November 15, 2025 • 39 mins
Tanner and Jerry explore how a tire company became the world’s first food influencer and now the most powerful name in fine dining. They break down the history of the Michelin Guide, what each star and award represents, and why chefs chase them. Then they unpack the unprecedented news that three of America’s most celebrated restaurants are losing their third star—a shake-up that has the entire industry buzzing. From there, the conversation turns homeward with tips for creating a thoughtful tasting menu in your own kitchen. Finally, Tanner reflects on Rye’s win for Best Cocktail in Texas and shares practical ways to elevate your own drinks to Michelin-worthy status.
This episode brought to you by: Cruelty Free Ice and Man-Aise.
Thank you for listening! Join us again every weekend for more food inspired fun. Have questions you want answered, comments to make the show better, do you want to join our growing list of radio stations partners, or just keep in touch? Let us know at Flavorphiles.com.
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This episode brought to you by: Cruelty Free Ice and Man-Aise.
Thank you for listening! Join us again every weekend for more food inspired fun. Have questions you want answered, comments to make the show better, do you want to join our growing list of radio stations partners, or just keep in touch? Let us know at Flavorphiles.com.
Follow on Instagram:
Flavorphiles: https://www.instagram.com/flavorphilespod/
Tanner: https://www.instagram.com/tagaragar/
Follow on Tik Tok:
https://www.tiktok.com/@flavorphiles
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Flavor File. So I'm Jerry Jegar, broadcaster and
I'm with my son, Tanner Regar, who is a restaurant tour,
a chef and a bartender, and today we're going to
talk all about Michelin tasting menus, what the Micheline rating
system means, and why that can matter to you if
you care about food and drink, because Tanner is going
to talk about how to do like a Michelin type
(00:21):
tasting menu of your own at home. And he's a
Micheline the winning cocktail maker, and he'll tell you how
to do some cool cocktails at home as well. But Tanner,
as always, you want to start by drinking.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Of course, absolutely best way to start, you know. So
what we've got here, we were really honored last week.
We actually maintained our status in the Michelin Guide. We
were given our recommend status again. Previously we've won the
best Cocktails in all of Texas. So I wanted to
start with one of the cocktails that helped us win
that award. It's called the Wake and Bake, so it's
(00:53):
an espresso martini. But this one's really fun. We use
a yeasted syrup, so we add yeast to a demarra
or an unprocessed sugar, and we let the yeast bloom
and kind of create that funkiness. Then we heat it
up to kill the yeast. When that happens, it creates
this flavor of like breadiness. We had a little blueberry
(01:14):
to that, So it's an espresso martini that tastes like
you took a bite of a blueberry muffin, then you
took a sip of your coffee, and what that would
taste like that moment. That's what the cocktail tastes like.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
I know that sounds kind of weird, but I do
love that drink.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Yeah, I'm a big fan of the drink. I mean
I brought it all the way from work so I
could have it here at home, So clearly I'm a fan.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
Really briefly, for anybody who doesn't know what is it.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
So the Micheline, God, you probably if you follow food news,
you see people talking about it in a huge center
of food news every year for the cities that it releases.
In nineteen hundred, there's a tire company Michelin, literally the
Michelin Entire Company. For a lot of people, that's sort
of a revelation. You mean to tell me that the
most important judge of fine dining is the michelin Man.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
Well, he looks like he eats healthily enough.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
I don't know if he eats healthily. I think he
eats a lot. I think he's probably a good source
for eating. His name, by the way, is bebendum.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
Really?
Speaker 2 (02:11):
Yeah, yeah, his name is bebendum. So the name comes
from a Latin phrase which i'll butcher because my Latin's
pretty bad. But it's nook s beabendum, which means now
it's time to drink. And so the idea is the
michelin Man babendum. He loves to drink. He is made
out of michel and rubber, and the idea is old ads.
(02:33):
If you look him up, he would be drinking like
nails and road hazards and other things. And so the
idea is the michelin Man can drink in all these
road hazards and keep going because the quality of the
tires is so good.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
So we've gone from from a driving experience to drinking.
That makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
Yeah, you know, I haven't thought of it that way.
But the guy does a little bit combined drinking and driving.
I'm sure they're to be thrilled when they hear me
say that.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
Okay, but why would they do that?
Speaker 2 (03:03):
So it's funny. They're almost the original influencer, right, the
original food influencer. Okay, because they're a tire company, and
so you know what their thought is, how do we
make people use these tires, Because if you think about
a modern tire, if you know it's good for fifty
sixty thousand miles, they can't get you to spend with
(03:26):
them a second time until you've burned them off. So
they started publishing this guide about the best hotels, the
best restaurants, places you could drive to, and they kind
of created these categories for a very good restaurant, a
place that's worth a detour, a place that's so special
you should make a trip just to go to that restaurant.
(03:47):
Hoping that you drive your mischel entires, you wear them out,
but you're always finding the little guide and you'll come
back in and buy tires.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
It's in many, many cities. It's recently in Texas and
you won that award in your recommended by them. It's
in Toronto, It's in a few cities across Canada. It's
a worldwide thing. Let's go through just really quickly for
people who may want to look them up and see
what restaurants wherever you happen to be if you travel
or in your own city, you want to take a
look and see if any restaurants are recommended by Michelin.
(04:19):
What's the star system that they have.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
So you can see it in their their app or
their Website's the easiest way to search through their things.
So the first award that you can win is the
recommended status. And so this is a restaurant that has
great quality, it has great consistency, it's a very good restaurant,
and that's sort of the first award level that you
can win. The next level would be getting a star,
(04:44):
but before we get there, they do have an award
called the bib Gormond, and the bib Gormond the stars
are really for fine dining restaurants. If you're familiar with
Michelin Star dining, it's generally tasting menus, it's very expensive,
it's very you know, posh, and so the big Gormand
was kind of created as an award level to say, hey,
(05:08):
this place maybe does tacos or they do barbecue, or
it's designed for great food, add a good value, which
is not always what the stars are. Stars are generally
very expensive restaurants. So in a way, the Big Gormond
is actually maybe my favorite category because the restaurants aren't
so expensive, they have a lot of character, they're really fun.
(05:29):
So I love that category of restaurants. But if you
move on to the stars, so there's only three stars
that are possible. So the idea is one is an
exceptional restaurant in its category. If you're in this place,
you have to go to this restaurant. It's fantastic.
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Speaker 2 (06:46):
The next level up is getting two stars. The idea
is it's even better. They've raised the steaks. It's so
good that if you were in if you were nearby
to that area, you should make a detour to go
to it. And the final award you can win. And
there's very few restaurants that have three stars. There are
actually no two star or three star restaurants in the
(07:07):
entire state of Texas. But a third star means this
restaurant so good you should plan a trip around eating there.
That's how good it is.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
All right. There's also a documentary and there are chefs
who have kind of reacted against this, isn't there a
famous incident of a chef who thought he was going
to lose his third star and he committed suicide.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
Yeah, so that did happen. It happened in France. You
know the Michelin Guide. It's part of the challenges every
single year. It's a controversy. You know, the guy just
came out in Texas and who got a star and
how they get one and who didn't one and who
get passed over. It's exciting for them to come out
(07:48):
for about a month afterwards. The only thing any of
my guests want to ask me about is my take
on what happened with the Michelin stars. And we won't
get into all of that here. But you know, the
people have said, I've heard that a star will give
you twenty percent more people through the door, two stars
can give you forty to fifty, and a third star
(08:09):
will double the amount of people that come to your restaurant.
It's not uncommon for people who want to go to
these restaurants and chase stars to make reservations and then
buy plane tickets. I've done that myself.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
Oh it's like Taylor Swift.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
Yeah, absolutely accept the food significantly better than.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
The arena, right, Yeah, Okay, So you got best cocktails
state of Texas, not just Dallas, state of Texas. And
we'll talk more about cocktails and how to make great
cocktails at home coming up here. But how does this work? Like,
did you have any idea when a Micheline inspector was
in your restaurant?
Speaker 2 (08:47):
So this is one of the most frustrating things to
restaurant people like myself. Think about whatever the most difficult
exam you ever took was, and now think about the
fact that you don't know a day it's going to
be on, and you don't know what the questions are,
and you're not going to know when it starts. You're
(09:07):
not going to know who's giving it to you. And
the idea is one of the things I respect them
for is the idea is we came into the restaurant
just like everybody else. We're getting the experience any random person,
any random person could have gotten, because if you're a
known reviewer, if you're a known influencer, if you're a
famous person, you get a different experience. Right, restaurants try
(09:31):
to provide for you. But the idea is it's anonymous.
So on the one hand, I like it better as
a diner. On the other hand, as a chef, Oh man,
I hate it. I hate It's so bad because every
single person, I can't be at the restaurant every single night,
having multiple restaurants, so I never get to know. You
(09:52):
don't even know if they come, if you're not in
the guide, you don't know if they came at all okay.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
But the thing is, and this is why I respect
what they do. What they want you to do, is
you if we're going to give you recognition or a star,
you need to be great all the time. So if
we pop by, you're great, not when we when I mean,
if you know they're coming, it's not that's not fair
because when I come in, you don't care. You care
(10:20):
more when they show up. This way, you just have
to be ready all the time. What does it feel like?
What did it feel like when you went to that
first micheline announcement in the State of Texas. They said,
our very first award is Outstanding Cocktails, State of Texas,
and then they said Rye Dallas your restaurant.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
My phone lost fifteen percent battery because of how many
people were texting me. It just buzzed so much, and
but it was incredibly cool.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
You know.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
One of the things that's difficult about any job is
I think so many people can resid with the idea
of I'm doing the right thing and nobody's noticing, and
I'm working hard, and I'm working so hard, and is
this ever going to pay off? And the idea that
in a room of my peers of the greatest restaurant
(11:14):
people in the state of Texas. They said, you make
cocktails better than everyone else. Is a very it's a
very cool thing because all those days you think back
to being on your knees and scrubbing down a bar.
It's for a few moments you get to forget how
difficult that was.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
As we talk about the power of the Micheline rating system,
coming up, big news rocked the restaurant world as three
of America's best known restaurants were downgraded just this week
by Michelin. Tanner is also going to tell you how
to do a tasting menu at your home for a
party and up your cocktail game on flavor Files. But Tanner,
all of a sudden this week midweek a major micheline news.
(11:54):
It has rocked your industry absolutely.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
This news just came out the micheline saram to announce
the new winners. Who keeps their stars, Who wins new
Stars is actually not happening until next week, but this week,
in an unprecedented move, Michelin has announced that three restaurants
a linea out of Chicago in at Little Washington in
Virginia and Masa in New York three restaurants that are
(12:18):
some of the most famous in the world, not only
for having three Michelin Stars, but for how long they
have had them. At least Alinea is at least ten years, Masa,
I think is longer than that. This is unprecedented for
all three to be losing their third Michelin Star, and
for Michelin to announce it before the ceremony has even happened.
Speaker 1 (12:39):
Well, you talked in the previous segment about how important
a third star makes a restaurant a destination, not just
from for people in the city. It means let's fly
to that city or in the case of the end
at Little Washington, to actually go to the trouble of
getting to what is more or less a rural location
to get to this world famous three star restaurant. This
(13:00):
could change their business.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
Absolutely. I think it will change their business. On the
one hand, maybe what will happen is it's going to
encourage people who haven't been able to go before to
seek it out because they think, well, maybe now I'll
finally be able to book that reservation. So maybe it'll
bring new people in. But certainly it's going to take
them off of the list. Of those star hunters who
really want to get into these restaurants, and it could
(13:23):
be very bad for their bottom lines.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
Okay, but I was looking this morning when I knew
this happened, and Masa, it's like a thousand dollars a
person to have dinner there.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
Absolutely, it's been one thousand dollars a person for a
long time. And this is one of the questions that's
being raised. Obviously, the number one question is how do
you lose your third Michelin Star? How do you for
over a decade be the pinnacle of Oma casse in
America and then have that third star stripped away? And
I don't know the answer right, but one possible question
(13:55):
would be to say, is Masa at one thousand dollars
a person delivering on an experience that's so much better
than all the restaurants that have grown up since that
restaurant opened I think in two thousand and eight or
sometime like that. So did Masa help set a standard
all these chefs that have come up since then? Another
(14:16):
generation of chefs have now raised the standard beyond what
Masa is able to keep up to. It's a really
interesting question that I don't have the answer.
Speaker 1 (14:25):
To well, in a previous episode, we had chef Mark
McEwan on the show and he said to me, once, look,
here's what happens with a high end restaurant. If it
is successful, if it is really working. When you walk out,
you're not talking about the money. That was so great?
What did you think of that? What did you think
of this? It distracts from the money. But if there's
(14:45):
anything in there where gee was that worth a one
thousand dollars? Then that's bad news.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
It is bad news. And while Michelin doesn't officially say
that price is part of it, you know, they only
give us five criteria, but they are. So if the
idea is we're going to recommend you travel somewhere, you
would think inherently they are evaluating price. And they might
say this dinner at five hundred dollars blew me away.
(15:13):
That one at one thousand wasn't that tier extra that
validates the price. But in true micheline form, do I
get to know when they come? No? Do I get
to know what they're evaluating?
Speaker 1 (15:24):
No?
Speaker 2 (15:25):
Are they going to tell us why those restaurants lost
their third stars?
Speaker 1 (15:28):
No?
Speaker 2 (15:29):
So all we can do is sit here and imagine
reasons they might have lost the star. Now, maybe a
reason is all three of these restaurants truly have taken
their eye off the ball and they're not delivering at
that level anymore. But the fact that all three of
them did it feels to me more like Michelin is
trying to send a message that the legacy there isn't
(15:51):
this Micheline emeritus status that you can have where you
own three stars in perpetuity. That they're sending a notice
out that everyone is vulnerable. Maybe it's only to make
themselves seem relevant as a critic, but clearly they're coming
for some of the most famous people that have ever
cooked in America.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
Okay, I know you've been to one of those Alnia
in Chicago. When you went to that restaurant, and this
was when it was still with a three star restaurant,
did you come out of there saying, Wow, that deserves
three stars and it was amazing?
Speaker 2 (16:25):
Absolutely? I thought that it was. Now I did go
many many years ago, so I'm much more knowledgeable now.
I'm much better traveled. Now I can now pull off
some of the magic tricks that Alinea showed, So in
that way, I'm not sure what the experience would be
if I went back, and I'm not a qualified person
to talk about these three restaurants specifically. However, I was
(16:48):
amazed by what they were doing. I was impressed by
what they were doing. And one thing that I think
of with Alnia specifically is does Alinea have an unbelievable
magic show that the inspectors have just seen a number
of times? Is one of the things. Not that they're
not executing on the level they always have been, but
(17:09):
are they the most boundary pushing restaurant that they used
to be that earned them those three stars? And I
sort of wonder the way you think about a musician.
Is Paul McCartney live still amazing? Yes? But is he
dominating the top forty?
Speaker 1 (17:25):
No?
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Does that mean that his body of work isn't important,
that it's not meaningful? No, it doesn't. But perhaps Michelin
is saying, the three star club is getting a little
crowded with the people who define the direction of food,
and we want to peel it away to the people
that are on the forefront.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
I think the first time you went to a big
time restaurant, you were graduating high school and as a gift,
your grandmother took you to a place called the French
Laundry in the Wine region in California. Thomas Keller one
of the greatest chefs in the world, and I think
at that time that restaurant was called the greatest red
in the world. And I was worried that you had
such high expectations that you might be somewhat disappointed. And
(18:06):
so after you'd had the dinner, you called home and
do you remember what you said to me?
Speaker 2 (18:11):
Not verbatim, but I was blown away.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
I said, did it meet your expectations? And I can
pretty much remember what you said. You said, No, it
so exceeded my expectations. They could have put me at
a table by myself facing the wall next to the
entrance to the men's room, and it's the best thing
that ever happened to me.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
Yeah, the restaurant really was that great to me. And
obviously food is my obsession. I'm a flavor file, if
you will. But you know, it's so frustrating, I'm sure
for the line cooks and for the servers and for
the chefs, and for everybody who has to show up
to their restaurant knowing that they create that moment for
young people like I was in that story and being
(18:52):
told it doesn't matter that your guests tell you you're amazing,
it doesn't matter that you think you're doing the best
food you ever have done. All of a sudden, this
very opaque organization gets to say you're not what we're
looking for anymore, and you don't get to know why
or how. And I think maybe one of the most
(19:13):
frustrating things for me is what if you're changing your
food in response to your guests, in response to what
you creatively find fulfilling, what you think is forward thinking,
and yet Michelin has a different direction, a different thought,
and so you're sort of punished in a way because
of that. I think a perfect example of this is
(19:34):
the restaurant Noma, which has been considered one of the
top restaurants in the world, one of the most forefront
of the pack in terms of thinking and moving food forward,
could not get a third Michelin star for many years
because I think there's this misalignment between what chefs want
and what guests want and what Michelin wants, and it's
very difficult to make all groups happy.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
Well, yes, and let's be fair here, we're doing an
episode on Michelin, and that whole thing matters to you
in the business that you're in and the recognition you've
had from Michelin for your cocktails in your restaurant and
all of that. But those kinds of restaurants aren't for everybody.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
No, they're not for everybody. It's a very foody driven
environment and I love it and I like it, and
I absolutely want a star. But at the same time,
I get that it's not for everybody, and maybe Michelin
is trying to find a new middle ground that makes
it more relevant. I don't know, and I don't get
(20:34):
to know, and that's the most annoying thing to all
of us sitting around desperately searching for one and you're
it's like, I desperately want a treasure. Where's the treasure
on an island?
Speaker 1 (20:46):
Okay? Which island? Not telling you? Yeah, I know, it's frustrating,
all right. But to bring this home for people, since
we're centering this thing around Michelin and tasting menu restaurants
are a big deal to Michelin, Tanner's going to tell
you how to do a tasting menu at home, what
a tasting menu is all about, and also Tanner has
been recognized by Michelin for his cocktail program, and so
(21:10):
he'll tell you how to up your cocktail game as well.
Speaker 2 (21:12):
You've just been talking about what the Michelin Guide is,
how you can get into it. You know, one thing
we didn't really say previously was that mostly the Michelin
Stars go to tasting menu restaurants, those restaurants where you
don't get to choose anything, where it can be anywhere
between seven and I've seen restaurants that are twenty five courses. Yeah.
(21:33):
I know. That sounds like the best thing ever to me.
I could sit there all day long eating.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
Uh yeah, but you had. I think we did fourteen
courses once at your restaurant because you were shoveling out
some extra tough because it was me and one of
your best friends and your girlfriend and your friend Sam.
When we got to dessert, he goes, well I can't eat.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
Yeah, well he's weak.
Speaker 1 (21:52):
These are not full courses like you get a in fact,
with a tasting menu at a restaurant. I would say this,
if you go to tasting menu for the very first time,
then maybe the first couple of items as they come out,
you're going to think this was a stupid idea. We
spent a lot of money and they're bringing me a
little piece of fish the size of my thumb. It's
just that by the time you're done, you're having a taste.
(22:14):
You're not having a full meal of this particular item.
You get a taste of this, a taste of that.
That's the concept, and by the end of it you
should actually have had a full meal exactly.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
So our menu is currently eleven courses, but it's fourteen items.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
OK.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
And it's really funny. I'm in Texas and people in
Dallas are not as familiar with tasting menus. So I
get these big Texas boys that come in. I can
tell that their wife pick their restaurant, and we bring
them their first couple dishes, and you know, you can
have something the size of a quarter and it's this
very tiny venison tartar and berber spice on tef cracker
with the jealous seed. I think it's so cool and nerdy,
(22:51):
but all they see is a quarter's worth of food,
a quarter size food, and they go, well, I'm going
to be hungry, I said, sir. I promise you, if
you're hungry, I'm going to cook you more food and
make sure you're not and every single time we get
to the end, I say, sir, before we start deserted
to go, I'm really full. Okay, fantastic.
Speaker 1 (23:09):
So if you had that guy who either because he
just eats a tremendous amount or he just kind of
wanted to play something against you, if you said no,
I need some more for no op charge, you would
just say, sir, I'm bringing you something else to eat.
Speaker 2 (23:21):
Yeah, fine, I'll make you some tacos, no problem.
Speaker 1 (23:24):
All right. So now I'm getting all interested in this,
and I'm thinking I could do like a Micheline tasting
menu on this dinner party I coming up in a
couple of weeks. How would I go about it?
Speaker 2 (23:35):
You know, it's funny. You telling me you could absolutely
do a tasting menu is almost like me telling you
I could absolutely host a podcast. But to get into it,
if you wanted to do a tasting menu, you tasting man.
You super fun. I've had several friends over the years
ask me and say, I want to do something really
special for my partner or for my parents. I want
to do a tasting menu. How could I pull it off?
(23:57):
So the first thing I would try to think when
I'm starting it is an ingredient or a theme that
I could use to really tie this together.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
Right.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
For example, if it was I want to do a
tasting menu for your birthday, right, I'm gonna invite you
and a couple of your friends over, Well, maybe then
the theme is Jerry's favorite foods, and I would think
about things I know that you like and cook to that.
Maybe the tasting menu is for a honeymoon we went
to Italy, and now it's our fifth year anniversary and
(24:25):
I'm gonna do all Italian food. I find the blank
page very intimidating when I'm writing a menu, so instead
I try to give myself a theme or an idea
to create four. I find it's more creative in a
box when you tell me I have to do an
Italian menu. You know, I just wrote a menu for
an Italian wine dinner we're doing at Flamont, one of
(24:45):
our restaurants, And because I knew it had to be Italian,
all of a sudden, thinking of ideas and thinking of
wines to pair with it came easy, okay, because I
could think back to my experiences in Italy, so I
would pick a theme, something you're excited about, and then
the next thing I would do is I get it.
Maybe the fact that we do eleven or these restaurants
that do twenty sound exciting. I would really focus on five,
(25:06):
maybe seven if you feel really comfortable as a cook,
but think five to seven courses. Do not go out
of the gate with more than you can handle. And
when I'm doing those, I would also try to think
of a few different cold dishes that I can be
really excited about and want to serve. Hot food. Hot food,
hot food, hot food. Hot food is really difficult. You know.
(25:26):
I can say, yes, I can do it. But when
I say I can do it, what I mean is
I've got five or six people in our kitchen that
are doing it. A tanner's not doing this. And so
if you can start with something like a cold app
maybe you love tartar, maybe you love crudo. If you
can start with something like that where it can almost
be finished, if you come to our restaurants, you'll actually
(25:48):
notice the first dish you get has nothing hot on it.
All of our tasting menus, the first dish is never
hot because then we can make it, we can be ready,
and the second you've gotten your wine pairing or your
cocktail pair the second you're ready, boom, we can get
that dish. We've already got that first one timed perfectly
because it doesn't have to be hot. So I like
to do that. And when I'm writing the menu, I
(26:11):
try to think ahead of time, what's this time going
to look like? What am I going to have to
do in between? So you know, I want a cold appetizer.
Maybe next I'm going to do a hot appetizer. Okay, cool,
it's second course before I have to cook something fresh.
Then I'm going to follow with at rye. We call
it our like salad course. We don't serve salads because
(26:32):
in my experience, no one has ever showed up to
work on a Monday and said, oh my god, I
had this salad. I got to tell you about it,
and I want to cook food you want to talk about, right,
But we always have something in our salad spot, and
it's something that's sort of greens fresh vegetable. Again, generally
it's not always cold. So I did cold appetizer, hot
appetizer or cold salad. Then if I was going to
(26:54):
do the seven courses, I would serve some type of fish.
Then I would serve some type of bird. Then I
would or if some type of red meat, and then
I would finish with dessert if you're really into dessert.
By the way, our tasting menus always have more than
one dessert because nothing feels more indulgent to me than saying,
for your first dessert. Okay, everybody laughs when they go
(27:15):
our first dessert. I'm like, oh, yeah, we're having a party.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
I would throw in here. And it goes back to
what we were talking about how small some of your
dishes are. If you've never done this and you decide
to do a tasting menu as a party, really think
about how much food can people eat? Make each dish
smaller then you would normally think to make a dish.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
That's one of the things that's one of the benefits
of really trying to keep yourself to five courses is
you don't have to make as many really tiny, very
fussy little things, right. I mean, we make our money,
our reputation on tiny and fussy. But if this is
your first time doing it, you you don't need to
go into that, and you should be thinking too when
you're doing it, about what are some different textures. What
(27:58):
are some different thoughts. You know, you don't want to
just come in and go pasta pasta, pasta pasta. If
you love pasta, that's fantastic. Maybe that's what you do
for your fish, right, but pasta is a wonderful one pasta.
You should probably include a pasta because pasta. Think of
a lobster ravioli, right, You have to cook the lobster,
then you have to make the pasta. Then you make
(28:18):
the ravioli. But picking it up is I put it
in hot water, I pour it into a sauce. You
can pre make the sauce. You can have a beautiful
lobster ravioli and it only takes about seven minutes of
actual effort to get it out onto the plate.
Speaker 1 (28:32):
At the time of the dinner.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
Another thing is if you're familiar with souvi, which is
where you put things in vacuum sealed bags and then
put them in hot water to cook it. And we
can talk more about souvi later. But brazing anytime you
stew something, right, you put meat in and you kind
of cook it in the oven, low and slow. That's
another great technique to use if you're planning a tasting menu.
Because I get to the red meat course, I don't
(28:55):
have to stress about if I'm going to cook that
rack of lamb perfectly or cook that steak perfectly. I
can open my oven that's been set on that warming,
you know, two hundred degrees warming. I can pull it out.
I can put it out. Here were the two sides
I put it with Boom. I know that that meat
is perfect, and I can be guaranteed to have a
great dinner.
Speaker 1 (29:15):
Well, you're going to have a situation where maybe you're
a good cook and people are always excited about what
you cook. But in this case, it almost becomes it's
not just we all talk and we had a great
dinner party and we're friends and we had a good time.
The dinner itself becomes a huge part of the entertainment.
I mean that's always what you say about tasting menu
(29:36):
restaurant or a restaurant like yours. Your restaurant's not dinner
and then go to the theater. Your dinner is the entertainment.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
Absolutely, if you're going to be doing this for your friends,
I mean, this is a two hour experience. More maybe
if you're a little less confident in the kitchen. I
think back to my first Thanksgiving, and that was a
two day affair to get through all the food. Plan
that it's going to be three hours, but then also
near it. If people are going to sit there, think
about telling them the stories. Here's how I chose this ingredient,
(30:05):
Here's how I made it. This is why, and that
narrative is a part of what makes the dinner so special.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
This is flavor Files and it's p h I l
Ees flavor Files. You can find us at flavorfiles dot com.
You can find us on TikTok, Instagram, Apple, and iHeart
as well. All right, now we're talking here about micheline
and tasting menus and all of that, and Tanner, your
restaurant won best Cocktails in Texas, so let's talk about
(30:33):
how to up your cocktail game at home. Tanner, what
makes a cocktail exceptional to you?
Speaker 2 (30:39):
What's really great about a cocktail is when it's got balance,
when it's got really clear flavor, when it almost tells
a story, when it has a mission that I was
trying to accomplish. You know, I talked to my team
about this idea. The man who wrote The Little Prince
(31:00):
Antwine to Saint Oxbag something like that. He has a
wonderful quote about perfection is not when there's no more
to add, it's when there's no more to take away.
And I think that that is true in cocktail making
as well. Is when I'm making my cocktail, how do
I make it the truest version of itself? How do
I say one thing with this cocktail and not try
(31:24):
to have it be everything it could possibly be. New
cocktail makers and new chefs generally want to show you
every technique, every idea, everything they possibly can. And I've
certainly done this, and some people on Yelp think I'm
still doing it. But I don't go on Yelp for
that reason. It's important when I talk to my team,
(31:45):
I say, what is this cocktail all about? You've got
ten ingredients in here, it's creating too much, there's too
much statact, there's too much noise. What is this cocktail about?
What's its through line? What's the most important thing? And
how do you make the intensity of flavor align with
that one thing that you wanted to be about. So
we talked earlier about a cocktail. It's an espresso martini.
(32:06):
So I have rules about an espresso martini. But if
this one's going to be blueberry muffin, then I have
blueberry muffin and I have coffee, and that's what the
cocktail has to be about. So you can't put cream
in it one because then it would be a bad
espresso martini. But two, because you picked coffee and you
picked blueberry muffin. You pick two things. So the only
(32:28):
things that can go in this cocktail must support the
blueberry muffin. And if your cocktail is not going to
be one of these types of things we make, I mean,
we make cocktails out of all kinds of stuff, right.
We make them out of butter curry. We had a
cricket based cocktail. One time. We had a catchoa pepe,
which is a cheesy pasta dish from Italy. We made
(32:49):
a cocktail out of that. We make a lot of
really out there stuff, but we try to pick one
central idea and frame it around that. By the way,
if your central idea is is this whiskey is amazing,
and that's why I want to have an old fashioned
That is a perfectly legitimate one thing for your cocktail
to be about, really wonderful whiskey, or I want to
(33:13):
make a dackerie, and the one thing this is about
is fresh line and wonderful rum. So pick one or
two things that you want the cocktail to be.
Speaker 1 (33:21):
About is rum and coke. A cocktail, I.
Speaker 2 (33:24):
Think the minute you have to measure two different things,
it becomes a cocktail.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (33:30):
One could argue, right, there's a lot of RTDs or
ready to drinks that are available now that you can
crack open, and it's a canned cocktail. The minute mixing
is involved, the minute marrying of flavors comes into play,
that would be, in my opinion, what defines it being
a cocktail. And that can be anything. You can pour
(33:51):
a boiler maker, and if you pour the whiskey into
the beer, you could argue that's a cocktail.
Speaker 1 (33:56):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (33:57):
One thing that wine did wrong as an industry, I
think is they made it seem inaccessible. There was so
much terminology, and you had to know about the soil,
and you had to know these definitions and you had
to know these words. To really be an expert in wine,
you have to have a slight familiarity with German and
Italian and Spanish and French, and one thing I think
(34:20):
the cocktail community has done a good job of is
making it a little bit more approachable, trying to make
sure that it's fun. There are absolutely people with suspenders
and wax mustaches and terrible attitudes, but I would argue
part of what makes an exceptional cocktail is getting rid
of all of that. I talked to my team so
much and say, if we're going to serve people ingredients
(34:43):
that they can't read, if we're going to want to
highlight all of these really advanced techniques and these complicated
flavor profiles, we can't then also be pretentious. We need
to be enthusiastic. And I think one thing a lot
of people forget is that at the end of the day,
it's still the service business. It's still the hospitality business.
(35:04):
One thing I love. I was just at a huge
chef fundraiser last night and one of the people that
was there said, I just went to a Pothecary last weekend.
Everyone is so nice there. How did you get so
many nice people to work there? Because I think the
service standard is slipping and I don't think great cocktails
(35:25):
can be made by angry and arrogant people.
Speaker 1 (35:28):
Well, it's all about relaxing and enjoying the evening. I mean,
if I go out for a drink after work. Some
people just like to go out and have a beer.
That's acceptable. Obviously, if I said to a friend, Hey,
I'm into this cocktail thing, and let's go out after
work and have a cocktail, you'll see what it's all about.
(35:48):
We're going out to relax after work and have comradeship,
and we don't need somebody looking down their nose at us.
Speaker 2 (35:55):
Absolutely, and that's something I just don't have space for
because nobody wants to feel done. There are a lot
of really cool cocktails that are made from new ingredients
and new techniques, and certainly, if you come to my places,
we're going to talk about that. Here's how we make
these things, here's why they're so different. I also recognize
the fact that I have an eleven thousand dollars centrifuge,
(36:18):
and this isn't something you can make at home. This
is not a technique that you're familiar with. And part
of my job is to make sure that you can
resonate with the story I'm trying to tell that my
cocktail is built around great flavor, around perfect texture that
it's not gimmicky.
Speaker 1 (36:36):
You know.
Speaker 2 (36:36):
When we first opened a Pothecary and we were making
drinks out of molay with blue cheese, people said, oh,
it's a gimmick bar. I said, wait till you try it.
And the fact that here we are over four years
later with some of our awards, I think proves that.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
All right. But let's take it down to this. I've
never done cocktails when I had people over, except for, hey,
this is a nice whiskey. Do you want some coke,
some diet coke to put in that? And a it'll
take a little water. That's the very basics of making
a cocktail. But I've decided that I want to kind
of amuse and amaze my friends when they come over.
(37:11):
This time, I'm going to do an update, upgrade on
my cocktail game. Here, I choose one or two simple
cocktails and prepare to make those. I'm not a bar.
I'm not offering you fifty of these things. How would
you start?
Speaker 2 (37:27):
What I would say is classic cocktails are a classic
for a reason. And if you're not super familiar, but
you want to be, look first to the classic cocktails.
Maybe there's one that you know you already like, you know,
think margarita. That's a great way to start. Think old fashioned,
think martini. I'm so ch a fan of the martini
(37:49):
and how many variations you can make. And so if
you think about something you're already passionate about, that you
already like, then think about the best way to make that. Well,
the best way to make that's going to be fresh juice.
The best way to make that is good ice. Bad
ice kills so many cocktails. The bigger it is, the
more solid, the more cold it is, that's generally the
(38:10):
better quality ice it's going to be. All of our
ice in our restaurants are one inch cubes, or we
use those really big ones for old fashions and the like.
But if you're trying to now make it your own,
read through that recipe and pick one thing, just one
thing that you can make your own. I'm reading through
a margarita and I see that I have to add
(38:30):
a little bit of sugar syrup or agave syrup. Great,
add a spice to it, add an herb to it,
add something that kind of brings it out. Oh, I
love basil. I grew basil in my garden. I'll make
a basil syrup and you can google that online and
then I'm going to garnish it with some of the
basil flour. So make your presentation simple but intentional. Make
(38:50):
a classic recipe with one change, and all of a sudden,
you're a mixologist.
Speaker 1 (38:56):
Tanner has just told you not to use bad ice.
While this episode of Flavor Files is brought to you
by Cruelty Free Ice. Every year, billions of gallons of
water are frozen without consent in harsh industrial freezers under
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Coming up next weekend on Flavor Files, Travel, including is
(39:41):
street food safe in Second and Third World countries
Welcome to Flavor File. So I'm Jerry Jegar, broadcaster and
I'm with my son, Tanner Regar, who is a restaurant tour,
a chef and a bartender, and today we're going to
talk all about Michelin tasting menus, what the Micheline rating
system means, and why that can matter to you if
you care about food and drink, because Tanner is going
to talk about how to do like a Michelin type
(00:21):
tasting menu of your own at home. And he's a
Micheline the winning cocktail maker, and he'll tell you how
to do some cool cocktails at home as well. But Tanner,
as always, you want to start by drinking.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Of course, absolutely best way to start, you know. So
what we've got here, we were really honored last week.
We actually maintained our status in the Michelin Guide. We
were given our recommend status again. Previously we've won the
best Cocktails in all of Texas. So I wanted to
start with one of the cocktails that helped us win
that award. It's called the Wake and Bake, so it's
(00:53):
an espresso martini. But this one's really fun. We use
a yeasted syrup, so we add yeast to a demarra
or an unprocessed sugar, and we let the yeast bloom
and kind of create that funkiness. Then we heat it
up to kill the yeast. When that happens, it creates
this flavor of like breadiness. We had a little blueberry
(01:14):
to that, So it's an espresso martini that tastes like
you took a bite of a blueberry muffin, then you
took a sip of your coffee, and what that would
taste like that moment. That's what the cocktail tastes like.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
I know that sounds kind of weird, but I do
love that drink.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Yeah, I'm a big fan of the drink. I mean
I brought it all the way from work so I
could have it here at home, So clearly I'm a fan.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
Really briefly, for anybody who doesn't know what is it.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
So the Micheline, God, you probably if you follow food news,
you see people talking about it in a huge center
of food news every year for the cities that it releases.
In nineteen hundred, there's a tire company Michelin, literally the
Michelin Entire Company. For a lot of people, that's sort
of a revelation. You mean to tell me that the
most important judge of fine dining is the michelin Man.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
Well, he looks like he eats healthily enough.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
I don't know if he eats healthily. I think he
eats a lot. I think he's probably a good source
for eating. His name, by the way, is bebendum.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
Really?
Speaker 2 (02:11):
Yeah, yeah, his name is bebendum. So the name comes
from a Latin phrase which i'll butcher because my Latin's
pretty bad. But it's nook s beabendum, which means now
it's time to drink. And so the idea is the
michelin Man babendum. He loves to drink. He is made
out of michel and rubber, and the idea is old ads.
(02:33):
If you look him up, he would be drinking like
nails and road hazards and other things. And so the
idea is the michelin Man can drink in all these
road hazards and keep going because the quality of the
tires is so good.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
So we've gone from from a driving experience to drinking.
That makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
Yeah, you know, I haven't thought of it that way.
But the guy does a little bit combined drinking and driving.
I'm sure they're to be thrilled when they hear me
say that.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
Okay, but why would they do that?
Speaker 2 (03:03):
So it's funny. They're almost the original influencer, right, the
original food influencer. Okay, because they're a tire company, and
so you know what their thought is, how do we
make people use these tires, Because if you think about
a modern tire, if you know it's good for fifty
sixty thousand miles, they can't get you to spend with
(03:26):
them a second time until you've burned them off. So
they started publishing this guide about the best hotels, the
best restaurants, places you could drive to, and they kind
of created these categories for a very good restaurant, a
place that's worth a detour, a place that's so special
you should make a trip just to go to that restaurant.
(03:47):
Hoping that you drive your mischel entires, you wear them out,
but you're always finding the little guide and you'll come
back in and buy tires.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
It's in many, many cities. It's recently in Texas and
you won that award in your recommended by them. It's
in Toronto, It's in a few cities across Canada. It's
a worldwide thing. Let's go through just really quickly for
people who may want to look them up and see
what restaurants wherever you happen to be if you travel
or in your own city, you want to take a
look and see if any restaurants are recommended by Michelin.
(04:19):
What's the star system that they have.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
So you can see it in their their app or
their Website's the easiest way to search through their things.
So the first award that you can win is the
recommended status. And so this is a restaurant that has
great quality, it has great consistency, it's a very good restaurant,
and that's sort of the first award level that you
can win. The next level would be getting a star,
(04:44):
but before we get there, they do have an award
called the bib Gormond, and the bib Gormond the stars
are really for fine dining restaurants. If you're familiar with
Michelin Star dining, it's generally tasting menus, it's very expensive,
it's very you know, posh, and so the big Gormand
was kind of created as an award level to say, hey,
(05:08):
this place maybe does tacos or they do barbecue, or
it's designed for great food, add a good value, which
is not always what the stars are. Stars are generally
very expensive restaurants. So in a way, the Big Gormond
is actually maybe my favorite category because the restaurants aren't
so expensive, they have a lot of character, they're really fun.
(05:29):
So I love that category of restaurants. But if you
move on to the stars, so there's only three stars
that are possible. So the idea is one is an
exceptional restaurant in its category. If you're in this place,
you have to go to this restaurant. It's fantastic.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
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Speaker 2 (06:46):
The next level up is getting two stars. The idea
is it's even better. They've raised the steaks. It's so
good that if you were in if you were nearby
to that area, you should make a detour to go
to it. And the final award you can win. And
there's very few restaurants that have three stars. There are
actually no two star or three star restaurants in the
(07:07):
entire state of Texas. But a third star means this
restaurant so good you should plan a trip around eating there.
That's how good it is.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
All right. There's also a documentary and there are chefs
who have kind of reacted against this, isn't there a
famous incident of a chef who thought he was going
to lose his third star and he committed suicide.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
Yeah, so that did happen. It happened in France. You
know the Michelin Guide. It's part of the challenges every
single year. It's a controversy. You know, the guy just
came out in Texas and who got a star and
how they get one and who didn't one and who
get passed over. It's exciting for them to come out
(07:48):
for about a month afterwards. The only thing any of
my guests want to ask me about is my take
on what happened with the Michelin stars. And we won't
get into all of that here. But you know, the
people have said, I've heard that a star will give
you twenty percent more people through the door, two stars
can give you forty to fifty, and a third star
(08:09):
will double the amount of people that come to your restaurant.
It's not uncommon for people who want to go to
these restaurants and chase stars to make reservations and then
buy plane tickets. I've done that myself.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
Oh it's like Taylor Swift.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
Yeah, absolutely accept the food significantly better than.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
The arena, right, Yeah, Okay, So you got best cocktails
state of Texas, not just Dallas, state of Texas. And
we'll talk more about cocktails and how to make great
cocktails at home coming up here. But how does this work? Like,
did you have any idea when a Micheline inspector was
in your restaurant?
Speaker 2 (08:47):
So this is one of the most frustrating things to
restaurant people like myself. Think about whatever the most difficult
exam you ever took was, and now think about the
fact that you don't know a day it's going to
be on, and you don't know what the questions are,
and you're not going to know when it starts. You're
(09:07):
not going to know who's giving it to you. And
the idea is one of the things I respect them
for is the idea is we came into the restaurant
just like everybody else. We're getting the experience any random person,
any random person could have gotten, because if you're a
known reviewer, if you're a known influencer, if you're a
famous person, you get a different experience. Right, restaurants try
(09:31):
to provide for you. But the idea is it's anonymous.
So on the one hand, I like it better as
a diner. On the other hand, as a chef, Oh man,
I hate it. I hate It's so bad because every
single person, I can't be at the restaurant every single night,
having multiple restaurants, so I never get to know. You
(09:52):
don't even know if they come, if you're not in
the guide, you don't know if they came at all okay.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
But the thing is, and this is why I respect
what they do. What they want you to do, is
you if we're going to give you recognition or a star,
you need to be great all the time. So if
we pop by, you're great, not when we when I mean,
if you know they're coming, it's not that's not fair
because when I come in, you don't care. You care
(10:20):
more when they show up. This way, you just have
to be ready all the time. What does it feel like?
What did it feel like when you went to that
first micheline announcement in the State of Texas. They said,
our very first award is Outstanding Cocktails, State of Texas,
and then they said Rye Dallas your restaurant.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
My phone lost fifteen percent battery because of how many
people were texting me. It just buzzed so much, and
but it was incredibly cool.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
You know.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
One of the things that's difficult about any job is
I think so many people can resid with the idea
of I'm doing the right thing and nobody's noticing, and
I'm working hard, and I'm working so hard, and is
this ever going to pay off? And the idea that
in a room of my peers of the greatest restaurant
(11:14):
people in the state of Texas. They said, you make
cocktails better than everyone else. Is a very it's a
very cool thing because all those days you think back
to being on your knees and scrubbing down a bar.
It's for a few moments you get to forget how
difficult that was.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
As we talk about the power of the Micheline rating system,
coming up, big news rocked the restaurant world as three
of America's best known restaurants were downgraded just this week
by Michelin. Tanner is also going to tell you how
to do a tasting menu at your home for a
party and up your cocktail game on flavor Files. But Tanner,
all of a sudden this week midweek a major micheline news.
(11:54):
It has rocked your industry absolutely.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
This news just came out the micheline saram to announce
the new winners. Who keeps their stars, Who wins new
Stars is actually not happening until next week, but this week,
in an unprecedented move, Michelin has announced that three restaurants
a linea out of Chicago in at Little Washington in
Virginia and Masa in New York three restaurants that are
(12:18):
some of the most famous in the world, not only
for having three Michelin Stars, but for how long they
have had them. At least Alinea is at least ten years, Masa,
I think is longer than that. This is unprecedented for
all three to be losing their third Michelin Star, and
for Michelin to announce it before the ceremony has even happened.
Speaker 1 (12:39):
Well, you talked in the previous segment about how important
a third star makes a restaurant a destination, not just
from for people in the city. It means let's fly
to that city or in the case of the end
at Little Washington, to actually go to the trouble of
getting to what is more or less a rural location
to get to this world famous three star restaurant. This
(13:00):
could change their business.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
Absolutely. I think it will change their business. On the
one hand, maybe what will happen is it's going to
encourage people who haven't been able to go before to
seek it out because they think, well, maybe now I'll
finally be able to book that reservation. So maybe it'll
bring new people in. But certainly it's going to take
them off of the list. Of those star hunters who
really want to get into these restaurants, and it could
(13:23):
be very bad for their bottom lines.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
Okay, but I was looking this morning when I knew
this happened, and Masa, it's like a thousand dollars a
person to have dinner there.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
Absolutely, it's been one thousand dollars a person for a
long time. And this is one of the questions that's
being raised. Obviously, the number one question is how do
you lose your third Michelin Star? How do you for
over a decade be the pinnacle of Oma casse in
America and then have that third star stripped away? And
I don't know the answer right, but one possible question
(13:55):
would be to say, is Masa at one thousand dollars
a person delivering on an experience that's so much better
than all the restaurants that have grown up since that
restaurant opened I think in two thousand and eight or
sometime like that. So did Masa help set a standard
all these chefs that have come up since then? Another
(14:16):
generation of chefs have now raised the standard beyond what
Masa is able to keep up to. It's a really
interesting question that I don't have the answer.
Speaker 1 (14:25):
To well, in a previous episode, we had chef Mark
McEwan on the show and he said to me, once, look,
here's what happens with a high end restaurant. If it
is successful, if it is really working. When you walk out,
you're not talking about the money. That was so great?
What did you think of that? What did you think
of this? It distracts from the money. But if there's
(14:45):
anything in there where gee was that worth a one
thousand dollars? Then that's bad news.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
It is bad news. And while Michelin doesn't officially say
that price is part of it, you know, they only
give us five criteria, but they are. So if the
idea is we're going to recommend you travel somewhere, you
would think inherently they are evaluating price. And they might
say this dinner at five hundred dollars blew me away.
(15:13):
That one at one thousand wasn't that tier extra that
validates the price. But in true micheline form, do I
get to know when they come? No? Do I get
to know what they're evaluating?
Speaker 1 (15:24):
No?
Speaker 2 (15:25):
Are they going to tell us why those restaurants lost
their third stars?
Speaker 1 (15:28):
No?
Speaker 2 (15:29):
So all we can do is sit here and imagine
reasons they might have lost the star. Now, maybe a
reason is all three of these restaurants truly have taken
their eye off the ball and they're not delivering at
that level anymore. But the fact that all three of
them did it feels to me more like Michelin is
trying to send a message that the legacy there isn't
(15:51):
this Micheline emeritus status that you can have where you
own three stars in perpetuity. That they're sending a notice
out that everyone is vulnerable. Maybe it's only to make
themselves seem relevant as a critic, but clearly they're coming
for some of the most famous people that have ever
cooked in America.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
Okay, I know you've been to one of those Alnia
in Chicago. When you went to that restaurant, and this
was when it was still with a three star restaurant,
did you come out of there saying, Wow, that deserves
three stars and it was amazing?
Speaker 2 (16:25):
Absolutely? I thought that it was. Now I did go
many many years ago, so I'm much more knowledgeable now.
I'm much better traveled. Now I can now pull off
some of the magic tricks that Alinea showed, So in
that way, I'm not sure what the experience would be
if I went back, and I'm not a qualified person
to talk about these three restaurants specifically. However, I was
(16:48):
amazed by what they were doing. I was impressed by
what they were doing. And one thing that I think
of with Alnia specifically is does Alinea have an unbelievable
magic show that the inspectors have just seen a number
of times? Is one of the things. Not that they're
not executing on the level they always have been, but
(17:09):
are they the most boundary pushing restaurant that they used
to be that earned them those three stars? And I
sort of wonder the way you think about a musician.
Is Paul McCartney live still amazing? Yes? But is he
dominating the top forty?
Speaker 1 (17:25):
No?
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Does that mean that his body of work isn't important,
that it's not meaningful? No, it doesn't. But perhaps Michelin
is saying, the three star club is getting a little
crowded with the people who define the direction of food,
and we want to peel it away to the people
that are on the forefront.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
I think the first time you went to a big
time restaurant, you were graduating high school and as a gift,
your grandmother took you to a place called the French
Laundry in the Wine region in California. Thomas Keller one
of the greatest chefs in the world, and I think
at that time that restaurant was called the greatest red
in the world. And I was worried that you had
such high expectations that you might be somewhat disappointed. And
(18:06):
so after you'd had the dinner, you called home and
do you remember what you said to me?
Speaker 2 (18:11):
Not verbatim, but I was blown away.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
I said, did it meet your expectations? And I can
pretty much remember what you said. You said, No, it
so exceeded my expectations. They could have put me at
a table by myself facing the wall next to the
entrance to the men's room, and it's the best thing
that ever happened to me.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
Yeah, the restaurant really was that great to me. And
obviously food is my obsession. I'm a flavor file, if
you will. But you know, it's so frustrating, I'm sure
for the line cooks and for the servers and for
the chefs, and for everybody who has to show up
to their restaurant knowing that they create that moment for
young people like I was in that story and being
(18:52):
told it doesn't matter that your guests tell you you're amazing,
it doesn't matter that you think you're doing the best
food you ever have done. All of a sudden, this
very opaque organization gets to say you're not what we're
looking for anymore, and you don't get to know why
or how. And I think maybe one of the most
(19:13):
frustrating things for me is what if you're changing your
food in response to your guests, in response to what
you creatively find fulfilling, what you think is forward thinking,
and yet Michelin has a different direction, a different thought,
and so you're sort of punished in a way because
of that. I think a perfect example of this is
(19:34):
the restaurant Noma, which has been considered one of the
top restaurants in the world, one of the most forefront
of the pack in terms of thinking and moving food forward,
could not get a third Michelin star for many years
because I think there's this misalignment between what chefs want
and what guests want and what Michelin wants, and it's
very difficult to make all groups happy.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
Well, yes, and let's be fair here, we're doing an
episode on Michelin, and that whole thing matters to you
in the business that you're in and the recognition you've
had from Michelin for your cocktails in your restaurant and
all of that. But those kinds of restaurants aren't for everybody.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
No, they're not for everybody. It's a very foody driven
environment and I love it and I like it, and
I absolutely want a star. But at the same time,
I get that it's not for everybody, and maybe Michelin
is trying to find a new middle ground that makes
it more relevant. I don't know, and I don't get
(20:34):
to know, and that's the most annoying thing to all
of us sitting around desperately searching for one and you're
it's like, I desperately want a treasure. Where's the treasure
on an island?
Speaker 1 (20:46):
Okay? Which island? Not telling you? Yeah, I know, it's frustrating,
all right. But to bring this home for people, since
we're centering this thing around Michelin and tasting menu restaurants
are a big deal to Michelin, Tanner's going to tell
you how to do a tasting menu at home, what
a tasting menu is all about, and also Tanner has
been recognized by Michelin for his cocktail program, and so
(21:10):
he'll tell you how to up your cocktail game as well.
Speaker 2 (21:12):
You've just been talking about what the Michelin Guide is,
how you can get into it. You know, one thing
we didn't really say previously was that mostly the Michelin
Stars go to tasting menu restaurants, those restaurants where you
don't get to choose anything, where it can be anywhere
between seven and I've seen restaurants that are twenty five courses. Yeah.
(21:33):
I know. That sounds like the best thing ever to me.
I could sit there all day long eating.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
Uh yeah, but you had. I think we did fourteen
courses once at your restaurant because you were shoveling out
some extra tough because it was me and one of
your best friends and your girlfriend and your friend Sam.
When we got to dessert, he goes, well I can't eat.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
Yeah, well he's weak.
Speaker 1 (21:52):
These are not full courses like you get a in fact,
with a tasting menu at a restaurant. I would say this,
if you go to tasting menu for the very first time,
then maybe the first couple of items as they come out,
you're going to think this was a stupid idea. We
spent a lot of money and they're bringing me a
little piece of fish the size of my thumb. It's
just that by the time you're done, you're having a taste.
(22:14):
You're not having a full meal of this particular item.
You get a taste of this, a taste of that.
That's the concept, and by the end of it you
should actually have had a full meal exactly.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
So our menu is currently eleven courses, but it's fourteen items.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
OK.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
And it's really funny. I'm in Texas and people in
Dallas are not as familiar with tasting menus. So I
get these big Texas boys that come in. I can
tell that their wife pick their restaurant, and we bring
them their first couple dishes, and you know, you can
have something the size of a quarter and it's this
very tiny venison tartar and berber spice on tef cracker
with the jealous seed. I think it's so cool and nerdy,
(22:51):
but all they see is a quarter's worth of food,
a quarter size food, and they go, well, I'm going
to be hungry, I said, sir. I promise you, if
you're hungry, I'm going to cook you more food and
make sure you're not and every single time we get
to the end, I say, sir, before we start deserted
to go, I'm really full. Okay, fantastic.
Speaker 1 (23:09):
So if you had that guy who either because he
just eats a tremendous amount or he just kind of
wanted to play something against you, if you said no,
I need some more for no op charge, you would
just say, sir, I'm bringing you something else to eat.
Speaker 2 (23:21):
Yeah, fine, I'll make you some tacos, no problem.
Speaker 1 (23:24):
All right. So now I'm getting all interested in this,
and I'm thinking I could do like a Micheline tasting
menu on this dinner party I coming up in a
couple of weeks. How would I go about it?
Speaker 2 (23:35):
You know, it's funny. You telling me you could absolutely
do a tasting menu is almost like me telling you
I could absolutely host a podcast. But to get into it,
if you wanted to do a tasting menu, you tasting man.
You super fun. I've had several friends over the years
ask me and say, I want to do something really
special for my partner or for my parents. I want
to do a tasting menu. How could I pull it off?
(23:57):
So the first thing I would try to think when
I'm starting it is an ingredient or a theme that
I could use to really tie this together.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
Right.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
For example, if it was I want to do a
tasting menu for your birthday, right, I'm gonna invite you
and a couple of your friends over, Well, maybe then
the theme is Jerry's favorite foods, and I would think
about things I know that you like and cook to that.
Maybe the tasting menu is for a honeymoon we went
to Italy, and now it's our fifth year anniversary and
(24:25):
I'm gonna do all Italian food. I find the blank
page very intimidating when I'm writing a menu, so instead
I try to give myself a theme or an idea
to create four. I find it's more creative in a
box when you tell me I have to do an
Italian menu. You know, I just wrote a menu for
an Italian wine dinner we're doing at Flamont, one of
(24:45):
our restaurants, And because I knew it had to be Italian,
all of a sudden, thinking of ideas and thinking of
wines to pair with it came easy, okay, because I
could think back to my experiences in Italy, so I
would pick a theme, something you're excited about, and then
the next thing I would do is I get it.
Maybe the fact that we do eleven or these restaurants
that do twenty sound exciting. I would really focus on five,
(25:06):
maybe seven if you feel really comfortable as a cook,
but think five to seven courses. Do not go out
of the gate with more than you can handle. And
when I'm doing those, I would also try to think
of a few different cold dishes that I can be
really excited about and want to serve. Hot food. Hot food,
hot food, hot food. Hot food is really difficult. You know.
(25:26):
I can say, yes, I can do it. But when
I say I can do it, what I mean is
I've got five or six people in our kitchen that
are doing it. A tanner's not doing this. And so
if you can start with something like a cold app
maybe you love tartar, maybe you love crudo. If you
can start with something like that where it can almost
be finished, if you come to our restaurants, you'll actually
(25:48):
notice the first dish you get has nothing hot on it.
All of our tasting menus, the first dish is never
hot because then we can make it, we can be ready,
and the second you've gotten your wine pairing or your
cocktail pair the second you're ready, boom, we can get
that dish. We've already got that first one timed perfectly
because it doesn't have to be hot. So I like
to do that. And when I'm writing the menu, I
(26:11):
try to think ahead of time, what's this time going
to look like? What am I going to have to
do in between? So you know, I want a cold appetizer.
Maybe next I'm going to do a hot appetizer. Okay, cool,
it's second course before I have to cook something fresh.
Then I'm going to follow with at rye. We call
it our like salad course. We don't serve salads because
(26:32):
in my experience, no one has ever showed up to
work on a Monday and said, oh my god, I
had this salad. I got to tell you about it,
and I want to cook food you want to talk about, right,
But we always have something in our salad spot, and
it's something that's sort of greens fresh vegetable. Again, generally
it's not always cold. So I did cold appetizer, hot
appetizer or cold salad. Then if I was going to
(26:54):
do the seven courses, I would serve some type of fish.
Then I would serve some type of bird. Then I
would or if some type of red meat, and then
I would finish with dessert if you're really into dessert.
By the way, our tasting menus always have more than
one dessert because nothing feels more indulgent to me than saying,
for your first dessert. Okay, everybody laughs when they go
(27:15):
our first dessert. I'm like, oh, yeah, we're having a party.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
I would throw in here. And it goes back to
what we were talking about how small some of your
dishes are. If you've never done this and you decide
to do a tasting menu as a party, really think
about how much food can people eat? Make each dish
smaller then you would normally think to make a dish.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
That's one of the things that's one of the benefits
of really trying to keep yourself to five courses is
you don't have to make as many really tiny, very
fussy little things, right. I mean, we make our money,
our reputation on tiny and fussy. But if this is
your first time doing it, you you don't need to
go into that, and you should be thinking too when
you're doing it, about what are some different textures. What
(27:58):
are some different thoughts. You know, you don't want to
just come in and go pasta pasta, pasta pasta. If
you love pasta, that's fantastic. Maybe that's what you do
for your fish, right, but pasta is a wonderful one pasta.
You should probably include a pasta because pasta. Think of
a lobster ravioli, right, You have to cook the lobster,
then you have to make the pasta. Then you make
(28:18):
the ravioli. But picking it up is I put it
in hot water, I pour it into a sauce. You
can pre make the sauce. You can have a beautiful
lobster ravioli and it only takes about seven minutes of
actual effort to get it out onto the plate.
Speaker 1 (28:32):
At the time of the dinner.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
Another thing is if you're familiar with souvi, which is
where you put things in vacuum sealed bags and then
put them in hot water to cook it. And we
can talk more about souvi later. But brazing anytime you
stew something, right, you put meat in and you kind
of cook it in the oven, low and slow. That's
another great technique to use if you're planning a tasting menu.
Because I get to the red meat course, I don't
(28:55):
have to stress about if I'm going to cook that
rack of lamb perfectly or cook that steak perfectly. I
can open my oven that's been set on that warming,
you know, two hundred degrees warming. I can pull it out.
I can put it out. Here were the two sides
I put it with Boom. I know that that meat
is perfect, and I can be guaranteed to have a
great dinner.
Speaker 1 (29:15):
Well, you're going to have a situation where maybe you're
a good cook and people are always excited about what
you cook. But in this case, it almost becomes it's
not just we all talk and we had a great
dinner party and we're friends and we had a good time.
The dinner itself becomes a huge part of the entertainment.
I mean that's always what you say about tasting menu
(29:36):
restaurant or a restaurant like yours. Your restaurant's not dinner
and then go to the theater. Your dinner is the entertainment.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
Absolutely, if you're going to be doing this for your friends,
I mean, this is a two hour experience. More maybe
if you're a little less confident in the kitchen. I
think back to my first Thanksgiving, and that was a
two day affair to get through all the food. Plan
that it's going to be three hours, but then also
near it. If people are going to sit there, think
about telling them the stories. Here's how I chose this ingredient,
(30:05):
Here's how I made it. This is why, and that
narrative is a part of what makes the dinner so special.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
This is flavor Files and it's p h I l
Ees flavor Files. You can find us at flavorfiles dot com.
You can find us on TikTok, Instagram, Apple, and iHeart
as well. All right, now we're talking here about micheline
and tasting menus and all of that, and Tanner, your
restaurant won best Cocktails in Texas, so let's talk about
(30:33):
how to up your cocktail game at home. Tanner, what
makes a cocktail exceptional to you?
Speaker 2 (30:39):
What's really great about a cocktail is when it's got balance,
when it's got really clear flavor, when it almost tells
a story, when it has a mission that I was
trying to accomplish. You know, I talked to my team
about this idea. The man who wrote The Little Prince
(31:00):
Antwine to Saint Oxbag something like that. He has a
wonderful quote about perfection is not when there's no more
to add, it's when there's no more to take away.
And I think that that is true in cocktail making
as well. Is when I'm making my cocktail, how do
I make it the truest version of itself? How do
I say one thing with this cocktail and not try
(31:24):
to have it be everything it could possibly be. New
cocktail makers and new chefs generally want to show you
every technique, every idea, everything they possibly can. And I've
certainly done this, and some people on Yelp think I'm
still doing it. But I don't go on Yelp for
that reason. It's important when I talk to my team,
(31:45):
I say, what is this cocktail all about? You've got
ten ingredients in here, it's creating too much, there's too
much statact, there's too much noise. What is this cocktail about?
What's its through line? What's the most important thing? And
how do you make the intensity of flavor align with
that one thing that you wanted to be about. So
we talked earlier about a cocktail. It's an espresso martini.
(32:06):
So I have rules about an espresso martini. But if
this one's going to be blueberry muffin, then I have
blueberry muffin and I have coffee, and that's what the
cocktail has to be about. So you can't put cream
in it one because then it would be a bad
espresso martini. But two, because you picked coffee and you
picked blueberry muffin. You pick two things. So the only
(32:28):
things that can go in this cocktail must support the
blueberry muffin. And if your cocktail is not going to
be one of these types of things we make, I mean,
we make cocktails out of all kinds of stuff, right.
We make them out of butter curry. We had a
cricket based cocktail. One time. We had a catchoa pepe,
which is a cheesy pasta dish from Italy. We made
(32:49):
a cocktail out of that. We make a lot of
really out there stuff, but we try to pick one
central idea and frame it around that. By the way,
if your central idea is is this whiskey is amazing,
and that's why I want to have an old fashioned
That is a perfectly legitimate one thing for your cocktail
to be about, really wonderful whiskey, or I want to
(33:13):
make a dackerie, and the one thing this is about
is fresh line and wonderful rum. So pick one or
two things that you want the cocktail to be.
Speaker 1 (33:21):
About is rum and coke. A cocktail, I.
Speaker 2 (33:24):
Think the minute you have to measure two different things,
it becomes a cocktail.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (33:30):
One could argue, right, there's a lot of RTDs or
ready to drinks that are available now that you can
crack open, and it's a canned cocktail. The minute mixing
is involved, the minute marrying of flavors comes into play,
that would be, in my opinion, what defines it being
a cocktail. And that can be anything. You can pour
(33:51):
a boiler maker, and if you pour the whiskey into
the beer, you could argue that's a cocktail.
Speaker 1 (33:56):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (33:57):
One thing that wine did wrong as an industry, I
think is they made it seem inaccessible. There was so
much terminology, and you had to know about the soil,
and you had to know these definitions and you had
to know these words. To really be an expert in wine,
you have to have a slight familiarity with German and
Italian and Spanish and French, and one thing I think
(34:20):
the cocktail community has done a good job of is
making it a little bit more approachable, trying to make
sure that it's fun. There are absolutely people with suspenders
and wax mustaches and terrible attitudes, but I would argue
part of what makes an exceptional cocktail is getting rid
of all of that. I talked to my team so
much and say, if we're going to serve people ingredients
(34:43):
that they can't read, if we're going to want to
highlight all of these really advanced techniques and these complicated
flavor profiles, we can't then also be pretentious. We need
to be enthusiastic. And I think one thing a lot
of people forget is that at the end of the day,
it's still the service business. It's still the hospitality business.
(35:04):
One thing I love. I was just at a huge
chef fundraiser last night and one of the people that
was there said, I just went to a Pothecary last weekend.
Everyone is so nice there. How did you get so
many nice people to work there? Because I think the
service standard is slipping and I don't think great cocktails
(35:25):
can be made by angry and arrogant people.
Speaker 1 (35:28):
Well, it's all about relaxing and enjoying the evening. I mean,
if I go out for a drink after work. Some
people just like to go out and have a beer.
That's acceptable. Obviously, if I said to a friend, Hey,
I'm into this cocktail thing, and let's go out after
work and have a cocktail, you'll see what it's all about.
(35:48):
We're going out to relax after work and have comradeship,
and we don't need somebody looking down their nose at us.
Speaker 2 (35:55):
Absolutely, and that's something I just don't have space for
because nobody wants to feel done. There are a lot
of really cool cocktails that are made from new ingredients
and new techniques, and certainly, if you come to my places,
we're going to talk about that. Here's how we make
these things, here's why they're so different. I also recognize
the fact that I have an eleven thousand dollars centrifuge,
(36:18):
and this isn't something you can make at home. This
is not a technique that you're familiar with. And part
of my job is to make sure that you can
resonate with the story I'm trying to tell that my
cocktail is built around great flavor, around perfect texture that
it's not gimmicky.
Speaker 1 (36:36):
You know.
Speaker 2 (36:36):
When we first opened a Pothecary and we were making
drinks out of molay with blue cheese, people said, oh,
it's a gimmick bar. I said, wait till you try it.
And the fact that here we are over four years
later with some of our awards, I think proves that.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
All right. But let's take it down to this. I've
never done cocktails when I had people over, except for, hey,
this is a nice whiskey. Do you want some coke,
some diet coke to put in that? And a it'll
take a little water. That's the very basics of making
a cocktail. But I've decided that I want to kind
of amuse and amaze my friends when they come over.
(37:11):
This time, I'm going to do an update, upgrade on
my cocktail game. Here, I choose one or two simple
cocktails and prepare to make those. I'm not a bar.
I'm not offering you fifty of these things. How would
you start?
Speaker 2 (37:27):
What I would say is classic cocktails are a classic
for a reason. And if you're not super familiar, but
you want to be, look first to the classic cocktails.
Maybe there's one that you know you already like, you know,
think margarita. That's a great way to start. Think old fashioned,
think martini. I'm so ch a fan of the martini
(37:49):
and how many variations you can make. And so if
you think about something you're already passionate about, that you
already like, then think about the best way to make that. Well,
the best way to make that's going to be fresh juice.
The best way to make that is good ice. Bad
ice kills so many cocktails. The bigger it is, the
more solid, the more cold it is, that's generally the
(38:10):
better quality ice it's going to be. All of our
ice in our restaurants are one inch cubes, or we
use those really big ones for old fashions and the like.
But if you're trying to now make it your own,
read through that recipe and pick one thing, just one
thing that you can make your own. I'm reading through
a margarita and I see that I have to add
(38:30):
a little bit of sugar syrup or agave syrup. Great,
add a spice to it, add an herb to it,
add something that kind of brings it out. Oh, I
love basil. I grew basil in my garden. I'll make
a basil syrup and you can google that online and
then I'm going to garnish it with some of the
basil flour. So make your presentation simple but intentional. Make
(38:50):
a classic recipe with one change, and all of a sudden,
you're a mixologist.
Speaker 1 (38:56):
Tanner has just told you not to use bad ice.
While this episode of Flavor Files is brought to you
by Cruelty Free Ice. Every year, billions of gallons of
water are frozen without consent in harsh industrial freezers under
conditions that would send chills up your spine. Cruelty Free
Ice wasn't chill with that, and now source is only
the best shade grown water with zero harm to glaciers
(39:17):
or polar bears. Our patented chill technology allows ice to
form crystals in gentle conditions at its own pace while
listening to Mozart's level bies. The result is as ethical
as it is refreshing with a creamy melt and a
clean finish. Cruelty Free Ice The Humane Way to hydrate
Coming up next weekend on Flavor Files, Travel, including is
(39:41):
street food safe in Second and Third World countries
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