67: Part II: From Vegas Strip to Hell's Kitchen: The Culinary Journey of James Trees

James Trees: 0:52

Chopped was like a few people around town. I gotten back to Las Vegas and a few of my friends were getting asked to do it. And someone has, somehow they got my email and sent me an email and they asked me if I wanted to do, and I was like, no, not really. I don't really want to do chopped. I've never seen the show. And I was like, okay, cool. And I was like, but they're like, Hey, we'll fly you out to New York. And I was like there's this restaurant I've always wanted to go to in New York that didn't exist when I lived there. So I'll go out there and you'll fly me out and put me up. Awesome. So I went out there and I got to go eat at Upland, which is at the time was Justin Smiley's restaurant. And that he was the chef at Alimentari Evineria Great Jones. And it's still there. It's a great restaurant, but he was the one who started that. And then he moved over and opened a restaurant called Upland cause he was from Upland, California. And. I wanted to go to that restaurant. So I went to go do chops in order just to get to this restaurant. And so I come in, I get to my hotel room, I go to sleep, wake up the next morning at 4am, you got to go down and they like, meet you at some McDonald's. And then they're like, okay, you're all here. Come on over. And they walk you in. They don't really, they tell you to put on the chopped uniform and all that stuff. You're like, okay, cool. All right. We're going to start. And I was like, okay. I was like I raised my hand. They're like, you don't have to raise your hand. And I'm like how does this work? What are we doing? It was the 23rd season of chopped. I found out, I should have been more up on how this whole thing worked. So I got to experience chopped the first time. As being completely blind. I had no idea how anything worked. I didn't know that there were rounds. I didn't know that they, there were secret ingredients. I didn't know, I didn't know anything.

Michael Dugan: 2:33

And difficult ingredients, not just secret. Yeah.

James Trees: 2:35

They give us difficult ones. It was like veal testicles is like the first thing. And I'm like, okay, cool. I'll try to do something with this. So, you know, I did the best I could, you know, I didn't get eliminated the first the first round. And I was like, okay, cool. And then the second round, was a fish course. And I somehow got through that too. And I got the dessert. And then the other people on the show with me had seen every episode. Of course. Yeah. Every single thing about every Instagram at that point. I don't even think I had an Instagram. No. And they knew who the judges were because they were stalking them on Instagram. And I walk in and I'm like, Oh, it's Chris Santos. I'm like, Hey, Chris, how are you doing, man? And then Oh, it's Scott Coney. I'm like, Hey, chef, how are you doing? Good to see you. You know, and then Alexander Garnaschelli. And I was like, I don't know you, and and they're like, Oh, okay. And then the kids who were, who I was competing with, they were much younger than me. They knew everything. They knew Scott Conan doesn't like this and Alexandra. Garnishelli doesn't like this. Oh, interesting. Cook like this and cook that way. And I was just like, okay, that would have been nice to know. And honestly, the first, I think I've seen now three episodes of chops. Like I haven't really watched it all the way through. Yeah. Yeah. But you know, that was a, it was a wake up call and it was fun. And then I, and then they wanted to debrief me after the after the taping. And you had they're like, Oh, we need you for three more hours. And I just looked at him. I was like, I have a seven 30 dinner reservation. So you have me until six 45, but you can't, I was like, no, no, no, no. I'm leaving at six 45. Cause I mean, like I didn't, at that point I know I didn't win. So it's not staying around.

Michael Dugan: 4:29

Oh my gosh. That's a cool experience, but you went back to the Food Channel too. I know you've done a couple others. Yeah, I did.

James Trees: 4:34

That was Chopped was the last thing I did. Oh, okay. And then the one before that, I did something called Chef Hunter. Once again, like a total, like weird premise. There's that girl with the frosty white hair, I don't know what her name was. She used to. Amber El. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, yeah. So like we did I think I'll chef hunter, which is basically a job application show. And so the, it's a cooking app job application show, which, you know, I didn't know that was ridiculous. Yeah. So, so, that one, once again, didn't know what was going on, didn't know who this person was. And I remember we were shooting at LASERC and. We were like, we'd already gone through the first two rounds and it was the final dinner service and I had gotten to know the other contestants and the contestant I was going up against was the chef de cuisine of Le Cirque's restaurant in the Caribbean, right? And they had basically already promised him the job. And I was like, okay, cool. You know, I'm going to have some fun with it, whatever. We're in there, we're doing dinner service, you know, we're going through our normal stuff, you know, they kind of mess with you and get you to do other things and all this stuff. I'm like, okay, whatever. And I remember that Amberl came up to me during shooting during the taping of the final dinner service. I was talking to Morrow Macchione, who is one of the Macchione brothers serious sons. And she was like, she came up and she was like you know, your service is going off the rails and and you have all this pressure, are you going to are you going to do something about it? And I looked at her dead in her face. And I just said this, I said, ma'am, I don't know who you are. But I do know that the person that's on my hot app station right now, that's struggling with his cook right now is the chef cuisine of Lacerque in New York. And, and I was like, and I'm not going to go over there and raise my voice to the chef's cuisine. In New York, I was like, I am not that person. And I will never be that person. And I was like, and if you want your fake TV drama, go elsewhere. And she literally looked at me, looked at Moria Machione and Morrow just Morrow just shrugs it off and says, He's right. And she did not speak to me for the entire rest of the taping. Wow. And then I and then the other thing I did, this was like a few years before that actually was I was part of Gordon Ramsey's kitchen team that did

Michael Dugan: 7:03

in kitchen night. We got to talk about that. I mean, we, I really, I know I've been dying to know, and I know that our listeners. Want to hear about it. So let's dive in. Yeah. How did

James Trees: 7:13

this come about? You know, I was I was the chef cuisine at Michael Mina's restaurant 14 on on sunset Boulevard existed. And that was a thing with SB. They were turning that restaurant into a club. And there was nothing I could really do about it. So I was a little bit disheartened by it. And I wasn't the funnest person to be around. I basically got fired from that for doing something stupid. Let's just say that. And so you know, I went in and went to go hand in my, you know, my keys and everything, get my final check. And I saw my friend Andrea, who was the sous chef on Hell's Kitchen, the blonde girl. She's an amazing friend of mine. I've known her for, 15 years and she's Hey, we're going to do a season of Hell's Kitchen. Do you want to, you know, do that? And I was like, I've never done TV. I don't think that's for me. I run restaurants and she's ah, you might like it. Blah, blah. So I came over and she's like, all right, we have to do all this prep and we deal with prep. And then basically what we found out was the cooks and the people who are a part of a Hell's Kitchen were so bad. They couldn't get food out of the kitchen. They couldn't communicate. The food came out wrong. They overcook, undercook, whatever. They were just basically chosen by producers for the amount of craziness they can bring to the situation. Gordon had a bunch of VIPs that he needed to feed because he told his VIPs to come over and eat. It'd be like David Beckham and you know, Robbie Williams and all these mega stars, and all these A list stars. And so we were like, yeah, I mean, like we can cook for them too. Do you want them to have things off the menu? And Gordon's No, no, the menu is stupid. It's beef Wellingtons and seared scallops. I was like, okay, cool. I was like, so do you mind if we just make a menu and serve them from the back? And he's yeah, please, please do. Oh my God. We would set up a pass and run almost like a Michelin star kitchen out of back of this TV set for about 20 to 30 people per taping, which is every day. And every day we would like do the normal prep for the guys who were doing the TV show, and then we were cooking in the back and making sure that People who are VIPs got a good meal and got to hang out. And eventually Gordon got really comfortable with that. And he would start bringing them back and introducing them to the cooks who were cooking the food. Cause people were asking about it. And then we find out that they were like, you know, when Scarlett Johansson came by, she remembered me from meeting me 14. She was really cool. And, you know, it was a really cool time to be a part of that. And then from that, he asked us to be a part of Kitchen Nightmares because his first seasons of Kitchen Nightmares were so poorly run that none of the restaurants even survived, like by the time that they actually got onto the show. Television really? Okay, cool. Maybe we can help these guys out. And so I took that on with the 100 percent intention of being able to help people out who probably shouldn't be in the restaurant business, but are there and now they need some help. And I thought that's what we were doing. And I thought that was really cool. So that's what you know, I signed up to do. And the first season we went in and it was me and I brought my Andy brought me on with her and I brought my friends, Jeff Thomas and Stephen Ryan fully. And we went out and we, you know, help these people. And it was awesome because we would go into these nightmare kitchens that were gross. And we would clean them and show them how everything works and show them how to set up a pass and show them how expoing works and how Tickets work and people were really receptive and we got to cook really cool food and that was awesome. And we got to write the menus and that was like, you know, and so that was an amazing time. And then they're like you guys did such a good job. You should. Help us with the second season or the third season. And so the third season, like we, they actually flew me around the country to go try places and see if we could help them. And so I would go in and I'd write reports about here's their financial situation. Here's their food. Here's their kitchen. Here are the people who work here. Here's their problems. I would do these whole entire big reports and then I would send it off to to the guys and during the third season, what I realized was. Is they didn't care if they could help anybody. All they wanted to do was really a really let's put it like this, a really high stress level television show. Yeah. And the producers were producing that rather than us trying to help people. It was more about the emotion and the chaos. Of what we were doing. And I really got disheartened with it in that third season. And I remember that we were in my last episode that I did was in Anaheim, there was a place that was called like Luigi's or something. And we had gone through, and this was like a neighborhood restaurant. It should have never been anything more than that. And they wanted to elevate things. But I could just tell after meeting these guys that they were not going to listen to anything that we did. They weren't paying attention. We had gotten there at 4 or 5 a. m. Like, gone in, cleaned their kitchen, taken all the mise en place that we prepped, put it into the stations. We had sat there and trained them for five or six hours. And at the end of it, I literally went to Gordon and I said, Chef, these people are not going to listen to what we have to say. The moment we leave this kitchen, They're going to start cooking however they want revert back. And I knew it. And the thing was, they were just there because they was a TV show, not because they thought that we could help them. And it's exactly what happened. And Gordon came out and he was all pissed off because obviously they were failing and things were coming out of the kitchen and everything was wrong. And he, like the owner started cooking things from the old menu, like literally right in the middle of that service. Yeah. And to show that he could cook better in his, you know, just a ridiculous ego move, right? And then what we were trying to show that. So does

Michael Dugan: 13:02

he have a, does he have a really big ego or is that

James Trees: 13:05

just Gordon? No, Gordon. No, but Gordon was curious. I can imagine he would be. He tried to lace me and I just turned around and I just gave it back to him. I was like, I fucking told you this was going to happen. This is bullshit. You have no reason blaming me. I was like, You guys, your producers keep putting us in this stupid position and I don't understand why they would do this as it's not fair. I was like, this is bullshit. And there's no reason that he's well, you should have trained him better. I'm like, I spent five hours training these clowns. I don't know what to tell you. And I was like, fuck this. I'm out of here. I literally got in my car and drove from Anaheim back to my apartment in Venice. And that was the last time I worked with Gordon Ramsey, you know, he tried to blame some bullshit that his production team, you know, it was a hundred percent their fault. And I think they did two more episodes. And then they got to that Amy's baking company. And that was the end of that show. They literally had to stop production. Cause like me and a couple of my other buddies were just like, I'm not doing this anymore.

Michael Dugan: 14:07

I liked the show, but I actually got stressed sometimes,

James Trees: 14:11

right? Because and that's the thing is it was unnecessarily stressful. The thing that you don't see on the television show is that we already have a menu plan, you know, before we show up to this place, because I've already done the scouting report. I know what kind of equipment they have. I know what kind of cooks they have. I know everything, right? I would write all these things. And then the way I found out later on was after the first couple episodes, the production company stopped giving Gordon all the notes and all the reports that I was doing. And so he had no idea that this was going to be a total shit show. And then that's, and so I would find out what restaurants we were going to when I got like the call sheets and the plane tickets. It was basically like, get on a plane, fly somewhere, turn a restaurant over in four days, get on another plane, fly to another city, do another one. Then fly to another city and do another one. Then fly to see another city and do another one. And you do them back to back to back to back. Cause you know, chef Gordon has so much stuff to do that. It was like, okay, cool. You get him for 14 days and here's how many episodes can we do. So that was that was the situation. And I mean, it was a really cool thing to do the first year. And then the second year, it just became a bunch of what. All food television has really become, which is about, it's about egos. It's about, you know, not helping people. It's about basically producing a show that's going to get ratings. Yeah, I get it. Yeah. Rather than, and and I think we all know that, you know, the less positive a kitchen situation will look on television, the better it is for television. And I really, having done this and made this, I feel bad because I feel like I was part of it. The degradation of my industry, you know, and I really look back on it with very, you know, jaded glasses.

Michael Dugan: 16:07

Okay. Still it was very successful.

James Trees: 16:10

It was very

Michael Dugan: 16:10

successful. And you helped make it successful. I mean, you should feel good about that. And you got to meet a lot of really interesting people. I'm sure. One of the cool

James Trees: 16:18

things I learned because we were doing so much with so many different people was I got to learn. What not to do going through and seeing these restaurants and meeting these families and these people who open these restaurants. I learned so many things and pitfalls about how restaurants go down a bad Avenue and about the understanding the fundamentals. Of running a restaurant. Like I remember I would walk into these places and say, can I see your profit and loss statement? I need to know where you're at. Financially nine out of 10 of these places would not have a PNL. That is nuts. That's nuts. If you don't know where your money's going, how do you know what to fix? Yeah, that's a good point. People who are married, I'm sure they loved each other, but their stress from the restaurant just destroyed that marriage and destroyed their drive. And seeing that, seeing you know, the hotshot chef trying to sleep with all the servers and all the hostesses, right? Seeing all that shit. That's the kind of stuff that I saw that I was just like, Oh man. Don't do that. I could write a book on what not to do in a restaurant.

Michael Dugan: 18:23

You should create your own TV show. That's already been done. So circling back, one thing I do want to do is call out some of the people that you worked with along your culinary journey. Are there any chefs that you worked with? That really stood out that really mentored you or, you know, inspired you to

James Trees: 18:42

keep going. I mean, obviously Luke Palladino at the beginning he was still like one of my mentors today. I look to him for advice all the time. We talk to him and talk about the new restaurant opening happening in a couple of weeks. And he's giving me advice and helping me out. He has a wealth of knowledge that I will one day hope to be able to share with someone else. He's one of the ones he was truly inspirational and I still use a lot of the recipes that I learned from him, you know, cause he was trained in in Venice. He went to CIA, same as me, trained in Venice Italy. He's an amazing chef. He was going to be the most famous restaurant in Venice is Alcovo. He was the chef there and he's just an amazing guy. Ray Garcia you know, he's like an amazing friend of me as well. I got to work with him at Fig in Santa Monica. I thought I loved the. The farmer's market until he gave me an unlimited budget to go to the farmer's market in Santa Monica and buy stuff. We were right next to the farmer's market. And I got to have I learned a lot of, I learned a lot about farmers and how they work from my time over there. Love Ray. He's a absolute. Magician when it comes to blending new American flavors with traditional Mexican food. So that was just an amazing time to spend with him. And I introduced him to his first partner, Jacob, who they went and opened Broken Spanish in LA. And that was a huge restaurant for Los Angeles. And then who else you know, I mean, obviously Michael Mina, I mean, yeah, talk about my career. What was he like, or

Michael Dugan: 20:11

what is it like? He's a bro.

James Trees: 20:12

He's great. He's he not only is he a chef, but he's like a mentor and he's so smart. And he sees the restaurant business in a way that very, very few chefs see it. You look at the Mina group. And when I was with the Mina group, it was six of us that were sitting around a table, right? And now they have 40 plus restaurants and they've spawned different branches of hospitality consulting businesses and doing all kinds of stuff. And all the people who are part of that group are now either You know, corporate chefs or own their own restaurants or or different entrepreneurs in some way, or even run entire hotel groups. I mean, like we had a really, really good group of human beings there. And that was. Probably, you know, the joke goes that I was fired by Michael Mina three times. I was fired. Like when I first worked at Aqua, when I first came back to Vegas, when I was like 21 I worked for Mark LaRusso and I got fired. from that restaurant. And that was totally fair. I went to Bradley Ogden and it was super successful, but you know, sometimes wrong restaurant, wrong time. But I got to learn all of the the Michael Mina classics, the mussel sea flay, the tuna tartar you know, like all of those different things that feel across its soul, the whole roasted foie gras. All these amazing dishes. And I remembered them cause that's kind of like the way I thought I was supposed to do is to learn all this stuff. And it wasn't until seven years later when I went back and they're like, Oh, do you know how to do this? And I would just do the prep and do the dish. And Michael would be like, wow. Okay, cool. Teach that to everybody, you know, cause I already knew all the standards from like way, way, way back when I was working with Mark LaRusso at Aqua. And this was before the Mina group was even a thing. So then I was on the corporate team and then I ended up being sent off to the flagship in San Francisco and working with Chris Lohamedu. God rest his soul. I hated him and he hated me. It happens. Yeah. It was just a terrible position. I worked like a dog seven days a week. In, in, yeah, in a windowless basement with a dragon lady who was like part of this hotel, who was super mean. And the only people who I got along with were the prep cooks. You know, who I was down in the basement with, and I had to do all the ordering and cleaning and do all that stuff. And I remember that, you know, I ended up getting into a fistfight with with the chef of the restaurant. And I remember I was on my way walking. Back to my apartment and Anthony Karen, who was the corporate chef calls me and I'm furious and I pick up the phone and he's just laughing, he's laughing at me and he's ah yeah, you don't work there anymore. And so I thought it was super funny. I was like, fuck this, I'm out of here. And I was a hot, I was still a hothead. I still wanted to be the best cook. And I was in this environment. We had two Michelin stars and it was such a good thing. I wanted to be a part of it. And they just wouldn't let me be a part of it. And I was like, okay. Cool. And so I left San Francisco and went down to Los Angeles, started working for Kasha, Richmond, and then the 2008 financial crisis happened. I ended up, I was working at a hotel. I like, just as like a temporary thing, cause I figured that was like my safe place to be. And then all of a sudden, you know, I get a phone call and, It's the it's the corporate chef again, Anthony and Fretz, who's one of my great buddies, who was the chef of the restaurant 14. And they're like, yeah, we're we're opening 14. Do you want to come on and shift the cuisine? And I was like, absolutely. And then I got there and then, you know, SBE got rid of Fretz and Anthony was like involved with other stuff. And I couldn't handle the fact they were turning that into a club. And then I got fired for the third time. Oh my gosh. You know, I was a bad, I was a bad employee. Let's put it like that. A loyal soldier and a loyal friend, but a horrible

Michael Dugan: 24:23

employee. On the flip side, that makes you a great leader because

James Trees: 24:27

you understand, you know, I think you have to, I think you have to fail a lot in life in order to be successful. Yeah.

Michael Dugan: 24:35

Yeah. So as we wrap up, tell us a little bit about, I'm going to, I'm going to Paste a few of these things in between, but tell us, describe the environment of esters. And I know you do, and that's why I want to make sure to honor you and to share that with

James Trees: 24:50

everyone. All right. So the environment at Esther. So right now we have a 2, 100 square foot restaurant. And you know, like we talk about numbers in a restaurant, a good restaurant does about a thousand dollars a square foot. So when that's what I figured, so we actually. Should be doing about 2. 1 million in revenue, and that would be considered successful. We did 6. 3 last year. So we're at about 3000 something square foot, right? Which is too much volume for space. It is. It's only 68 seats interior with a couple of patio seats. And I'll tell you, you know, we, we just had a record week this last week with Valentine's day. And. And we did 3, 000 covers in a week, 3, 003 covers actually, to be exact. And that is an average of 492 guests or 429 guests per day. Oh my gosh. Which is, I mean, it's just not tenable for the space. But we are moving into next door. But here's the thing that we do have. We have really great systems. We have really passionate people both on the service, the side, the bar side and the kitchen side. And I get to kind of play, you know, PT Barnum to the three ring circus that is Esther's kitchen. Hype man. And I want to, you know, make sure that everyone gets their gets their due. I, you know, I'm always calling out, you know, the bar team and how, what a great job they do and the service staff. As you can tell, you know, you have to be a. Very passionate person to work at Esther's because it's a lot of pressure and it's a lot of food that's going out of that kitchen. And then at the same time, you know, I have a team of chefs with me that are unparalleled in this industry. I feel like we have the best group of chefs that any restaurant could ever ask for. So it starts at the top with Sean O'Hara, who is our executive chef. He just joined us about six months ago, but he's an amazing leader. He's always made, already made amazing impacts on the restaurant. But he came from Wisconsin prior to that. He was at the French Laundry for six years. As to chef you have my chef cuisine, Dylan jobs, Dylan, and I met doing Coachella doing an outstanding in the field dinner about 12 or 11, 12 years ago. He was 21 at the time, or maybe he was like 20. Yeah. He's 21. Now he's 30. And I think it was 19 at the time, but now he's 30 and he's been with me. He was one of, he ended up being one of my cooks in Los Angeles at Superba where I was the corporate chef. And then I found out he was here and I said, Hey, what are you doing? He's I want to bake bread. And I was like, absolutely. Come over. So he started as bread baker and now he's our CDC Pedro, Pedro who's the little guy who runs service at night. He's also worked all the stations and everything else started as a cook. He's now our executive sous chef. Yeah. He's been with me for about five and a half years. And honestly, like he's worked at amazing Italian restaurants from B& B which was at the Venetian, Gaetano's he worked at Ferraro's amazing Italian cook, and. Just an amazing person to have as part of the team. Then you have Rom, who we already talked about, who's going to be the chef of the French restaurant. Yeah. Yeah. So he's a, right now he's a sous chef at Esther's, but he will be the executive chef of the French restaurant, Barbeau M that we're doing down the line. Then you have who else? Justin Cannon is just one of our AM sous chefs. He is. He's super solid. He's, he cares about everything. He's a really great teacher. And he's got a really great temperament for for the kitchen. And then you have Corey, who's a kid who started as a dishwasher with us about five and a half years ago, six years ago. And I thought he was only going to last about two weeks and I haven't been able to get rid of him since. And now he's a sous chef and he's working with chef rom and chef Justin too. He's like our junior Sue and he's been coming up and he's does everything. He's a great kid. And and then around that we have really talented cooks as well. I mean, that's the best thing that you could ever ask for is now we're starting to grow our own sous chefs, which

Michael Dugan: 29:07

is pretty amazing. You know, James, I wanted to just pause and give recognition to them. Because we don't do that and that's what this show is all about, you know, and they're amazing. That's so awesome. I just want to circle back to your restaurant and say, we have never had better Italian food than, and we eat out Italian all over Seattle, all over. The country really. So that's, I had no idea how good that food was going to be. I had

James Trees: 29:33

to throw you a curve ball with the pasta fritti. Yeah. That was when I was like, Oh, you love Italian food. This is actual real Italian food.

Michael Dugan: 29:40

It was amazing. And my wife was saying, ask him about how it originally created. So why don't we just talk about that really quick? You were talking about rocks, right? Can you share that story? Cause that's

James Trees: 29:50

beautiful. I just went to Italy about a year and A few months ago, it was the last time I was there and I got to go with one of my mentors, who's Luke Palladino, who I worked with at the Mirage and Onda. And that was over 25 years ago. We've known each other for that long. And I got to go and he took me to, we went to Venice, Rome, We stayed in the, and in Naples, and then we went like a little bit South of Naples to the Vico Quinza, which is really close to Amalfi and Sorrento, but it's on the Adriatic side. So it's a lot like more reasonable, right? And we actually, we're gonna go eat at this chef, Guido Pepe his, One star Osteria and Campania and we, unfortunately, they messed up our reservations. Anything was, is we are, we're staying at his villas that he has, like we're on the side of a mountain and Vesuvius is in the background and it's amazing. And we're just hanging out there. Going to restaurants and checking these things out. And they had messed up all of our reservations. We're like, Oh, we have a reservation tomorrow at your restaurant. And Guido Pepe is like, no, you can't because we have a buyout. There's no way. And we're like, Oh man, we wanted, we came here to eat some of your food. There's a couple of dishes that he does that are. Amazing. And only like that, they're like his signature dishes. And what he ended up doing for us was cooking us lunch at his villas. Where he makes all of, they make all the preserves. They grow all the food for the restaurants. They're amazing. It's like on the side of the hill, it's a completely biodynamic organic farm who are drinking wine that they were just pulling out of these glass mentors. I mean, it was just. An amazing experience. But he said, he's like, when I was a kid, he told me the story. He's like, when he was a kid, he was so poor that his favorite dish was, was, was pasta all of Angola. And he's, but my mom couldn't afford clams. So he made us pasta all of Angola. But then he also made us This is insane. He made us a dish that he makes where he takes rocks from the water of the shoreline. Yeah. And then replaces the clams in the dish with the rocks. So you actually cook the pasta with the rocks because the flavor. Of all the plankton and all the growth on the ice blocks. Sea salt, yeah. Cooks into the pasta and adds that salinity and adds that flavor. And we're eating them side by side and we're like, The one with the rocks is just as good as the one with the clams.

Michael Dugan: 32:38

Oh my god. Oh my god.

James Trees: 32:40

So awesome. It was amazing. And then I asked him, I was like, and we had all this, cause he made so much food and his, he's feeding his mom. Who's there's 94 years old, his daughter who runs the villas and all that. And he was also cooking for them. I was like, what do you guys do with all the leftover pasta or anything that you make? And that's when he told me about the pasta free tea. And he's, what we do is we almost make like a frittata, but with no eggs, they literally couldn't even afford to have eggs if they didn't have chickens and whatnot. So he showed me how he made this leftover pasta and he actually wrote a book on what's called generational pasta in Italy just means leftover pasta. And that's one of the dishes that, that he showed me. And I've been wanting to get that onto the menu at Asterix for about. A year. Wow. Finally, we're like, Oh, let's talk about this and that. And then that's how the dish came about. We wanted to take the Scotch off, which is like a rolled pizza that we like do it. And we took pizza and turned it into a cinnamon roll. This is more like very straightforward, but you pan fry. The pasta, and then you create a crust on it by adding Parmesan and the Parmesan melts and creates a frico, a crunchy outside. Yeah. And that was

Michael Dugan: 33:52

underneath the pasta. I think, Oh my gosh, that was amazing. It was underneath

James Trees: 33:57

on top. It's like the whole thing. And then we put a little bit more of the sauce and we put like all the flavors of a matriciana. So you have red onions, white wine, guanciale. We cure all of our guanciale in house. Okay. And then so we mix all that with a little bit of our pomodoro and then we puree it with a little bit of chili oil and garlic oil and then that's the sauce there that sits on and then we do sunny side up eggs because you got to have an egg for brunch. Yep. And then, yeah, and then that's how the dish comes around and I mean, I really love not only the composition of that dish, but the fact that it's something that. I've never seen anyone put on a restaurant menu, like when we're looking for dishes and how we build them and how we do everything we don't want. I mean, it'd be so easy to just take a few menu items off the lunch thing and throw them on there or put a couple of dinner menu items on or like when you're talking about real creativity, you're talking about. The humbleness of Italian food. Those things are very hard to have them intersect in a way that is as cognizantly together as that dish, the pasta fritti dish.

Michael Dugan: 35:06

Yeah, that makes sense. And your sous chef brought it out. I remember.

James Trees: 35:10

Yes. You met Ram. And so he's been with me for over a year and a half. He's going to be the chef at the French restaurant that we're opening down the street. But the funny thing was, is like, when I started doing this dish, he started talking about this dish that comes from Persian culture and he calls it macaroni, which, I mean, that's cool. I was like, you're just saying macaroni weird. I don't know what you're talking about, but his mom sent a picture. To him of her making almost the exact same kind of dish, but in Persian culture, he's a, he's an Iranian Jew. He actually has that same dish in the lexicon of his family. And he grew up eating that dish.

Michael Dugan: 35:54

Oh my gosh. He was

James Trees: 35:55

blown away. He's like, where did you get the idea for this?

Michael Dugan: 35:58

He made

James Trees: 35:59

it, didn't he? My mom used to make

Michael Dugan: 36:02

this dish. James, did he make that one? Yeah. So he made it for us and this was your dish. And Oh my gosh, that was so special to connect with him too. I really just was so impressed.

James Trees: 36:13

I mean, the one thing I've learned is it doesn't matter how good a sous chef can cook. One of the biggest flaws that we have in our industry is, and don't get me wrong, Ram is a hell of a cook. He can cook him an ass off. But more importantly is that. Being the best cook in the kitchen does not set you up with the leadership skillset that you need or to be a sous chef. The emotional maturity, the ability to work through problems and stuff like that, because line cooks are babies and they're selfish babies. And they should be because like the better cook is usually the more selfish that person is. I remember. You have to have your mise en place. You have to have your stuff ready. And what I found is like, Mentoring young sous chefs and chefs to get to the level where they understand that it's their job to be a good boss and not to cook the best food. Yeah. That's a different skill set for these guys.

Michael Dugan: 37:11

They have to delegate, they have to pull back from being in that dish and they have to let somebody else create it and then maybe mentor them and guide them in creating it and let them fail.

James Trees: 37:21

It's funny because I just had to go in to work yesterday. I had to go into Esther's yesterday and have a conversation with two of my cooks, two of my cooks who were in really different places in their lives. Okay. One who is ready to become a sous chef. He's that cook and he's always set up. Always ready, always has his backups, and he cooks great food. And he cares so much about the quality of the food. And that is so important when you're a cook. Right there. But, in order to be right there, he's also treating this other cook Like shit. And that's something that like, and I was like, Hey man, I was like, I don't care how it's like your job. I get it. You can cook like you've been with me for five years. I taught you how to cook. I gave you the skills. Now, if you want to move forward, you have to be able to look at someone who was where you were two or three years ago. And you have to bring them up to your level, not by beating them down, but by lifting them up. And that's where a sous chef's power is. That's where a manager's power is. And so much of our industry for the last 30 years has just been beat you down until you're not good enough. And now. I love to see the other side of that where I see cooks who are teaching each other, helping each other grow, looking at each other as human beings rather than objects in their way of becoming what they want to be, which is the next level. And that's a different place to be at. And we look at that and then you go back to the food and the food is so simple. Yeah. It's such a small part of what restaurants are. And I told him, I was like, you guys have to work together and you have to mentor him and you have to be better to him, not worse. That was the best part of my week. Wow. Was seeing him realize. That in order to grow, he had to allow other people to fail and help bring them up. That person's going to continue to grow and be awesome.

Michael Dugan: 39:24

That's really amazing.

James Trees: 39:26

I wish I had more people like Rene around me who were figuring that out and moving up.

Michael Dugan: 39:33

I agree. I mean, because I pivoted from the restaurant business. We had a drive by shooting. I was in Napa Valley and an assistant manager. There was a drive by shooting in Napa Valley? Yeah, I know. There are gangs in Napa Valley, James. There are little kids, like 14, 15 year old kids that carry guns. And I was shocked because I worked in a 24 seven upscale diner, basically. And the thing, it was a chain and I'm not going to mention the name, but It changed my whole career. It was that catalyst that I had to manage that drive by shooting as an assistant manager that night. I saw the, or I saw what I thought was a bullet go through the waitress's hair in the back. She was fluffing her hair and she thought it was a bug. It turned out it was her ex boyfriend that was shooting at her through the window and literally the cops came and I just had a mental breakdown two days later and I was like, I don't want to do this anymore. I left the

James Trees: 40:26

business. I mean, here's the thing is I bet that was a catalyst for a decision you'd already made. Yeah,

Michael Dugan: 40:34

absolutely.

James Trees: 40:34

Absolutely. Because I was just like, okay, this is the world telling me, don't be here. And I've had a few moments like that in my life and in my career where it was like, Oh, I think I should be here. I should like, when I went to the fat duck, I was working at the fat duck in London. And they all this, they had never been immigration swept and all of a sudden they showed up and I'm sitting there in an MGM grand gold logoed fucking like chef coat with my name. And they're like, I don't know you, you and you come outside. Wow. And I was like, damn it. And they're like, Oh, do you have your visa and your paperwork? And I was like, I don't have any of that passport. Oh my gosh. I was like, yeah, And they're like, cool. And they took it and they're like, we'll give this back to you on the plane on Wednesday, when you go home and leave. I mean, that was the situation where I thought I had, I thought I had pushed myself and I got into a certain point, thought that I was on the right track. And the world sometimes just says, nope.

Michael Dugan: 41:35

That's part of what it was. And I floundered for a while to figure out what I wanted to do. And then I fell into technology. But what I wanted to share with you is this amazing thing. Is that the skills that I learned studying to be a chef, the skills that I learned in the kitchen were so powerful in technology. Cause no one had them talk about leadership, right? I'm very passionate about what you're saying, because I learned that in the kitchen, I learned how to relate to so many different kinds of people and how to think of. What their motivations are, not what mine are, what are their motivations? What's driving them? What's what problem is going on at home? Is it drugs? Is it alcohol? Is it personal? Is it a relationship? What is it? And then understanding that I could get along with anybody. And so when I moved through technology of support and customers, it was so easy for me and people couldn't understand why it came from hospitality. It came from the restaurant business. It came from being in that kitchen, dealing with the waitress that wanted to throw a full soup at you. I was at

James Trees: 42:35

La Bernadette and I remember the, there were about 20 languages being spoken in that kitchen at one time. Wow. I didn't speak any of them. I barely spoke English at that point. And I'll tell you there's nothing. Like being in a situation where everyone has the same goal and we're all moving forward at this kind of breakneck pace. And we're communicating through actions and emotions. And that's how we were moving forward. I remember when I was there, this was before Eric was a Buddhist. Chefs would go out into the alley behind La Bernardin and they would smoke a cigarette before a service. There would literally be kids throwing up from stress. That's how we were working. That's where we were. And it was like, Hey man, don't worry. You're going to get through it. It's going to be fine. We're all going to get there together. And I remember I was the first person. I'm not really good at, I don't have a super good recall when it comes to knowing what's on the board. And that restaurant was all no tickets. Your station had no tickets. Oh my God. They called everything right. Oh, wow. Basically you're calling three different tasting menus. And they're calling order fires,

Michael Dugan: 43:46

wait, nothing's written

James Trees: 43:48

down or the only person who has tickets is the chef on the pass. Oh my God. And you have seven different stations. So basically, what I learned to do is I took a piece of tape and I put a piece of tape up on the stainless steel and I wrote the number, like the dishes that were on my station. And that way, when they called them, I would just mark them. Just so I had something there so I could do it. And I, and honestly, one of the sous chefs came over to me and that he's the chef of cuisine. He has been for a long time now, Chris, and he like me and he's you're not going to be on tuna for very long if you keep acting as smart as you are. And I was like, I'm not smart. I'm so dumb. I have to write down tickets and he's yeah. But I've been, but we've been open for 25 years and no one's done that. And I'm like, okay, cool. So like I was the first one to put that there and do that. And it saved my ass so many times. And every single station I went to, I would do that. So I'd have my own like little board. It's like figuring out things like that. And then watching the other cooks copying me. Right now, they would be like, look at that works and I would look at what they're doing when they're cooking and be like, oh, that works. And so learning interesting, different things from different people. It's not all about cooking food. It's about how you work, how did

Michael Dugan: 45:11

I realize where this comes from? It really does come from the restaurant business for me, because my wife's like, how can you think about all these perspectives of other people? And you know, what's amazing is when you go into a situation I don't know, we had a hotel room that was double booked and smoking and we don't smoke. Yeah. So I, Had a conversation, not an argument with the head manager and he comped it. If I was arguing with him, he wouldn't have comped it. So it's like this skill that you develop. It's so powerful, you know, that people in the restaurant business have this amazing skill and they don't even, they don't even know

James Trees: 45:52

it. When you're in the service industry and you're part of a team. Yeah. The empathy you have for other people who are put into those situations, like that hotel manager. Most likely it was your empathy towards

Michael Dugan: 46:07

him. And he read it right away. He knew that I was not bullshitting him. Yeah. He knew that I was trying to make his job easier. Happened so many times in my life because I try to understand where other people are coming from. I'm not the difficult customer. No,

James Trees: 46:25

you're definitely not a

Michael Dugan: 46:26

difficult, I know, I've heard stories about some of your difficult

James Trees: 46:29

customers, you know, so many people get to that point where, you know, the kitchen is such a drag when it comes to your personal life and your ability and everything else. And I'll be 100 percent honest. I lost my twenties and thirties. To the kitchen. Wow. I really did. I really dove in super hard and committed myself to, it was like the one thing I committed myself to in my entire life. And it's something that if I had to do it all again, I definitely would. I probably would have made better decisions, but I really think looking back on it, if I wasn't as obsessed as I was. I wouldn't be where I am today. And so many people make the wise decision to step out of the kitchen and to have a normal life.

Michael Dugan: 47:15

So as we wrap up Esther's kitchen, one thing I noticed is that your ingredients are locally

James Trees: 47:21

sourced. A lot of them are as much as we can, but you know, local is such a weird term because, you know, we're only. 250 miles from from Los Angeles and you know, so actually a lot of our product I actually don't use local sourcing as in from Las Vegas. I use companies like Melissa's who actually drives my product from Los Angeles every single day. West Coast Prime Meats with John Ward, who's been my meat purveyor for over 10 years. And he's the best and like he knows my quality standards and they're willing to work with us. And so we actually get a lot of product that a lot of Vegas restaurants can't get. And then we also work with a couple of different farmers. We work with stew and dragon and carry who are all foragers who. They go to different farmer's markets in Los Angeles Northern California to Northern California, all the way up to the ferry building in San Francisco, and they bring us product every single week. So we have three different foragers that bring us product once or twice a week. So on top of getting our Baseline good product that we use every day. We also supplement that with extraordinary product. That's super seasonal. Like we have this girl, Laura who's a citrus farmer down in San Diego, and she just brought us 30 pounds of fresh yuzu. 30 pounds of fresh bergamots, which is like the brine of the citrus that they use to flavor Earl Grey tea. You know, kumquats that are just like so fresh and perfect. And they're grown with such love. And she grows specifically for five or six different restaurants. And we are just one of the restaurants, like she provides the Addison and San Diego with some of their citrus, you know, and chef William Bradley is one of them. An absolute inspiration, you know, so it's really cool to be able to work with farmers who who have that kind of pedigree.

Michael Dugan: 49:24

That's amazing. And lastly, too, you gave us an amazing tour of behind the scenes of the new restaurant, the new, I guess, is it an expansion to Esther's or? Is that right?

James Trees: 49:35

We're just moving. Yeah. We're actually, we're expanding. I mean, next door, but we're going from a total of 2, 100 square feet to a kitchen and restaurant that is a total of, you know, 10, 500

Michael Dugan: 49:49

square feet. Yeah. It just, the equipment, you know, my eyes were blown away. Popping out. I was like,

James Trees: 49:54

yeah, you should never give me any money. It was a bad. Yeah, but yeah, I can spend some money on equipment. You're also going to host a

Michael Dugan: 50:01

farmer's market there too. And that's amazing. So you're going to, you're going to bring exposure to them. Which,

James Trees: 50:10

yeah, we're actually hoping to get some of my favorite farmers. Alex Weiser, Phil McGrath Romeo from Coleman farms. You know, the garden of Letty from Garcia farms. You know, Miguel from Far Hills. And a bunch of other of my favorite farmers, and we're actually going to invite them to come out and be a part of our farmer's market for, you know, even if it's just for one week to have like special people, and then we're going to work with Guildcrest and some local growers, some urban farmers and have them kind of fill some other things in. And then I'm letting my buddies who they started a dog treat company called Las Vegas pet. Pet treats or dog treats or whatever, they're going to come out and have a little stand there. And we're just going to do this as a community thing. I'm not charging the farmers. That's what,

Michael Dugan: 50:58

that's my wife and I were talking about that. And I'm like, that is incredible. That's just, I mean, I'm giving it

James Trees: 51:04

back. Yeah. We, you know, we're going to do it from eight in the morning to one in the afternoon. And, you know, and you know, whatever, you know, they bring that they can't sell. We're going to do our best to purchase a lot of that, to make sure they don't have any waste. And I know they have other farmers markets they go to, but I think like where we are in the arts district, it's something that our community could really use, and I think it'll be such a draw even told you know, the chefs from 1228 main, the Wolfgang Puck restaurant down the street If they wanted to sell bread, they could just come through and they could set up a stand and sell bread. Oh, that's so cool. I love it. And because their bread is fantastic. And I think it's one of those things where it's that's the kind of community orientation that our neighborhood is going to need moving forward. Yeah.

Michael Dugan: 51:48

I've had some really incredible chefs on around the world, but this one's really special because it's connected to

James Trees: 51:53

family. Oh thank you so much, Michael. I appreciate you having me on. That's really great. And then the

Michael Dugan: 51:58

last thing is, how do we find

James Trees: 51:59

you? Social handles are at Esther's kitchen LV. You know, there's an H in Esther, E S T H E R S. That's a big one. I'm easy to get ahold of. I'm usually in a restaurant every single day. I try to be in all three restaurants every day. Right now our three restaurants are obviously Esther's kitchen, downtown Las Vegas. In the arcs district at 1130 South casino center. And we're moving to 1131 main street, which is literally right next door. Then you have also Lido Posto, which means the usual place, and that's our more East coast, red sauce, Italian joint. And that is up in Tivoli village, which is at four 10 South rampart. And then in that same shopping center, we have a little wine bar called Ada's and Ada's is. I could talk to you for an hour about how amazing that place is. And Kathleen Kat, who's our wine goddess, and Jackson Stamper, who's the chef there, who started as a cook at Esther's years ago. And I just love working with those guys, and Chris and Adam. We're just so lucky that we have such a good family of restaurants.

Michael Dugan: 53:02

And last, is there any special message that you have to our audience, your audience, any young aspiring chefs, like any advice or any special message you want to share?

James Trees: 53:13

My one thing that I would say to all young cooks and young chefs out there is embrace failure. Beat yourself up and be your own worst critic, but understand that if you're not failing, you're not growing. And if something is too easy, challenge yourself. Continue to challenge yourself. As soon as you're the best cook in the kitchen, leave. You know, it doesn't make any sense. to continue in a place where you're not learning, right? And you're just going through the repetition. You need to continue to always ask yourself why you're in a situation, why you're in a kitchen, and if you feel like that there's more to learn, which there always should be, then you should continue to be learning. That's all you're going to do throughout your life is learn.

Michael Dugan: 53:59

Brilliantly said, and thank you again so much, James.