Chef Jonathan Benno on Leadership, Discipline, and Elevating Four Twenty Five

#81. In this episode of The meez Podcast, host Josh Sharkey is joined by Jonathan Benno, Culinary Director of Four Twenty Five, to explore Jonathan’s remarkable culinary journey. It all began in high school, where his passion for cooking sparked a path that took him from Hawaii to culinary school, where he mastered his craft.

With over 30 years of experience at some of the world's most renowned restaurants, including Per Se, Daniel, The French Laundry, and Gramercy Tavern, Jonathan shares the invaluable lesson he’s learned: attitude outweighs experience. He looks for humility and a hunger to learn in his team, recognizing that success in the culinary world requires patience, discipline, and sacrifice.

As a leader, Jonathan is committed to educating and challenging his team, fostering a collaborative environment where every voice is heard.

In this episode, Josh and Jonathan dive into his experience in high-pressure, elite kitchens, the inner workings of Four Twenty Five Park, and his enduring passion for Italian cuisine.

Where to find Chef Jonathan Benno:

• Instagram
• LinkedIn

Where to find host Josh Sharkey:

• Instagram
• LinkedIn
• TikTok
• Twitter

In this episode, we cover:

(01:47): Where Jonathan first learned how to cook
(04:58): How Jonathan learned how to deal with pressure from cooking at high-pressure restaurants
(13:27): Italian cooking, does it need finesse or not?
(19:12): Four Twenty Five Park
(23:32): What Jonathan is most excited about
(27:10): How Jonathan has changed in the last decade
(42:21): Family meal
(46:04): What makes Jonathan angry
(50:31): What is next for Jonathan

Transcript

[00:00:00] Jonathan Benno: 

Treat people how you want to be treated. Right. I think that's the difference is there's no room in our world. There's no room in our world anymore for the vision of the, you know, tyrannical chef like that. I wish that person good luck, but that just doesn't it doesn't exist. I'm sure it exists. There's no place for it in our industry any longer

[00:00:24] Josh Sharkey: 

You're listening to season two of The meez Podcast. I'm your host, Josh Sharkey, the founder and CEO of meez, a culinary operating system for food professionals. On the show, we're going to talk to high performers in the food business. Everything from chefs to CEOs, technologists, writers, investors, and more about how they innovate and operate.

[00:00:43] 

And how they consistently execute at a high level, day after day. And I would really love it if you could drop us a 5 star review, anywhere that you listen to your podcast. That could be Apple, that could be Spotify, could be Google. I'm not picky. Anywhere works. But I really appreciate the support. And as always, I hope you enjoy the show.

[00:01:03] 

Anyways, I don't think we've met before, by the way. I don't think so, no. We've probably crossed paths a number of times. I'm super excited. I will tell you that there's some questions that some chefs asked me to ask. So you're going to get some today that didn't directly come from me. Okay. I don't have as much context about, but I'm going to ask anyways, because I think people will, will enjoy it.

[00:01:23] 

And I think selflessly, to be honest, I will mostly be just getting some advice for everybody from you and insights. I'll do my best. You have told your backstory enough times on enough shows and podcasts. I don't think we need to go into all of it. Although I'd love to talk a little bit about, you know, some of the restaurants, but you grew up in Italian. Family, at least on your, on one side of the family, right? Yeah, on my grandmother's side. Is that the first place you learned to cook? 

[00:01:47] Jonathan Benno: 

It was with my grandmother and my aunts and uncles. That's my father's side of the family. And yes, that was the first. My mom, God bless her, was not a very good cook. So it was, again, my grandmother's.

[00:02:03] 

My grandmother on my father's side and aunts and uncles was the first time that food really tasted good. Not, not that my mom's cooking didn't taste good, but this was different. This was delicious. How old were you? Like when you like actually remember that happening? I don't know. Probably maybe, maybe 10 or 12.

[00:02:27] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah. You know, it's so funny. I think you have two kids, right? We do. Yeah. I have two kids, but they're much younger, three and five. And I'm always so curious. I get my son to like, he won't eat a lot. Yeah. But I have him make pasta with me, and that's the only time he'll eat pasta. Now he actually eats pasta a little bit more, but like, you know, he'll, when he rolls it out, and like, you know, makes tagliatelle or something, then he wants to eat it, because he wants to, like, play with it.

[00:02:46] 

Right. But I'm always, like, so curious, like, is any of this sticking with him? Is he actually going to enjoy cooking later or something? 

[00:02:52] Jonathan Benno: 

It will, and whether, because our daughters both, Know how to cook. How old are they? 13 and 16. Oh, wow. So you're almost done. Yeah. I don't know. They'll have that skill forever, you know, whether it grows into a passion or not, but you know, the ability to cook and prepare food and prepare what we hope as, as parents, right.

[00:03:19] 

Wholesome food. That's a skill they'll have forever and a skill that a lot of people don't have. Or have to develop later in life out of necessity. Yeah, 

[00:03:29] Josh Sharkey: 

It is interesting. I feel like. People that aren't chefs, there's this sort of mystery about cooking that I feel like is wrong, right? You know, when people are like, ah, I don't know how to cook. I'm like, you probably do, you know, just taste it. 

[00:03:43] Jonathan Benno: 

And if you, yeah, if you're hungry enough, you're going to cook, you know, you're going to do your best to prepare something for yourself. But I agree, cooking is not that difficult. It can be like anything, right? I mean. Anything, anything can be really challenging if you, if you dive deep enough into it.

[00:03:59] 

But yeah, look at what, you know, Jamie Oliver does in, I forget which. Show it is, but it's like, you know, three ingredients, less than 30 minutes or something like that. Like it's not, you're right. It's not that difficult to prepare simple food that tastes good, but you know, the trap for all of us is time, right? Yeah. And that's why convenience food is so easy because it's fast. 

[00:04:29] Josh Sharkey: 

Part of the skill. I think it's difficult to cook food. On time for a larger number of people consistently often, but, you know, 

[00:04:39] Jonathan Benno: Even if you're, you know, even if your number is four at home, um, that can be challenging because, you know, you don't just have to cook, right? You have to shop 

[00:04:49] Josh Sharkey: 

Is, you know, how much to cook and 

[00:04:50] Jonathan Benno: 

Yeah, you have to know how much to shop for, how much to cook. And so, yes, and again, the challenge for all of us is time, right? 

[00:04:58] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah, yeah, if it's okay, I'm not going to fast forward a bit to obviously you spent time. In San Francisco, you know, you're in Hawaii, um, on a cruise ship for a while, but maybe if it's okay, I want to fast forward a bit to Per Se because with Per Se and then a number of places after that, you have a lot of pressure, uh, with the roles that you take.

[00:05:20] 

And the restaurants that you open and I'm really curious how you, how you handle pressure and other things that you do to deal with the pressure for yourself and maybe for your team. 

[00:05:30] Jonathan Benno: 

Well, I've learned the hard way, uh, that you have to take care of yourself. How? What do you do to take care of yourself?

[00:05:38] 

Well, on, on my best days, it's, it's exercise, it's getting enough rest, drinking enough water, like simple, like simple things, you know, I have like a checklist of four or five things that I try to hold myself accountable to every day to try to, to do just that, to be able to keep up with, you know, a busy restaurant.

[00:06:04] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah. Do you try to instill that in your team as well? There's been some open kitchens you've worked at, things like that, like for the cooks as well. There's, there's pressure, you know, 

[00:06:14] Jonathan Benno: 

There is, there is a very, you know, there's a very high standard here, uh, guest expectation is very high, and yeah. That translates to pressure on the team.

[00:06:25] 

Both, you know, the, the women and men in the kitchen and the, you know, the dining room team as well. 

[00:06:31] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah, I do remember, I think I ate it Per Se. Like, maybe, not the month you started, but, uh, I was working at Bouley and we, like, had the stove ripped out to get a new Multanian, and we all had a week off, and I came in for dinner.

[00:06:49] Josh Sharkey: 

I remember it vividly. Uh, and then I flew to San Francisco, like, the next day, because we did a bunch of spots there. It felt very, like, French Laundry, but, but then, it's own, you know, and I'm assuming that's, you know, that's, that's you. And, and that kind of goes back to this sort of. Question of pressure of like, you have pressure of, you know, at least in that regard, you had pressure of, you know, obviously critics, you had pressure of your team.

[00:07:17] 

I'm sure you had pressure from TK to make sure that it gets, you know, executed to his vision. But then also this sort of uniquely new New York thing. It's not a farmhouse at the, you know, it's in the Time Warder building. You know, do you feel like post the six years that you were there, what was your thoughts leaving there? Just generally speaking. 

[00:07:37] Jonathan Benno: 

I guess when I realized that I had goals outside of Per Se, I wanted to, you know, and I've said it before, like I wanted, I knew I knew needed to do something different. Like I wasn't going to go out and open this massive, you know, a fine dining, a French fine dining, tasting menu restaurant.

[00:07:58] 

Uh, you know, I just didn't, I had just done that for almost eight years. Or say in the French Laundry, so the goal was to do something different, you know, this was 2008 ish, you know, right in the bottom of that economic collapse was not the time to, to be trying to raise money to open a new restaurant, especially someone that had never.

[00:08:25] 

Open like someone who would never run his own business right you know I was a big part of per se but I had never done it quote on my own so the opportunity came up to do italian fine dining at Lincoln you know that was with Nick Valenti and the Patina group and it was you know it was the opportunity to do something you know i wasn't opening my own restaurant but with Nick and the team at Patina at the time

[00:08:59] 

I was a big part of that opening both the work, the day to day work, but also the, I guess the conception of it, what, okay, it's going to be Italian fine dining. But what, what does that mean? And, you know, we're right in the middle of Lincoln Center. So managing pre theater and post theater on top of Yeah.

[00:09:26] 

Yeah. You know, a busy, a busy restaurant, like it was, that was new to me at Lincoln is that is that the pre theater and the post theater, we would be the dining, the dining room would be full some days that, you know, five, 5:15pm, you know, in hindsight, most people would kill for that, you know, to get that or, Oh, you get a five o'clock seat in well, that makes all the difference in the world, right?

[00:09:50] 

Especially if you know that you're going to turn those tables over by seven, 7:30 for the, you know, The 7:38 in the eight o'clock, which are often the most sought after. So that was a unique restaurant and location for a restaurant. I was there for six years, really proud of what, you know, what we did there was a very, very busy.

[00:10:12] 

A lot going on there and, you know, got to work with a really talented group of people there. 

[00:10:18] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah. Do you know John Adler? Yeah. Do you know John? Well, he was adamant about asking me a couple of questions. Okay. Asking me a couple of questions. So the first one was about the tripe oreganata Per Se. He felt it was kind of like, was it, was it like a coup or something?

[00:10:33] 

But I guess generally speaking, was that like a difficult dish internally to get on the menu? 

[00:10:39] Jonathan Benno:

It wasn't at all.  You know, I think chef Keller, like, I think, like most chefs, uh, loves tripe. So it wasn't, is it the Italian nature of it? That was the question. Yeah, I know. But Per Se in the, you know, the philosophy of the French Laundry too, of course.

[00:10:55]  

You know, rooted in French cuisine, ingredients and techniques from all over the world. And, you know, the agnolotti pasta and the tagliatelle, like there's some pretty classic, you know, French Laundry dishes that go right to Italy. So, you know, I think the philosophy, uh, French Laundry and Per Se, I haven't worked there for a long time, but I'm confident it's the same is or has always been like, what's the best.

[00:11:24] 

What's the best that we can prepare like what's the best version of this that we can prepare and you know, that could be fish from Hawaii with edamame and soy sauce and doesn't sound like a 100 percent French dish again, the best ingredients, the best technique, bold flavors. 

[00:11:43] Josh Sharkey: 

The other one that you did mention was the lobster crepe with peas and carrots to remember and was a pretty hit of a dish and then you took it off the menu, retired it.

[00:11:52] Jonathan Benno: 

That dish has a, has a long history, so. When I worked at the French Laundry 30 years ago, I was, I started as a commis and then I, I was, then I was the fish cook and that was, there was a renovation that happened and the, the, the original kitchen, which was the Sally Schmitz kitchen, there was a new kitchen built anyway, the restaurant closed and then when we came back, the tasting menu started and then lobster And then we just serve the tail, right?

[00:12:31] 

So there was all this lobster claw and knuckle meat that there wasn't a use for. So what do they do with it before this dish? I think that was the challenge is we're starting with. We're starting this tasting menu. Okay. Now we have all this. What do we do with all this lobster meat? Yeah. That's where that dish came from with the pea, pea shoots and carrot reduction.

[00:12:56] 

Um, it was really a, a dish that was created to use a by product, but still be unique and delicious. And, you know, that, that dish was on the lunch menu forever. I think we ultimately moved away from it just to, the goal was to just serve a tail. And then there were other, like other outlets for the the claw and the knuckle meat. Like I think we sold it in the PDR for large parties. Anyway, not to go off on a tangent.

[00:13:27] Josh Sharkey: 

You know, well, part of what, you know, I'm curious about is like, you've, you definitely gravitated towards the upper echelon of fine dining, how, you know, type of cuisine, but there's this very clear Italian route to what you do.

[00:13:42] 

And there, there is sort of this, I think it's actually a misconception that Italian food has a lot less finesse, a lot less precision. It's a lot more like, you know, feel, and there is a lot of soul to it. There also can be a lot of precision to it, right? Like perfectly sauced piece of pasta and, you know, and any of these things.

[00:14:03] 

Is there a. point in your life where you feel like you would want to just go all in, super casual, I may be the wrong word, but casual type Italian, maybe less refined and just sort of 

[00:14:16] Jonathan Benno: 

Yeah, that would be amazing, but you know, I would have to have to make that happen, right? I have to get that, have to get that open.

[00:14:23] Josh Sharkey: 

What do you think is the, like the, the biggest challenge to that versus opening a fine dining restaurant? 

[00:14:29] Jonathan Benno: 

Where, where would that restaurant be? Would that restaurant be in Westchester? Would that restaurant be in Manhattan? The notion of casual Italian is incredibly exciting. We eat that way at home often. You know, I just started. It just started here. Like I just hit a year here. You know, the restaurant hasn't even been open to here yet. 

[00:14:53] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah. So I want to, so what does, what do you think that means? Casual Italian? Cause you're cooking, I mean, even some dishes here, you know, there's, there's obviously, you know, pastas and things like that.

[00:15:03] 

You've obviously cooked a lot of Italian food in the past. You know, when is finesse actually detract from and make it less, you know, Italian and when is it actually just way better to, you know, to apply that finesse and that precision. 

[00:15:19] Jonathan Benno: 

I mean, I think you, you said it. There is a lot of, there's a lot of finesse and Italian cuisine. I mean, the, the craft of making pasta, the craft of making salumi, you know, not everything has to be, you know, cut into a micro brunoise and put on a plate with tweezers, you know, that's, that's old cuisine, right? But also, you know, being able to toss a perfect bowl of pasta in a pan, get it out to the guest hot, you know, there's, there's a lot of skill that goes into that as well.

[00:15:53] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah, I mean, look, glazing something perfectly, glazing a pasta perfectly on the plate is really difficult, or can be. Do you think it would be challenging to not, to see the diced mirepoix that's gonna go into something and see that it's not perfectly diced and be able to let it 

[00:16:11] Jonathan Benno: 

Yeah, it depends on the It depends on the restaurant, right? It depends on the philosophy of the restaurant. You know, in a more in a more casual setting, the sofrito, the vegetable kind of gets melted into the sauce, you know, in a fine dining restaurant. Yeah, you got to see all that little dice. 

[00:16:34] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah, I mean, you know, something I, I don't know you that well, actually, we haven't interacted in me.

[00:16:40] 

And we also haven't even worked in very different restaurant trajectories. But from what I gather, you're a very disciplined person. John had mentioned that one of your cooks or someone that you work with, Tom Sellers had mentioned that you are the most disciplined human that he's ever met. One, I would love to get your take on that.

[00:16:56] 

But, but also, you know, part of running the kitchens that you run isn't just the precision of perfectly dicing, you know, uh, a vegetable, but the culture that is created around that, of the right angles and a perfectly clean station and clean towels and making sure your aprons, all the, all those things, right?

[00:17:16] 

Do you feel like you can still sort of do sort of a casual restaurant and a casual tie in restaurant if those things are absent, or those things have to be part of that and then figure out a way to loosen the food, you know, 

[00:17:30] Jonathan Benno: 

I know that you can have both, you can have a more, more casual style restaurant that, you know, is run with precision and it really, it really has to be today, you know, because the, the business of running a restaurant is so challenging today, you know, the margins are leaner than ever, you know, food is expensive, labor is expensive.

[00:17:58] 

It's challenging, you know, look at, look at where we're, you know, look at where we're sitting, you know, the, the New York city market. It's incredibly difficult.

[00:18:07] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah, that's a great point. Having that sort of that culture also can be a huge help to, uh, to the margins. I remember working at Cafe Gray. We did, I think we might have done 12 million our first year, still losing money, all that precision and still, you know, it's, it's a, it's a really, really difficult business.

[00:18:29] Jonathan Benno: 

You know, I've worked in New York for so long. It's, it's difficult everywhere. I don't. I don't know the market in Los Angeles or Chicago well, I know the restaurants. Um, I don't know what it's like to do business there. I do know what it's like to do business in New York and it's really tough. 

[00:18:47] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah. Yeah, it is. It's and it's, it's definitely changed a lot. My first job was right around the corner, about 25 years ago, almost at the old Oceana. And I walked past it today and, um, it just reminded me of just how different it is at restaurants today in New York, not just the margins and the rent, but just everything availability to cooks. And it's pretty incredible.  How's it going here?

[00:19:12] Jonathan Benno: 

It's going well. You know, we just got through August is always, August is always challenging in New York. Uh, speaking of, uh, operating here, you know, right after labor day, when the kids go back to school, usually marks a time when. People kind of settle in for the for Q4 and doing business in Q4.

[00:19:31] 

You know, a lot of offices are mandating a return to work, which selfishly, in my opinion, is a good thing because it gets more people into the city. People are dining out. People are going to lunch. People are doing business and restaurants, going out for drinks, having private events. Those are all of the things that, you know, you need all of those things to, to run a successful business here.

[00:19:59] 

And this restaurant, 425 Park, you know, has a large bar. 

[00:20:06] Josh Sharkey: 

So is this an office building or a hotel? 

[00:20:09] Jonathan Benno: 

Office building. Don't you? Is it fully occupied? I believe it's 90, 95 percent occupied. You said you do get pre theater here too? We will see. That 5, 5:30 seating and I don't know if that's, you know, yes, that's the pre theater time slot.

[00:20:28] 

I don't know how many of those guests are going off to a show. I think it's a lot of people who are getting out of an office or maybe doing business, you know, still doing business that have to get home somewhere. You know, they want to have their dinner, whether it's a social dinner or Yeah. Yeah. Or business dinner and then they either, you know, they want to get home and jump on a train, go to Westchester, Connecticut or New Jersey.

[00:20:55] 

So we'll start to see that that early seating as we get further into the season has team has has team has service going. The team is fantastic. We are, you know, like everybody, we're always hiring, always looking for staff. It's that, you know, three steps forward, two steps back, you know, we hire, hire two good line cooks and then a line cook leaves.

[00:21:21] 

Is that happening a lot more now than, than it did, you know, decade ago or so? I think staffing has always been challenging, more challenging to run a business today for sure, because again, the margins are so tight and how much did, you know, what was your schedule when you worked at Oceana? Yeah. Uh, six days with the double on Sunday, shift pay.

[00:21:45] 

Yeah, and you got, and you got overtime, right? No, no disrespect to Oceana because everybody operated that way. Um, but you can't operate that way any longer. There are things, there's, there's, you know, these labor laws that get in the way. 

[00:21:58] Josh Sharkey: 

Uh, that was the standard, I think, six days of the double 

shift pay for quite a while.

[00:22:02] Jonathan Benno: 

And boy, that was, what a, what a grueling schedule. 

[00:22:07] Josh Sharkey: 

I also never thought of it as that. 

[00:22:08] Jonathan Benno: 

That was the job. Yeah. You know, it wasn't like you were going to go across the street and work, you know. Eight hours a day with a 30 minute meal break, which is, you know, that's the schedule today. Yeah. So it's, you know, it's shifted now where you, as you know, you have to have, you know, you have a large prep team in the morning and they do the bulk of the, the work here.

[00:22:31] 

We have a lunch team and a dinner team, the lunch team, you know, they, they have a lot more time in the morning. So together with the prep team, they're really doing a production for the day. I mean, the dinner cooks come in. At three and they have to have a meal break. So it's really just getting, putting mise en place together.

[00:22:53] 

It's challenging here too, because you know, our prep kitchen is in the basement and the main dining room is on two. Yeah. It's an L it's a service elevator. Yeah. It's all day long. So there's time lost in, yeah, are they coming in early in transportation? Some do, some of them in a little bit early to get, you know, a jumpstart on the day, check in with their partner.

They're not supposed to. 

[00:23:16] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah, I remember, like I vividly remember the shift when shift pay became like, you know, Hey, we shouldn't do that anymore. This was like, you know, early 2000s. And so you would have a schedule, but you just never follow the schedule. You know, you're scheduled at three, but everybody came in 11.

[00:23:32] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah, I remember. I remember that well. What are you most excited about? Both here, but then just generally speaking. I imagine you probably don't have a lot of time to eat out, but just generally speaking, like, what are you excited about?

[00:23:41] Jonathan Benno: 

It's New York, right? And I don't know if it was Eater or the New York Times that came out with their fall preview. You know, there's 30. Big restaurants on the horizon this fall, you know, and probably many, many more that aren't getting, you know, the, the big, the big press. So it's an exciting time for New York. People are, you know, the city's getting busier, uh, after after August falls a great season for cooking. And this will be the first food.

[00:24:14] 

Cause we opened in December of last year, so we didn't have a fall season. We've been through winter, spring and summer, but this will be the first fall at the restaurant. So we're working on, you know, working a lot on a lot of new dishes, uh, and it'll be a very busy season for private events for us. We haven't seen that yet either.

[00:24:34] 

So lots of, uh, anything in particular you're excited about cooking right now? It seems like I'm always excited about seafood and pasta. We have a lot of really nice kind of, I guess what I would call crudo or raw fish dishes on the menu. We're limited as to what we can do with pasta here on the line. So we currently run three and could probably get to four pastas on the menu.

[00:25:02] 

And that would, that would be our limit because we don't have a, we don't have a pasta cooker on the line not to get too far. 

[00:25:07] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah, 

[00:25:07] Jonathan Benno: 

We're a little bit limited for space up there, you know, three to four pastas. Great. 

[00:25:15] Josh Sharkey: 

How deep are you getting into like making fresh pasta right now? 

[00:25:19] Jonathan Benno: 

We have three on the menu, we make two and then we use one. We use one dried. 

[00:25:23] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah. 

[00:25:23] Jonathan Benno: 

What's on the menu that's fresh right now? Uh, we make a spaghetti alla chitarra and an agnolotti. 

[00:25:29] Josh Sharkey: 

Oh, nice. That's always a tough thing. You know, once you're running a kitchen and your cooks are making all this because making pasta is pretty fun, you know, I mean, it scales can be a pain in the ass, but you probably don't get to make it as much.

[00:25:41] Jonathan Benno: 

No, I, I don't. And I guarantee the team makes it, makes it better than I do. Um, but that's going back to managing a busy restaurant and staying sane. You know, for me, that means not just working in the restaurant, but working in the kitchen. 

[00:26:00] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah. 

[00:26:01] Jonathan Benno: 

And picking up jobs, touching food, cutting fish, making family meal periodically. Just something to to have a presence in the kitchen outside of service. Yeah. You know, have a presence during the production. I mean, that's where the the That's where the passion and the joy is right there. It's, it's in the preparation of the food and then it's in obviously serving guests, but that's twofold as you know, right?

[00:26:29] 

There's the, there's the prep that happens during the day and then there's the, you know, there's the fast paced service at night and the prep during the day is maybe a little bit more like cooking at home. It's just like, take one more breath service, you know, services, service. 

[00:26:43] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah. They're, they're such. They're two very different things. I love prep way more than service, because, you know, but they are very different. I'm curious, like, you've run so many restaurants now, you know, rewind a decade or so ago, maybe more than a decade ago, like, how have you changed as a chef and as a leader? You know, obviously you're not, yeah, you can be on the line sometimes, you're sort of going back and forth and doing different things, but how are you different today than you were 10,15 years ago?

[00:27:10] 

And like, are there things that you would, are there things that you would tell yourself back then that you wish you knew? 

[00:27:16] Jonathan Benno: 

Well, I would have told myself to, you know, take a breath and take better care of myself. You know, I think what's different is it's often said, you know, lead by example. That's a, it's a popular, popular phrase, right?

[00:27:33] 

But for me, that means, you know, there's no treat people how you want to be treated, right? I think that's the difference is there's no room in our world. There's no room in our world anymore for the vision of the, you know, tyrannical chef like that. I wish that person good luck, but that just doesn't it doesn't exist.

[00:27:56] 

I'm sure it exists. There's no place for it in our industry any longer. And again, I'll speak in the first person. That's not how I behave. Did you ever behave that way? I did a little bit. Yes. I let the pressure get the best of me. Um, a couple of times. I bet the open kitchen helped change that a little bit.

[00:28:16]

Yeah, I, there were a lot of, there were several emails and several conversations about keeping, you know, keeping the volume down at, uh, At Lincoln, because and here, you know, here as well, because at 425, it's an open kitchen and a much smaller restaurant. I mean, Lincoln was massive and still, you know, the volume in the kitchen, uh, would get away from us.

[00:28:40] 

And here, here we have to be careful about just the and it's not that. Profanity, but it's, it's, you know, communicating clearly with the cooks and still keeping, yeah, it's not yelling and screaming. That's the issue here. Um, it's just volume control, especially when, you know, the first seating when the dining room is not that busy. Don't don't belt out. Don't belt out that first order. 

[00:29:04] Josh Sharkey: 

This show is brought to you by, you guessed it, meez. meez helps thousands of restaurants and food service businesses all over the world. Build profitable menus and scale their business successfully. If you're looking to organize your recipe IP and train your team to put out a consistent product every day in less time than ever before, then meez is just for you.

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[00:29:50] 

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[00:30:10] 

Yeah, I mean, it's tough. I don't, I don't think that any of us were ever trained about how to, how to manage and if we were yelled at and you see that's the way that, you know that it is, it's, it's a big, it takes the entire industry to sort of break that habit unless you're Eric Ripert and you can quietly tell somebody that they're.

[00:30:29] Jonathan Benno: 

I think, you know, with power comes responsibility. Right. And, you know, you don't have to scream as you don't have to scream at someone to solve a problem. You know, you can, you can get your point across. Um, Especially, you know, at the level of someone like chef Ripert without raising your voice above a conversation level. Yeah, maybe we should all just be more Buddhist. 

[00:30:55] Josh Sharkey: 

I mean, how else have you evolved? I mean, obviously some of this just sort of has to happen, right? As we, you know, of the less screaming and things like that. But how else are you different today? You know, cooking from, you know. Decades ago. Cooking and leading.

[00:31:12] Jonathan Benno: 

Cooking and leading the style of cuisine here at 425 Park. I mean, this is a, this is a Jean Georges restaurant. You know, it's a, it's a collaboration between myself and the chef and the team. Georges Georges management team that drives, you know, the drives the restaurants. So, you know, I'm learning his perspective and together, you know, together, we, you know, we create the menu menus at 425.

[00:31:49] 

The chef, the company are incredibly committed to the green market, you know, they don't just say it. They really, they do it. You know, he's there. He's there often. So we have, you know, access to incredible product, the support to buy incredible product. As well as, you know, a beautiful kitchen and an environment, you know, to prepare it in.

[00:32:13] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah. Do you think you are more restrained as a, as a cook now or more adventurous? I mean, obviously, I think you spent time also like in, in Japan and so you have a lot of other influences and obviously. John Georges has a lot of the, you know, Asian Southeast Asian influence as well. But is your style of food significantly different than it was, you know, a decade or so ago? 

[00:32:38] Jonathan Benno: 

A hundred percent, you know, I'm older. I'd like to believe more mature, um, certainly have learned a great deal, kept an open mind, got to travel, got to work in great restaurants, continue to work with great people. And, you know, we're lucky to live and work in New York. You know, have access to almost every style of cuisine here, ingredients, it's an amazing, it's an amazing place to work.

[00:33:08] Josh Sharkey: 

What is influencing you today? Mostly other things that come to mind that, uh, that are driving most of your sort of creativity or just how you think about cooking your food. 

[00:33:19] Jonathan Benno: 

We're focused right now on fall and fall menu. And it's always exciting, you know, it's exciting to see new dishes, obviously not just.

[00:33:32] 

Not just I get excited about new dishes, but it's the team, you know, you remember the, you know, being on a station for a while and that, that black bass dish boy, I wish that, you know, really love to see something different. I feel like I've cooked a million of them. Well, you probably have cooked a million of them.

[00:33:48] 

Um, and yes, it's time for that black bass dish to change. So, but the dish, you know, the dish needs to get it goes through a tasting, obviously we need to get it costed, we need to introduce it to the team, and we probably have, I don't know, we probably have 25 dishes on our menu, uh, plus the dessert menu.

[00:34:11] 

You're right, when you think about changing dishes, it really, it's a big deal. Can be a big lift, especially a, you know, a seasonal change.

[00:34:19] Josh Sharkey: 

The menu here is that there's an influence from all over. You know, there's not one. I see Japanese things. I see using kosher with, with, I think, eel there's, you know, Italian. There's, is it sort of. The world's Royster do, you know, kind of, what's the directive, you know? 

[00:34:37] Jonathan Benno: 

Yeah. I think the directive we spoke about earlier is the same. It's, it's what's the best thing that we can put on the plate, you know, from what are the best ingredients that we can buy and the philosophy is bold flavors and how do we, you know, how do we coax that out of, you know, the ingredients that, that we're using.

[00:35:00] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah. So we were talking about your, your cooks earlier and you've been cooking true. several decades now. I'm curious like when, it has changed and so let's just, let's also remove from this question short staffing, talking to like new cooks today. And sous chef, when is it, when do you think a cook is ready to go become a sous chef and, and a sous chef ready to become an executive chef?

[00:35:32] Jonathan Benno: 

That happens a lot faster today than it did 10, 20, 30 years ago. I think that's up to the individual, you know, like, when do, When do you think you're ready, you know, if, if I can look back and say, you know, I'm glad the way my career went, the people that I got to work with, the decisions that I made, you know, I took my time and made sure I had a foundation before, you know, I took that, I guess my first real sous chef job was when we opened craft with, with Marco and Tom, I was in my mid twenties.

[00:36:10]

At that time, you know, had worked at some great restaurants with, you know, really great people. And one thing that hindsight's 2020, but I feel like I missed the business if I had to do it over again. I think I would have tried to have done the CIA and then going on to get a bachelor's in accounting.

[00:36:35] 

Ideally, like restaurant accounting or hospitality management. Hindsight's 2020. I know I keep saying it, but it's You know, if you can't manage, can't manage a business, if you can't pay your bills on time, I don't care how talented you are. You know, you really, you have to have both. And I think again, I've been lucky.

[00:36:54] 

I've worked for, you know, great chefs, but I've also worked for great companies that were transparent about people. The PNL and shared that with the kitchen managers and the people that impact it going back to, well, craft and then, you know, Thomas Keller restaurant group, certainly Patina, you know, there was, there was a lot of effort and resources devoted to, uh, Those PNL meetings and not just reviewing the numbers, but teaching, you know, great CFOs, great, you know, presidents of the company like Nick Valenti would break down the PNL and really take the time to explain 

[00:37:42] Josh Sharkey: 

My mindset was always, okay, there's the craft of cooking. And the most time doing that before considering any sort of, like, management, like a sous chef role. And it's funny, I actually, in hindsight, think, I'm not sure there's a beauty to that, of like the, okay, you know, cook this thing a million times. Millions of times, you know, so that you have, you know, like it's rote, the ability to aerosate a piece of fish or the, you know, the temp of this thing or that, you know, how to, you know, cut these things without thinking.

[00:38:15] 

But to your point, you know, the restaurant is so much more than, than that. And it's just like, how do you balance starting to learn all those things, you only have so much of a life, there's a half life of, you know, learning and then running a business and running a restaurant, and like, I really do think about cooks today, you know, we talk to, you know, these cooks coming out of culinary schools and we see a lot of them.

[00:38:36] 

And I get asked, okay, should I go to college, should I, should I try to get a management job? And I don't actually know, I, my first response is always, you know, just keep your head down and just keep learning how to cook and just do that for as long as you can. But I wonder, I wonder if not learning those management skills early enough can stunt the ability to, you know, have the, the future thing that you're looking for when you want it.

[00:39:02] Jonathan Benno: 

Again, hindsight for, for me, I think the CIA followed by. You know, a bachelor's degree in hospitality management, there are certainly way more options to do that now than there was when I was at the CIA, but there was still possibilities because you can, you know, you can work at the same time. I had a part time job working in a restaurant when I was at the CIA.

[00:39:27] 

I didn't go on to college, but could have done the same thing, could have, you know, continued learning, you know, practicing cooking while going to school anyway, that's you went to Greenbrier too, right? I did. I did my externship from the Greenbrier. That was sort of the prime of Greenbrier. That was, I mean, that I don't know what it's like today.

[00:39:51] 

I haven't been back there. I don't mean to say the grand priors. It's still a grand hotel. Um, but yeah, that was, uh, it was a long time ago and that was, uh, an amazing place. With all the different things that we're going on, all the different things that we're going on within food and beverage there. Yeah.

[00:40:09] 

I mean, is there other advice that you'd give to cooks starting today? You know, find a place to work where people are going to teach you and that's, that's becoming more difficult today because managing labor is so challenging. You know, you also want to find an environment that feels good. Like we talked a lot about discipline and, uh, standards, but it has to be.

[00:40:35] 

There has to there's a human side to write like it's not all pain and suffering in our kitchen. Like there, there has to be, you know, there has to be a sense of humor. It is stressful. The days can be long. It's a weird schedule, right? You work at night. You work on the holidays. Your friends typically become.

[00:40:54] 

You know, people that work in the industry because you share, you know, you share the same schedule making time for family and friends outside of the quote normal, you know, 9 to 5 saturday sunday off lifestyle, you know, you really have to make an effort. It's still a very, can be a very challenging business to work in, still very gratifying.

[00:41:17] 

You know, New York is still an incredible place to experience food and culture, the culture of food and start, you know, start and grow your career. Like there's still so many great restaurants here and diversity. You think your daughters might want to get into the industry? I don't know. They like, as you know, you want, you want your kids to be happy, right?

And if that means working in restaurants, all right, 

[00:41:45] Josh Sharkey: 

I get it. We'll say, let's just pretend one of them was 18 today, decided not to go to college and they wanted to go work at a restaurant and it couldn't be your restaurant. Where would you send them? 

[00:41:56] Jonathan Benno: 

I'm biased because I worked at Gramercy Tavern, but Gramercy Tavern was a great school for me. I was there for, I think, two and a half years, maybe a little bit longer. I think it's still a great school for, for cooks today. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And Michael's an incredible chef. Yeah, Michael's, Michael's amazing. The team that they have there is amazing. Um, you know, the green market's right there. 

[00:42:21] Josh Sharkey: 

You said you sort of jump on a station sometimes. You, obviously, you're working service, you're maybe going to the dining room. Are you still making family meal every once in a while? 

[00:42:31] Jonathan Benno: 

I made family meal the other day. We'll see today. We're short. We're short staff today. I might have to today as well. I don't make it every day, nor, nor I don't. I've never made it every day, but it's important.

[00:42:44]

And I certainly, you know, that's definitely the most like cooking at home, right? It's just taking literally what's in the fridge and making, trying to make something delicious out of it and like fast, right? Cause you don't have. Yeah. You don't have enough time to get the work done. Oh, I got to make family meal too.

[00:43:03] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah. I feel like that is a, another part of the culture of great kitchens that doesn't get talked about it enough. The importance of making a good family meal and the skill and sometimes pressure. I remember when I was at my, I remember my first job and I had to make family meal and I was 19. I was doing a job in a kitchen.

[00:43:23] 

I don't know what I'm doing. And I have to make a family meal for the entire restaurant. It's terrifying. You know, do you have any sort of guidelines or culture or precedent you set for your team about staff meal? Well, I eat it. So, you know, it better be good. But do, is, is there like leeway? Do they get to experiment sometimes or?

[00:43:43] Jonathan Benno: 

There's just, there's just. There's just not, there's not enough time to do, you know, I'm not going to say family meals, always wholesome, some, honestly, some days it's better than others for most of our team, it's maybe the only real meal they're going to get, you know, you get up, you have a cup of grab a cup of coffee, grab a bagel on the train, get to work, work a shift, maybe you're working a double.

[00:44:13] 

You know, we have a small break room here where the staff can sit and take their meal break. We do two meals a day, seven days a week. So, it's a lot. I mean, we typically feed, I don't know, 50, 35, 50 to 75 staff a day. You know, it could be, you know, 30, maybe 25 to 30 for the am family meal and a little bit more for the am family meal, but that's, I mean, it's a lot of food and it's a lot of work to get, you know, even simple chicken, rice and beans.

[00:44:48] 

Well, somebody still has to prepare it. You still have to make it taste good. You still have to get it out hot at 3 p.m. Cause yeah. People are starting their shift and they want to know where family meal is.

[00:44:58] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah. I wonder if that is maybe one of the things, one of the downsides of, and look, I think it totally makes sense to have, you know, schedule is set and you come in at this time and, but the ability to come in a few hours early cause you're excited to make mole or something for family meal, you know, it was fun and you're learning, you could experiment, you could try things and learn from it, learn from the other cooks. I don't know if that's still. Can exist if there's, if there's a, but it's, it's challenging, right? 

[00:45:24] Jonathan Benno:

Because, you know, if I come in, if I'm at work off the clock and I come and I hurt myself, well, now the restaurant's liable and as a manager, as the chef, like why? Why is Josh here two hours early to make family meal?

[00:45:42] 

Well, cause Josh is excited about making family meal, but he can't be here. Like he's a liability. Yeah. You know, and you know, sorry, we'll pick on Josh again for a second. Disgruntled Josh can come back at us and say, well, you know, yeah, I work there. I work there off the clock. Yeah, it's tough. And it's a, it's a different world now.

[00:46:04] Josh Sharkey: 

What makes you really angry? Like blood boiling angry? Yeah. 

[00:46:08] Jonathan Benno: 

I think lack of respect, you know, lack of respect for the team, lack of respect for the, you know, the kitchen slamming the pots and pans, you know, burning something in a pan and lack of respect for the food, right? Like, you know, what it took to get those green beans from the green market.

[00:46:29] 

In this restaurant was not easy and we paid a, you know, we paid a premium, so to, to overcook 'em or, you know, cut them incorrectly and throw them away. Like just a waste. Yeah. And it's disrespectful. How do you communicate that to your team? Just that way? You have to be firm, not abusive and not screaming.

[00:46:53] 

But I have to let the person know why that's wrong. Yeah. And that doesn't, doesn't, it doesn't have to be demeaning. It's not demeaning. It's just like, listen. There's nothing more important than the food that we serve to our guests. There's nothing more important than those ingredients and treating them with respect.

[00:47:13] Josh Sharkey: 

I think that's also one of the beautiful things about being in a great kitchen. That translates to life as you start to, you have to have this respect for the product and the people and the equipment. Have good food without that. How you do anything is how you do everything. Yeah, absolutely. Do you like when you hire new cooks? Are they, are they getting that message right away about respect? And yes. 

[00:47:42] Jonathan Benno: 

And is that a conversation? Not, not always, but you know, this is a, this is a beautiful environment. We have, you know, beautiful kitchen to work in, uh, beautiful ingredients. And what we do now, the interview process, usually we'll get a candidate and interview them.

[00:48:03] 

And then, as you know, we have to onboard people now for a kitchen trail. So once we get that person through the onboarding, usually have them come in and work half a day with us. And they get a real, we get a sense of the individual. The candidate also knows Like what they're getting themselves into, like, okay, this is, this place is serious.

[00:48:25] 

This place has recipes that are in grams with like instructions and the sous chefs are tasting things. It's clean, relatively well organized, uh, depending on the day. Yes, I think the message that this is a serious place and I hope that this is the message that this is a place where you can learn. Yeah, 

[00:48:51] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah, you know, it's funny like coming full circle. I think a lot about culture and you were talking about in the beginning of this conversation about we were talking about precision and how that relates to, you know, Italian food. And I remember that. I have two seasons of this podcast and I was asking a lot of people in the first season about how they like create culture and Matteo from Jasper Hill Farm.

[00:49:12] 

Incredible culture by the way that that farm. I don't know if you ever had the, you probably had Jasper Hill cheese. I have, yeah. Uh, and I asked him like, how do you like get everybody involved to buy into this sort of culture you have? Like are there messages or he's like, he's just like, we just do it every day and that's how we create it.

[00:49:28] 

And I think that's. The same in the kitchen, to your point, and why those commitments to excellence and to cleanliness and organization are so important because it isn't just because those are important, but that sends the message and it's such a stronger message than, hey, you should respect the food, you know, when you see the chef walk in and, you know, means their station and everything is sort of tight, but that sends a much bigger message than, Make sure you respect this food.

[00:49:58] 

I imagine that must be, you know, the biggest training that someone sees when they come to your kitchen. It's just the way that it actually operates. 

[00:50:05] Jonathan Benno: 

Yeah, people, people see, again, people see that this is a, this is a professional environment and I think for, is this environment for everyone? No, um, this environment, I'm not going to say it's better or worse, you know, it's a restaurant that's run at a very high level and you have to buy into that if you're going to be, if you're going to be successful here.

[00:50:31] Josh Sharkey: 

I know you gotta get to service soon. So just wrapping up, like, what are you excited about for the future of the next year, two years, five years? Do you think about that? 

[00:50:39] Jonathan Benno: 

I do. Certainly growing the, the business here at 425 Park. Hopefully seeing New York continue to, to build momentum. I mean, we need. Sorry, we need guests, right?

[00:50:56] 

We need guests in our restaurants. We need people in our restaurants supporting our restaurants spending money. And that comes from, you know, that comes from a robust city, a robust economy, you know, a lot of things, a lot of things need to happen if if we're going to be successful. 

[00:51:15] Josh Sharkey: 

So one day, I know this is not today or a year from now, but, uh, yeah. I'm just speaking selfishly because I also live in Westchester. Is there going to be a, is there going to be a dining restaurant in Westchester we can go to?

[00:51:28] Jonathan Benno: 

I don't know if that's the, if that's the dream or the nightmare. It's, I think it's even more challenging and huge amount of respect for people that make restaurants work up there.

[00:51:37] 

You know, this is New York, right? The city that never sleeps. I don't know about your town, but my town's pretty sleepy. Um, there's, it's a desert. It's a, it's a desert. How do you get, You know, how do you and most people, you have to drive, right? So, you know, you're okay. That's it. Two glasses of wine. I'm done.

[00:51:55] 

Um, oh, yeah, that's that's that is a good point. And I'm going to go out with friends on a Tuesday night for dinner. What we do that sometimes not often, but you know, New York, New York is just a different. New York City is just a different, a different beast and it's still really tough to make a, to make a business work here.

[00:52:18] Josh Sharkey: 

I almost feel like in Westchester it needs to be like a market and a restaurant or something so that there's something else. Yeah. Catering, 

[00:52:24] Jonathan Benno: 

You know, you just need so much more or it's, it's just different, different business model in the suburbs than it is. Yeah. You're in New York city. It's only, I mean, Hastings is 20 miles from here. I'm really not that far. It's crazy how different it's totally, it's just a different, Westchester itself is different. It's the suburbs. Yeah. People, people behave differently when they're at home.

[00:52:51] Josh Sharkey: 

Have you been to Senadoo, by the way? I have not. It's good. Everything is 25 minutes in Westchester.

[00:52:55] 

Right. But it's, uh, I mean, there's like nothing by us, like literally nothing. There's like a Georgian spot and then there's Senadoo and then we have to Tarrytown if you want, you know, anything else. But I would check it out. It's really good. Uh, ex Daniel guy. Anyways, this was great. Thank you very much.

[00:53:10] 

Thanks for making this work. I know we tried a couple times and we finally made it happen. So great. You have to get back to work now. I'm soon. I do. All right. Thanks for tuning into The meez podcast. The music from the show is a remix of the song Art Mirror by an old friend, hip hop artist Fresh Daily.

[00:53:25] Josh Sharkey:

For show notes and more, visit getmeez.com/podcast. That's G E T M E E Z dot com forward slash podcast. If you enjoyed the show, I'd love it if you could share it with fellow entrepreneurs and culinary pros, and give us a 5 star rating wherever you listen to your podcasts. Keep innovating, don't settle, make today a little bit better than yesterday, and remember, it's impossible for us to learn what we think we already know.

See you next time.