you have bigger
aspirations for this, for this project that you're doing on.
How's the role of social media? Because there's a lot of things
that have happened, especially with the podcast.
I've learned, like when I used to do the podcast three years
ago, there was no ChatGPT, therewas no images to be created with
AI. So I have very few tools to be
(29:23):
able to scale this up. It took me a lot more time to
scale this up, whereas today it's definitely not easy.
But I have some help thanks to AI, thanks to learning a little
more about social media. You don't need to be a
developer, for example, to writecodes and things like that.
But in your perspective or your context of things that you do in
your day-to-day business, how important do you see social
media? Because I love, I love the real
(29:44):
that you made about water supperclubs, also the one you made
about shrimp toast. And that's how actually I, I
connected to you. How?
How do you see that? I think social media is really
important. Like most of the connections
that I think of were made out ofsocial media.
And for me, like I really want to work on my social media.
And the, the 2 rules that you mentioned were sort of like the
newer era of social media for mymy account because I wanted to
(30:06):
elevate it. I wanted to make it bigger.
And as I mentioned, a lot of people ask me because I can do
like the reels in Farsi as well,but I don't want, I don't want
Iran to limit me. I want because I'm doing it sort
of internationally as well. And I want to do it more
internationally. Like as the business grows, I
want to, I want to make the reels in English.
So people, for example, you when, when we're saying like, if
(30:30):
I, if I made the real and my ownlanguage, like I wouldn't have
met you and I wouldn't be standing here recording the
podcast with you. So I think it's really important
because you make a lot of good connections on on Instagram.
And the thing that I think really made me grow was social
media indeed, because it gives you the connections of and it
(30:51):
sort of like people get to know you towards something that's on
like we check our phone like allthe time.
It's sort of like a, it's a really easy way for people to
get to know you through social, through social media.
And I think if someone's starting a business, they should
really definitely try to work ontheir social media.
(31:12):
No, definitely. Yeah.
I mean, it's, it's super cool. I would say anybody who's
listening, I'll put service links down that I think you
should go check it out, maybe beit for inspiration, be it for
actually knowing a little more about the person you're
listening to. And I think, I think it's, yeah,
it's great stuff you're doing. And yeah, it makes simply sense
that you do in English and especially the format you do.
I feel it was something which caught my eye and it caught my
algorithm, which is only about fugitive chefs.
So it makes complete sense it reached the right, right sort of
(31:35):
people. And sometimes it's not about the
people who could come dine. Maybe, hopefully I can get to
dine at one of your one of your concepts.
Yeah, I'm coming to ring Europe.Maybe you can.
Yeah. I mean, that's, that's going to
be perfect. Yeah, I'll definitely look it
up. But also it exposes you to a
bigger public which whose purpose might not be to dine at
your place, but getting to know you.
And I think especially with a single person oriented business,
(31:56):
it's very important to build that image.
And I think social media lets you do that in a not an easy
way, but I think easier way thanit was to go door to door and
give a pamphlet about. Yourself.
Exactly. And moving on towards the end of
the podcast for me, I wanted to ask you, how does success look
like for you? Because again, with restaurants
and chefs in restaurants, it's mostly about scaling up to a
different restaurant, maybe fromA1 Michelin star to A2 Michelin
(32:18):
* For a restaurant itself, it isabout being in 50 best or
winning accolades and things like that.
For you, when you are kind of having this vision for your
concept internationally, where what are some things you're
looking at to kind of define, even if not for that not, not a
point where you would say you'renot successful, I'm going to
stop. But like, what are the next few
milestones for yourself? You know, I think as I said,
(32:39):
like the supper clubs and private dining's are evolving.
I think it's sort of like a new art form where like food design
and like storytelling becomes one.
And for me personally, I want tolike keep pushing those
boundaries and maybe in the future, like collaborate with
designers, musicians, like galleries to make this like
(33:02):
truly an immersive experience. And I don't want them to to
leave with just a flavor. I want them to be with a memory
and to to make it more immersiveand to see it as an experience,
not just a dinner. That's the that's like the whole
goal for me. Yeah, Now super interesting.
I think, I think I can already think of some people I could
connect you with. I think it's yeah, it's cool to
(33:24):
see when somebody's creative with one art and then bringing
somebody else who's good at that, at their own art.
I think fusing these these two disciplines is always beautiful.
Things come out of it and yeah, I can't wait to to hear more
about when we see when we see what's going on with especially
when you come down to Europe andthe things you do around here.
And just to be able to close this podcast storm because we
could keep talking forever on the tips you can give about
(33:45):
starting off what you did and things like that.
But to stick to the the format of the podcast.
I wanted to ask to you that if there are people listening,
maybe there is another Stormy who's in a full time job,
finishing her degree into some other some other discipline,
which is not cooking. What sort of advice would you
give to that person or to somebody who's leaving
restaurants and thinks it's it'stoo brave?
Maybe Storm I can do it, but I don't see myself as somebody who
(34:08):
can do that. What sort of advice would you
give to those people? And yeah, any other tips you
could give to people listening out there?
I think you just have to know that you're much more capable
than you think. You just have to put yourself in
that situation and you see how you spark and how you grow and
how talented you get. Just The thing is, you just have
(34:29):
to start. You have to start it.
It doesn't have to be perfect, but maybe it's not even about
food. If it if it's anything else,
just just start it and just do it.
And you, you, you'll get surprised of how capable you are
and how, how you will, you will understand that and the way,
like the ways will come to you. You don't have to like know
(34:49):
everything in, in the beginning,I never thought that would, as I
said, I never thought that my business would grow this big,
but but here I am. So you just have to start it and
you don't have to like think about the whole path that you,
you're going in a way, like everything will come to come to
you and you will figure everything out step by step.
You will, I'm pretty sure you can the person who's listening
(35:10):
to this, I'm pretty sure you cando this.
So just start it. Yeah, that's, that's the last
words we need to hear, I guess. Yes, I think it's I'm completely
in agreement with what do you say?
And I feel I see the smile on your face and I see that those
emotions coming out through alsobecause I think it's it's in
retrospective when you when you listen to yourself as well
giving advice to others. And you having started this two
years ago, I think it's it's very powerful, especially when
it comes from somebody who has walked the path and not just
(35:32):
somebody giving an advice and hasn't done that themselves.
So, yeah, I would like to thank you first of all, Stormy, for
sharing your story, for showing that it's very powerful to see
that food can be also as impactful or even outside the
whole restaurant world, outside the whole ecosystem, which is
meant to build it. And to see that it's it's very
successful and it's driven by passion people, I think the
community concept that you said,I think it's very important to
(35:53):
build it around the people that you you believe, understand your
product, you believe they care about your product as much as
you do. And also passion, of course, at
the end of the day, to kind of the words you said, you know, to
start it. And yeah, we link to your work
and supper club in the show notes.
But thank you so much for being on the podcast.
Thank you for having me, I had so much fun.
Thank you again. This has been Fugitive chefs and
(36:15):
thanks for listening everybody.
So hello everyone and welcome back to Fugitive Chefs, the show
where we talk to chefs and food people in general who have
stepped away from traditional restaurant kitchens or never
chosen to be in traditional restaurant kitchens in the 1st
place to create something more personal, independent and most,
most of the times more creatively fulfilling.
Today's guest is Sarmeh. So welcome to the podcast,
Sarmeh, first of all. Thank you.
(00:21):
I want to say hello to everyone who's listening.
I'm sore man. I'm looking very forward for
this podcast. Sorry.
Yeah. Thanks.
Thanks for joining us. Thank you for having me.
From what I know about Stormy, she's a private chef and also a
supper club host, which is, which is also an interesting
concept we like to speak about. I think a supper club club
started years ago, mostly in thestate, then gone, got big
regionally in many places. But still, it's something which
(00:44):
I think it still has its own niche of something so exclusive.
And I think the exclusivity of asupper club is what makes it
that people want to dine into a,into a concept like that.
And she's her, she's built her career around it.
And I've seen some of her Instagram posts and that's
actually how the 1st place I came to know about Stormy to one
of her reels, which popped up onmy algorithm of the, of the
podcast page actually. And I was very, very interested
(01:05):
in the work that she does aroundstorytelling, hospitality also
tricks that she was sharing around how these supper clubs
work, the recipes she shares. And it kind of Dick, you know,
matches the point of the podcast.
They don't. You don't really need a
restaurant. You don't really need a massive
investment behind. You don't need a structure of
the typical restaurant to kind of have your voice or like
create the magic that you can dothrough food.
(01:27):
So I would say this is a podcastfor anybody who's listening and
maybe working in restaurants. Maybe you're freshly coming out
of school and you were very muchinto the idea that you have to
be in restaurants or have to find an investor who opens a
restaurant for you to to prove yourself or to show people what
what kind of food you can cook or how you can make that your
career. So I think Sorme is going to
definitely show us an alternative to that that she's
(01:49):
built. But before we dive deep into all
of that, Sorme, tell us about the beginning.
Like, what was your first connection to food?
Was it a person, place, memory, anything, any anything of sorts
that shaped how you think about cooking as a profession today?
I mean, as long as I remember, Iwas really passionate about
cooking and I was always a foodie.
But when I'm thinking about my first connection, I think I was
(02:11):
about 13 or 14. And at that time my parents got
separated. And for me, like cooking was
this. Cooking and being in the kitchen
was sort of like this safe space.
And it was really therapeutic for me.
And it made me like not think about anything.
And it was sort of the escape from my personal life.
And at that time, it really helped me get through a really
(02:34):
like tough time in my life, thattough period of my life.
And at that moment in Iran, we didn't have like a lot of
products and ingredients. For example, we didn't have
different kind of cheeses like burrata or ricotta or fresh
pastas and these sort of things.And something inside me was
like, OK, I, maybe I can make them from scratch.
And, and at that age, I started to experimenting and like making
(02:58):
burrata from scratch for the first time.
That's then I was like, OK, thisis something that I'm really, it
gives me so much joy. And I think that was my first
connection with food, but I'm gonna think of it.
Yeah. And like starting from that, you
don't like coming, coming from anecessity of having to learn all
these things from scratch just because you don't have it around
you. Was there an idea of like this
could be a career at that point?It was just like, I want to make
(03:19):
my ends meet and I want to have something I'm looking at it,
which is not reachable for me. Or was that an idea to make that
a professional? Or when did that idea come come
into your head? You know, the, The funny thing
is that I never wanted to do this for a living and I never
wanted to make a Courier out of food or I never wanted to be a
chef. But The thing is, I mean,
cooking was like this really joyful thing for me and I and I
(03:42):
always thought that if I made itinto a Courier, it would
complicate thing. It would complicate things and
it would it would take away the joy.
So when I also like, I don't know if you know or not, but I
studied industrial engineering and university and after that I,
I studied interior design. And at the moment that I started
my very first supper club, I actually was working and I
(04:05):
wanted to become an interior designer and I was working in
that path. So I'm, and I also remember that
a lot of people have told me that you should definitely have
a restaurant or you should definitely do something with
cooking, but it was not, it was something that was not on my
mind. And I never wanted to do that
because, as I said, it was something that I really loved
and I and I was afraid if I madeit into a career, it would take
(04:27):
away the joy. Yeah, definitely.
And how does that idea like, where does that idea come from?
Like what is your exposure? Just to tell us a little bit
about somebody growing up in Iran who has an idea of like
cooking and they enjoy cooking. How common is it?
Like how, how big are culinary schools?
How big is culinary jobs, like being a chef as a profession?
What's, what's the image of being a chef in Iranian society,
(04:48):
for example? Because I honestly, I have.
I'm only asking out of curiosity.
Because I have no. Idea what it is like.
I mean, it's what? Would be your parents reaction
if you said you wanted to study being a chef instead of say your
industrial engineering you know?I mean, my parents were not like
this, but a lot of parents in Iran want their children to be
like doctors or engineers and like being a chef or being in
the food industry is not something like parents would
(05:11):
wish for their children. So it's like not very common and
it's not sort of like a very bigcareer money making job in Iran.
Like in this past few years, it's been evolving a lot and
it's getting much better. Like people are giving them more
credit and right now, currently they're giving more credit to
having food experience, experience and these sort of
(05:31):
things. So like it's evolving, but it's
still not like we don't have a lot of like good culinary
schools. We we have good universities for
being in an engineer or these sort of things.
So I think it's not like the perfect thing, it's not the
perfect job to have in Iran. Interesting and like just going
a little off road from this whole product, which is about
(05:53):
you and we'll get there. But just to know a little more
about about Iranian cuisine. I mean itself is AI mean a lot
of cuisines around around the whole Silk Road and the whole
whole I think Eurasia has come through a lot of things from the
Persian cuisine, a lot of food that my my own country in India,
we have samosa biryani have comefrom their origins in Persia,
you know, So how is that side ofcooking?
(06:14):
Like, I mean, there is always these societies have a respect
for traditional cooking and the the food is the center of all
conversations. But it's interesting for me to
know that it's still not an ideal career.
But how is the role of like, arethere celebrity chefs?
Are there cooking shows? Are there, is there like an
elitist class of Persians, Iranians who have, I don't know,
fine dining restaurants and things like that or how, how,
how new is all that over in Iran?
(06:36):
I mean, the food culture in in Iran is like really big and it's
like really impressive. Like the food that we have, as
you said, is because of the SilkRoad.
We have a lot of, we actually have a lot of similar dishes to
Indians as well. But I mean, we definitely have
like some cooking shows, but I don't remember any.
Like it's not something that we watch often on TV, As I said,
(06:59):
like in the past few years, I think like the past decade,
decade maybe it's sort of evolving and it's like getting
better and it's elevating. Currently we have like, and you
know, The thing is in Iran, likeone of the one of the things
that you can do is just go, go to a restaurant because we don't
have like cops or bars or anything.
So like the first thing that comes to so our mind is like, we
(07:21):
have to go to a restaurant. So we have a lot of good
restaurants in Iran actually. And we have a lot of great chefs
And it's, it's start, it's getting better by day.
And I think it's, it's going in a really good path.
And I think it's going to get better each day.
But as I said, it's not like a job that it's really, really
like common, yeah. Understandable.
(07:42):
And so my when like and like knowing what all that you've
shared right now, right. So there is a culture of food,
there are people who have restaurants, there are people
who have a system around doing things like this and hosting
people, especially in a restaurant setting.
So from that to you having an idea while doing a full time job
to have say, host a supper club.How what are the first fears you
had? Like for me, this is very
interesting to know because these could be the fears the
(08:03):
people who are listening are sharing that how do I put my
name on a menu or how do I kind of self myself sell myself, You
know, because it's a very difficult conversation with
yourself when you have a stable career.
Firstly, when you're not doing it for the living, but you're
doing it because it's a passion you have.
You think you do it well, you want to share it with others.
What were the first fears you had?
Was it like, how do I run a business like this or how do I
(08:24):
market this event? Or will I know how to play
numbers? Maybe I'm good at cooking for my
family, but can I do that for 12people?
So what kind of fears did you gothrough at that point?
I mean, a lot of fears, but The thing is that me and my friends
were sort of like in a community.
So we, we spend a lot of money on food, as I said, because it's
like one of the, one of the hobbies that we usually do.
(08:45):
It was, and I always love to like gather people around at my
house and I'm always like hostedfor like a lot more than 12
people. So I was really confident in
that part. But the thing was that the
challenge that I have and the fears that I have was that a lot
of people didn't know what a supper club is.
I mean, honestly, I neither did I when I was starting it and
(09:06):
after I, I was, I graduated fromthe industrial engineering and I
was working to be an interior designer.
I was just like, OK, so I love to like gather people around on
my food and I was like to put a theme on it, for example,
Mexican nights, Taco nights, pizza night.
And I was like, OK, let's just for a hobby and to just cover
the costs and everything. Maybe I could just purchase to,
(09:27):
to do this like in a platform where people like buy tickets.
So it would cover the costs. And in that way, I'm sorry.
In that way, I can do like the thing that I love, but at the
same time, I can like cover the costs.
But as I mentioned, it was just something really joyful to me.
And I never thought that would it would grow this big.
(09:47):
And I never thought that after two years I would be standing in
the place that I am. Yeah.
But I really worked a lot to defined the meaning of supper
club to people. And after, after a short amount
of time, I saw other people starting their own supper clubs
in Iran. And that was really joyful for
me. Like, people were like, aren't
you mad? Like they're copying you?
(10:08):
When I was like, I feel so powerful that I brought an idea
to Iran that it didn't exist before.
And now people are starting their own businesses.
I mean, that's really great. And, and then I'm, it's really
like really nice for me to see that people are doing these sort
of things and they're not just seeing food to fill their
stomach. They're seeing it as an
experience or doing these sort of things with food.
(10:30):
And that's really, I mean, I've done my job.
No, that's, I mean that's the best kind of impact you can see
when people are doing the stuff that you started in the 1st
place and asking more about it. Sorry, what is the experience
like? What are these magic ingredients
you would say that a supper clubhas to have?
Because again, it's not, it's not just food because when you
go to a restaurant, you possiblyorder something and you get the
food and you might not even see the person who's cooking it for
(10:52):
you. Whereas in a supper club it's
much more intimate. So what would you say are the
few things you need to or other things that you check for in a
in a good supper club? I mean, I think the most
important thing is the communityof people that come to that
supper club because like if the people are people are sort of
like they cannot connect, the night wouldn't go as much as
nicest as you imagine you imagine.
(11:14):
So I think the first thing is tosort of like have that community
because supper club is one of the one of one of the few places
where you can meet new people and you can find new friends.
So for that to happen, you have to have sort of like, that's why
we call it a club. You can sort of have sort of
have to have like community of people that are sort of similar,
(11:36):
but they don't know and they don't necessarily know each
other all the time. So I think that's the first and
most important thing is becomingsee of the people that you have
in your members club. The other thing is like like
paying attention to the details,the atmosphere and the ambience
that when they come into your home or if it's a small studio
that you host your supper clubs in, that's really important
(11:56):
because you don't know the host,you may not know the host.
So you have to feel at home. You have to be in a good
atmosphere that you can enjoy and feel comfortable to talk to
you talk to new people. So I think like if you just keep
these things in your mind, you can just definitely be like
started very good and successfulsuffer club.
(12:16):
And The thing is you just have to start it because when you
start it, you sort of good like you sort of whenever you're
good, whenever you're like goinginto this path like the path
will open its way to you. You don't have to figure
everything out like in the beginning, like when you're
doing it, it's sort of like comes to you, you you have more
experience. You find out the troubles that
you had and you them and you perfect them and for the next
(12:40):
supper club you can use them andmake the next one better.
So it doesn't have to be perfect, you just have to start
it and go for it and just learn from your mistakes and make them
better. Yeah, no, super.
I mean super interesting all that you've said.
And I'm also curious over here like reaching where we have that
with a supper club club like yours.
But I mean, definitely the firstsupper clubs you did to the ones
you do today. After two years, your experience
(13:01):
has built, you have more confidence to kind of create
these themes in the menus. But how do you count that the
factor of pricing in these menus?
Like because for example, with restaurants, I see a lot of
restaurants. I mean, I see a lot of supper
clubs, for example, or private caterings being a little shy
with prices because again, with the restaurant, you always have
consistency or you can go and Google reviews, you can talk to
(13:21):
people who've had over there with supper clubs instead, most
probably you're going with therewith kind of trusting the person
who's hosting will have created a menu for you.
You're not really choosing your dishes, so it again becomes
difficult to package all these things which you're specially
creating for this limited set ofpeople with a lot of limitations
of not having a professional kitchen.
So what is that? Is there a struggle between the
(13:42):
pricing and the kind of hopes people have?
Do you like matching those expectations?
How do you see that side of things with these kind of
setups? I mean, obviously we have a lot
of problems because of the things happening in Iran as
well, like the price of the dollar increasing every day.
So economically, like Iran is not doing great.
So it's, it's really hard to have this sort of things and
(14:02):
experiences because the majorityof people are like struggling to
even have a meal at the end of the night.
Of course, like this is not for like all the people in the
capital of Iran, which is Tehran.
And that makes me, of course, that makes me really sad that
it's not. But you're sort of like making
us like you're targeting the community that they could, they
(14:23):
like made them, maybe they can easily like buy the ticket.
But for the first supper club that I hosted, my price was like
really low. It was, it didn't, I think it
didn't even cover the cost of the night.
But it was sort of like a marketing strategy that I had
because I know that a lot of people didn't know what a supper
club is. So I have to like start with a
(14:44):
like a like a minimum price increasing and increasing
throughout the supper clubs thatI hosted and throughout the
years. I mean, of course it increased.
But at this, but still at this moment, I struggled with the
pricing because as I said, I'm not currently that I'm in Iran,
I'm not working with like a normal economic thing.
I mean, a lot of people, as I said, are start struggling to
(15:06):
have like the minimum things that every person should have in
their life. So till now it's really hard to
like do the pricing and the logistics and everything.
But I think I did a good job andI managed it sort of good.
But. And The thing is because it's
sort of like the people that canlive the life that we do in
(15:26):
Iran, we are we are so little that we sort of like sort of
knew all the people. I mean, not, not not exactly
knowing them, but like it's, it's, it's it's a very small
community. And and that way like we sort of
have the Google reviews, but just with the talking.
So yeah, yeah. And I think and in this way,
(15:48):
it's, it's like a really hard thing to do, but you have to
just manage it. And I'm pretty sure that it has
a lot of challenges doing this currently in Iran.
But I mean you're, I am. Yeah, I mean it, it companies,
it really makes sense. I mean the way you said that in
the beginning you priced it so low that you could not cut for
the cost of of the of the expenditure for the for the
event. I think that itself is an
(16:09):
investment to be able to build that trust.
Because especially when you say,even if you know, if it's a
small community where you know, the people who might end up
being your potential guests, these pop ups, I think, yeah,
you need to build that trust upon that so that you might have
to explain a little extra the first few times.
But then again, then especially if people are like imitating you
and doing concepts like these shows that people trust in the
(16:31):
concept you've built and people ask fewer questions, I guess
once you build that sort of trust.
But I'm also curious over here, like, how do you see what is
your exposure? First of all, because we do not
know each other personally. I'm, I'm curious like what is
your exposure to professional chefs?
Like do you have friends who in kitchens working in restaurants?
Or even if not that, have you seen, like, I don't know,
Anthony Odein's kitchen confidential or seen things like
(16:54):
the bear or the menu or like, I don't know, whatever's happening
in, in, in food culture and restaurants with kitchen
burnouts, people leaving kitchens, Like what is your
exposure to that? First of all, do you know how
real that is in Iran or or beyond in the world, and how
close or far is that to your reality of also being somebody
who works with food? I mean, The thing is because
(17:16):
this idea was like really new inIran, It rolls so fast, faster
than I thought. And I sort of like, came to the
realization that some chefs, like some big chefs that I know
are like reaching out to me and,and, and that way I, I started
to get getting to know like a lot of like really good chefs in
Iran. And I'm really rightful for
(17:36):
that. And me personally, I have never
been to a culinary school and I've never like before, before
the, before I started hosting supper clubs, I've never worked
in a restaurant or anything likethat because as I said, it was
not something that I had on my mind.
So I never, I never, I never thought that I have to work in a
restaurant or to go to culinary school.
(17:56):
I mean, because I've, I loved it.
I of course to some courses, some online courses, made some
bread courses or ice cream courses, but I did that just
because I loved it. I never thought that I would do
this for a living. So but I think after that, after
the time, the time passed and this so I messed up.
(18:17):
Her club started to grow. I got to know a lot of really
great chefs that were always like really good to me.
And I always thought that like, they were amazing and they had
these ideas like that were like really impressive to me.
And I was like, okay, so now these people are reaching out to
me. They know who I am.
I mean, that was really a big thing for me.
(18:37):
And in this path, I started to know a lot of chefs and the
people that have really great restaurants.
And how do you see their lives now that you know them
personally? I mean, these are people who
work out of five to six days a week.
They work weekends, they work New Year's, they work Christmas,
they wake, they work in high, I guess, a very massive
environment with a lot of people, a lot of heat.
(18:59):
Like how do you see that realityof those people who who might be
famous or not, but they are chefs working in restaurant
kitchens, Their life or their work life balance or their kind
of career, their understanding of what it means to serve food
from yours. Because your your case, I guess
you choose your times, you choose, you're going to serve,
you choose, you get to choose a lot more factors than somebody
working in restaurants. Have you had conversations like
(19:20):
these with them? Because I'm very curious because
I feel what's good about being aprivate chef or being doing
these supper clubs is that you get to choose a lot of factors.
You get to choose for who you cook and you've got to also
choose what to cook with. You don't need to, I don't know,
you don't have guests demanding things that you do not enjoy
cooking. So how do you see that relation?
That's why I'm curious, like, have you had these
conversations? I've just seen them.
(19:40):
Like even maybe not have the conversation, but have said, you
know what? This is where I don't want to be
or this is where I want to be. But you know, one of one of the
many reasons that I never wantedto own a restaurant or to run a
restaurant was that I always knew that running a restaurant
is really hard. Like you sort of have to choose
between having a life and running a restaurant.
Because like you have to dedicate all your all your time
(20:03):
to a restaurant. I mean, during the holiday or
any time of the week, you're invested in a thing that you
cannot get out. And that's what that's the thing
that I know currently like nevermy, my goal is never my goal was
to have like a restaurant or anything like that.
But actually when you're right now that the career that I met
(20:24):
it made is getting bigger and bigger.
I mean, it happened a lot of times with that.
I didn't choose the time that I wouldn't want it to work.
Because when you're when you're in the past and you have to be
professional, you have to work on New Year's, you have to work
on Valentine's. So currently, even for being I,
(20:44):
I want to say that I'm not sort of like a private chef because I
don't like to, I, I, I don't accept jobs like that very
often. I'm just for like a very small
amount of people that I know andI know that they have the
culture of fine dining because Ithink you have to know you have
to have the culture to intend tofind dining restaurant.
(21:07):
I mean, you can be like, if you don't, the person attending a
separate club, like why the portion's so small?
Like am I going to get food likethe things, things like this?
So I don't accept a lot of private chefing jobs.
But as I said, and as I mentioned earlier, like when
you're in this job and you want like right now, I want to make
(21:29):
this much more bigger. I'm doing this internationally
and I want to make it bigger, even bigger than it is.
And I have bigger goals for thisbusiness that I made.
So it's right now, I think it doesn't have a lot of difference
from, I don't have a lot of differences from the, from a
chef who's running restaurant. Maybe, maybe just I'm a little
(21:50):
bit more free. But at the same time I have to
keep the pattern and I have to keep going and I cannot cancel
anything like really soon. Yeah, I know, definitely.
I mean, definitely makes sense, especially if you're doing a
single handedly and I mean you even if you have some help in
some fronts, but you being the face of it and you being the
person who runs it, I think it'sa little, it's a lot to handle.
(22:11):
But also that also leads me to wonder, like what is your source
of education? Like for example, you mentioned
you look at certain topics whereyou need possibly more resources
and you can do online courses. But then I would like to know,
first of all, like where what isyour source of kind of getting
information and also inspiration?
Because it gets a little lonely when you're the only one person
ideating the menu or the theme or what ingredients to use,
(22:32):
what's what to mix and match, how to deal with allergens or or
dietary requirements and things like that.
But what is your source for inspiration?
Like, how do you stay inspired to stay with the change of
consumer interests and demands, you know?
Yeah, You know, I never thought that I was capable of creating
these sort of things. And I never, I never thought
that I was a creative person at the first thing.
(22:53):
But as I was, as I was, as I wasproceeding in this career, I was
like, OK, I think you may have AI think you may have some
talent and I think you're much more capable than you think.
And it's, it's sort of like the creativity came to me and like,
I was like, OK, so I think you can, you can create a set menu
based on this, this concept likenaturally and OK, you can, you
(23:15):
can be creative. So I think whenever, because my
supper clubs are always different, whether it's based on
a different cuisine or whether it's inspired from a concept or
an idea, they always have like astory.
It's not just, it's not just thefood, it's it's sort of like an
experience that you have. And my goal for people that are
(23:35):
attending the separate club is that I don't want them to leave
with just a favor. I want to leave.
I want them to leave with a memory.
So whenever I want to get inspired, I usually like
brainstorm a lot. I browse in an Internet for like
hours and hours for days maybe until the idea comes to me and I
can write the menu. But, and I think that because
(23:57):
one of the things that helped mea lot is that I'm really
confident. And when I'm like when I'm
curating a menu and when I'm done with the menu, I'm like,
OK, let's test this recipe. I'm pretty sure it will work
out. And after some time past, I was
like, OK, now I can, I don't even have to taste the food.
I can just imagine how the textures and the flavors would
go together. And I can create a dish.
(24:20):
And of course, if it's like a very large supper club or
anything, I definitely test it like a lot of times.
But it's not I came to this talent that I have.
It's like I don't have to alwayslike physically taste the food.
I can like imagine it and see like how the flavors and the
different textures will work together.
And in that way, I would just curate and create the menu.
(24:42):
Yeah, super. Interesting and and certainly
like one of the big themes of the podcast itself is how chefs
are kind of stepping away from the system.
In your case, you didn't step into the system knowing that you
you had an image of the system and you felt like you could
define conditions for yourself better.
You could define something whereyou have more liberal freedom,
more creative freedom to to create something.
(25:02):
But for me, it's very, very important that guests like you
and others who've joined the podcast define what for them is
to be a chef. Because I feel there's a lot of
people out there who want to be a chef or who want to cook or
who want to do a career that involves cooking as it's
something they enjoy and they would like to share that with
others. But they don't really relate a
lot with the definition that's out there, which only sticks to
(25:23):
working in a restaurant. So how would you define yourself
being a chef? What makes you a chef?
What a tough question. I think whatever you do, you
cannot like defer the nature of this job.
Like the people that are quitting being a chef or being
in an industrial, industrial kitchen, in my opinion, they
can, they cannot, they cannot bear serving like A5 course set
(25:45):
menu for 40 people. So I just want to mention that I
don't think that being a privatechef or like doing some food
related stuff outside the clicheand the traditional structure of
being like a chef in a restaurant, it's not easier like
I don't think it is in many ways.
I think it's much harder becauseyou'll have to serve 120 plated
(26:09):
courses in a fine lining way that they all of the all the
dishes of the plates have to be perfect.
They have to be served warm. Like in a restaurant, you plate
4 sort of plates at the same time and you serve them and you
move on on to the next order youget.
But in a supper club or in a in a private dining thing, you have
(26:30):
to serve 44 guests one dish at the same time and the dish has
to be served warm. So I know that it's not easier,
but maybe in some ways even harder.
And they're going back to the question you asked, I think the
the definition of me being a chef.
(26:51):
I don't know if I used to say I don't really like to call myself
a chef chef, but for me, like the joy of that food brings
people together and to share this love that I have towards
food to other people that defines everything for me.
I mean, that's that, that's the whole whole thing that keeps me
(27:13):
going to share this thing that Ilove so much to other people.
And I'm pretty sure they can, they can taste the love that I
put on all the dishes and all the things that I did.
So I think for me that defines the whole thing, yeah.
Definitely. I mean, I'm completely in
agreement. I mean, you went beyond the
question that I asked, which wasvery good for me because I feel
(27:34):
you put a lot of focus on how for a lot of people, I think
that is also kind of what hinders people from being more
creative because they feel that it's like it's going to be seen
as a cakewalk. It's going to be seen as I'm
choosing to quit something difficult because I can't manage
it and run into something easier.
But most jobs which are outside the restaurant system are the
are the most challenging ones because you don't have to a team
(27:56):
to fall back on. You're possibly serving people
for lesser, lesser, lesser covercharges.
You don't have a system around it to support, to make your
price reasonable. You don't have, I don't know, a
list of suppliers, supervisors or people running numbers for
you, people recruiting people for you or doing all these
activities. So I feel, I think creating a
career out of a skill, you know,without falling into the the
(28:19):
typical way of how this how thisworks.
I think that is a hell lot of creative.
And yeah, thanks, thanks for bringing that point in.
And also I feel of sorts, I mean, yeah, chef is just a very
it comes from French. It's a word for somebody who's a
boss, which is completely, it just got overused into our
career. But I feel it doesn't make
anybody no less a cook or no less a chef if they don't work
(28:41):
in restaurant kitchens. I feel somehow, as Dan on the
podcast said earlier earlier this year, that he said that how
stupid it is that we give the most important importance to the
people who cook for the least amount of people for the most
amount of price. And we forget everybody else who
doesn't do that, do that pattern.
So, yeah, it's a dressing for meto hear how you defined it.
And also, I was a little interested, especially in your
(29:03):
profile when I was looking at it, to, to hear from you because
I think it's something you're experimenting, something you're
trying out. As you said, you have bigger
aspirations for this, for this project that you're doing on.
How's the role of social media? Because there's a lot of things
that have happened, especially with the podcast.
I've learned, like when I used to do the podcast three years
ago, there was no ChatGPT, therewas no images to be created with
AI. So I have very few tools to be
(29:23):
able to scale this up. It took me a lot more time to
scale this up, whereas today it's definitely not easy.
But I have some help thanks to AI, thanks to learning a little
more about social media. You don't need to be a
developer, for example, to writecodes and things like that.
But in your perspective or your context of things that you do in
your day-to-day business, how important do you see social
media? Because I love, I love the real
(29:44):
that you made about water supperclubs, also the one you made
about shrimp toast. And that's how actually I, I
connected to you. How?
How do you see that? I think social media is really
important. Like most of the connections
that I think of were made out ofsocial media.
And for me, like I really want to work on my social media.
And the, the 2 rules that you mentioned were sort of like the
newer era of social media for mymy account because I wanted to
(30:06):
elevate it. I wanted to make it bigger.
And as I mentioned, a lot of people ask me because I can do
like the reels in Farsi as well,but I don't want, I don't want
Iran to limit me. I want because I'm doing it sort
of internationally as well. And I want to do it more
internationally. Like as the business grows, I
want to, I want to make the reels in English.
So people, for example, you when, when we're saying like, if
(30:30):
I, if I made the real and my ownlanguage, like I wouldn't have
met you and I wouldn't be standing here recording the
podcast with you. So I think it's really important
because you make a lot of good connections on on Instagram.
And the thing that I think really made me grow was social
media indeed, because it gives you the connections of and it
(30:51):
sort of like people get to know you towards something that's on
like we check our phone like allthe time.
It's sort of like a, it's a really easy way for people to
get to know you through social, through social media.
And I think if someone's starting a business, they should
really definitely try to work ontheir social media.
(31:12):
No, definitely. Yeah.
I mean, it's, it's super cool. I would say anybody who's
listening, I'll put service links down that I think you
should go check it out, maybe beit for inspiration, be it for
actually knowing a little more about the person you're
listening to. And I think, I think it's, yeah,
it's great stuff you're doing. And yeah, it makes simply sense
that you do in English and especially the format you do.
I feel it was something which caught my eye and it caught my
algorithm, which is only about fugitive chefs.
So it makes complete sense it reached the right, right sort of
(31:35):
people. And sometimes it's not about the
people who could come dine. Maybe, hopefully I can get to
dine at one of your one of your concepts.
Yeah, I'm coming to ring Europe.Maybe you can.
Yeah. I mean, that's, that's going to
be perfect. Yeah, I'll definitely look it
up. But also it exposes you to a
bigger public which whose purpose might not be to dine at
your place, but getting to know you.
And I think especially with a single person oriented business,
(31:56):
it's very important to build that image.
And I think social media lets you do that in a not an easy
way, but I think easier way thanit was to go door to door and
give a pamphlet about. Yourself.
Exactly. And moving on towards the end of
the podcast for me, I wanted to ask you, how does success look
like for you? Because again, with restaurants
and chefs in restaurants, it's mostly about scaling up to a
different restaurant, maybe fromA1 Michelin star to A2 Michelin
(32:18):
* For a restaurant itself, it isabout being in 50 best or
winning accolades and things like that.
For you, when you are kind of having this vision for your
concept internationally, where what are some things you're
looking at to kind of define, even if not for that not, not a
point where you would say you'renot successful, I'm going to
stop. But like, what are the next few
milestones for yourself? You know, I think as I said,
(32:39):
like the supper clubs and private dining's are evolving.
I think it's sort of like a new art form where like food design
and like storytelling becomes one.
And for me personally, I want tolike keep pushing those
boundaries and maybe in the future, like collaborate with
designers, musicians, like galleries to make this like
(33:02):
truly an immersive experience. And I don't want them to to
leave with just a flavor. I want them to be with a memory
and to to make it more immersiveand to see it as an experience,
not just a dinner. That's the that's like the whole
goal for me. Yeah, Now super interesting.
I think, I think I can already think of some people I could
connect you with. I think it's yeah, it's cool to
(33:24):
see when somebody's creative with one art and then bringing
somebody else who's good at that, at their own art.
I think fusing these these two disciplines is always beautiful.
Things come out of it and yeah, I can't wait to to hear more
about when we see when we see what's going on with especially
when you come down to Europe andthe things you do around here.
And just to be able to close this podcast storm because we
could keep talking forever on the tips you can give about
(33:45):
starting off what you did and things like that.
But to stick to the the format of the podcast.
I wanted to ask to you that if there are people listening,
maybe there is another Stormy who's in a full time job,
finishing her degree into some other some other discipline,
which is not cooking. What sort of advice would you
give to that person or to somebody who's leaving
restaurants and thinks it's it'stoo brave?
Maybe Storm I can do it, but I don't see myself as somebody who
(34:08):
can do that. What sort of advice would you
give to those people? And yeah, any other tips you
could give to people listening out there?
I think you just have to know that you're much more capable
than you think. You just have to put yourself in
that situation and you see how you spark and how you grow and
how talented you get. Just The thing is, you just have
(34:29):
to start. You have to start it.
It doesn't have to be perfect, but maybe it's not even about
food. If it if it's anything else,
just just start it and just do it.
And you, you, you'll get surprised of how capable you are
and how, how you will, you will understand that and the way,
like the ways will come to you. You don't have to like know
(34:49):
everything in, in the beginning,I never thought that would, as I
said, I never thought that my business would grow this big,
but but here I am. So you just have to start it and
you don't have to like think about the whole path that you,
you're going in a way, like everything will come to come to
you and you will figure everything out step by step.
You will, I'm pretty sure you can the person who's listening
(35:10):
to this, I'm pretty sure you cando this.
So just start it. Yeah, that's, that's the last
words we need to hear, I guess. Yes, I think it's I'm completely
in agreement with what do you say?
And I feel I see the smile on your face and I see that those
emotions coming out through alsobecause I think it's it's in
retrospective when you when you listen to yourself as well
giving advice to others. And you having started this two
years ago, I think it's it's very powerful, especially when
it comes from somebody who has walked the path and not just
(35:32):
somebody giving an advice and hasn't done that themselves.
So, yeah, I would like to thank you first of all, Stormy, for
sharing your story, for showing that it's very powerful to see
that food can be also as impactful or even outside the
whole restaurant world, outside the whole ecosystem, which is
meant to build it. And to see that it's it's very
successful and it's driven by passion people, I think the
community concept that you said,I think it's very important to
(35:53):
build it around the people that you you believe, understand your
product, you believe they care about your product as much as
you do. And also passion, of course, at
the end of the day, to kind of the words you said, you know, to
start it. And yeah, we link to your work
and supper club in the show notes.
But thank you so much for being on the podcast.
Thank you for having me, I had so much fun.
Thank you again. This has been Fugitive chefs and
(36:15):
thanks for listening everybody.
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