With global fine-dining experience, a deep appreciation for sustainably-sourced seafood and local farmers market produce, Chef Brandon Gray (aka Brandoni Pepperoni) is Los Angeles’ Wizard of ‘Za.
With global fine-dining experience, a deep appreciation for sustainably-sourced seafood and local farmers market produce, Chef Brandon Gray (aka Brandoni Pepperoni) is Los Angeles’ Wizard of ‘Za.
At the age of 18, Gray joined the United States Navy as a deckhand but quickly assumed a role as a cook after showing enthusiasm for the kitchen. He spent the next three years honing his skills and preparing meals for officers in addition to other enlisted personnel.
In 2007, Gray returned from shore and enrolled at the Art Institute of California Los Angeles. Inspired by an Anthony Bourdain segment indulging in “the best carrot he’d ever eaten” at the Royal Mail Hotel in Australia, Gray relocated to Australia and spent some time honing his craft Down Under before returning to his hometown of Los Angeles in 2012.
After years working the line at some of Los Angeles’s buzziest kitchens (Providence, Trois Mec, Cape Seafood & Provisions, Best Girl at the Ace Hotel), Brandon was toying with the idea of a career change. Then came Covid and an out-of-the-blue question from a friend: “Hey, do you know how to make pizza?” Brandon did not make pizza. But he lied. He made three pies for his friend, and she told her friends. A few weeks later, chef and author Evan Kleiman mentioned the pizzas on her KCRW radio show, Good Food, and Brandoni Pepperoni was born.
Since April 2020, Brandoni Pepperoni has been firing up pies so sophisticated and flavor rich, you’d think he grew up in the hills of Naples in Italy instead of the Hills of Baldwin in Crenshaw. When not in the slinging Zas, you can find him biking, listening to music or making ceramics.
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[00:00:00] Brandon: I'm so LA like you look on my wall and there's a big California flag. I grew up in a 10 mile bubble here in Los Angeles to where it's just like I am LA. And if I wanted to use my 17 years of culinary experience on a pizza. So if Thomas Keller or Eleven Madison Park were to open up a pizza restaurant, this is what they would be doing. They would be using the best ingredients.. In season, [00:00:30] visually aesthetically, they would look beautiful. Fuck the rules. You know, like Italians for pizza said, it's supposed to be this way. And it was just like, nah, man, like it's just LA like LA pizza from LA boy, LA city boy, you know,
[00:00:51] Jordan: Welcome to the Prix Fixe Podcast, a podcast for the new voices in the food and beverage world share their stories and journeys in their own words. The show is [00:01:00] produced and edited by me, Jordan Haro in Los Angeles, California.
Pizza, like politics, is one of those delicacies that can really stir the pot. So many believe their provincial rules and preferences to be canonized as the way. Whether you find yourself in Naples, Rome, Florence, New York City, Chicago, or Detroit, somebody is bound to set you straight on what their idea of the definitive pizza is. [00:01:30] I'm tired of that shit. Brandon Gray AKA Brandoni Pepperoni is too. The self prescribed Los Angeles wizard of 'za makes some of the best pizzas in LA from his mid city apartment. His pies changed based on seasonal availability of farmer's market ingredients and borrow the names of iconic west coast hip hop songs.
This decision to honor California's greatness, whether in its unmatched produce availability or deeply steeped and [00:02:00] varied contributions to the rap game suggests we should celebrate what is arguably correct and true. Worshiping the Golden State's many amenities may seem like anything but a new idea, but when it all comes together to give pizza a fine dining treatment with the help of edible flowers, infused oils, balanced use of truffles, lamb shoulder or Oaxacan cheese who can argue? In Brandon's words, you think he grew up in the Hills of Naples in Italy instead of the Hills of Baldwin in [00:02:30] Crenshaw. Pizza isn't the only delicacy up for debate between warring factions of cuisine: buffalo wings are hotly contested as one of those things, either done very right or wildly wrong. But again, Brandon's wings are special. They're delicious and break the comparison scale and unlike his ornate pizzas, they're incredibly simple. The COVID-19 pandemic brought about a pop-up Renaissance in the LA food scene. Brandoni [00:03:00] Pepperoni has been riding that wave ever since March, 2020 thanks to a surprising shout out from one of the biggest authorities in food media. I met up in his home to chat more. Let's listen in
[00:03:14] Brandon: name is Brandon Gray. I am also known as Brandoni Pepperoni. My grandmother she's born and raised in Barcelona. She was always cooking around the house. My mom was always helping with the cooking. Um, so I've always been somewhat drawn to it. [00:03:30] I think I took like a home-ec class, maybe. In sixth, seventh grade. My mom used to always watch the food network. And I remember, you know, as a young 12, 13, 14 year old looking at the food network was probably not the most macho thing to do. And I remember watching the food network from my bedroom, but I would have the TV on mute and I would turn her [00:04:00] volume up in the living room all the way up. Cause I didn't want her knowing that I was also looking at the food network as well. So childhood in Los Angeles, you know, there's, it's definitely gang populated. And I grew up in the neighborhood where Training Day, the movie was filmed. Uh, so it was like a heavily dense like blood, um, gang population. Um, you know, my mom kept me in sports to sort of. Keep me away from those things. But life [00:04:30] as a single parent, you know, she worked as hard as she possibly could to provide for me and just keep me busy playing baseball, basketball, and with the Boy Scouts as well. So I had a very busy, busy lifestyle growing up as a kid. What's interesting is like when I went to high school, my mom would always drop me off in the side of school. And I would always walk through school, straight to the front of the campus and sort of ditch school. And I did that for, for a while, but all the teachers knew that. [00:05:00] You know, God, this kid is so smart, but he's just not applying himself. Didn't really have any direct direction as far as like what I wanted to do after high school. Um, I was always in the Boy Scouts from like age seven. So all like my troop leaders, they were in the military and served in some, some form of war. And it was almost like an easy transition for me. So I was like, man, you know, I've been prepped for this, like, why not [00:05:30] sorta like, um, transitioned into that. And I think, you know, they paid for schooling and stuff like that. So it, it gave me a four year sorta kind of like leeway of like trying to figure things out. Um, when I first started to serve, it was in the U.S. Navy and I started. Uh, December 16th, first day in the military was December 16th, 2003, fresh out of high school and did that for four years to about 2008. Um, so I did four years in the US Navy spent time in like Rome, [00:06:00] parts of Spain, Bahrain, Dubai, Saudi Arabia. Um, you know, I had many jobs in the military, whether it was cooking for the officers, the night baker for a crew of four or 500 people, four to 500 people. Um, I was in charge of like dry storage. The meat, the ordering, all that type of stuff. So, you know, I had a, a healthy career or four year career as a chef in the military. Growing up in [00:06:30] LA there's so many different like cuisines, to eat you know, there's Thai town, Little Armenia, K-Town, Cambodia, Little Cambodia in like Long Beach. So, you know, I think I grew up eating like Sizzlers, Fridays, like the chain restaurants and looking back at it now, when I was in the military for the four years, I definitely embraced the cultures in whatever country it was that I was, um, traveling to. But I don't know if [00:07:00] I immersed myself in the culture, like, you know, there were friends who were eating like McDonald's and all these different countries, but I was just like, nah, like, let me eat. Like. The food specific to the, to the culture. So after four years being in the military, I went to culinary school for two years here in Los Angeles. At the art Institute. I was working like a, a full-time job as a brunch chef and as a line cook at a restaurant here in Los Angeles called the Den of Hollywood. [00:07:30] Did that while going to school, then once I had graduated, I remember watching an Anthony Bourdain episode where he had went to Melbourne Australia. He had ate at this restaurant in Dunkeld, which is about three hours away from the main city. And he spoke so highly of this carrot. And, um, I just remember watching it, uh, with my girlfriend at the time. And I was just like, "whoa. This is a carrot and he's speaking. [00:08:00] So like fondly of it," and I bought like a one-way ticket and traveled out to Australia in hopes of working at that restaurant. When I first went to Australia, the goal was to get in contact with him. As soon as I landed, I'd sent like some emails. Didn't never got a response. So I'd worked at another restaurant called Donovan's. So in Australia, they have, instead of Michelin stars, they have hats. Uh, one had two hats in three hats. [00:08:30] At the time it was a one hat restaurant in St. Kilda. So I'd worked there for six months. I wasn't hearing back from the restaurant that I had originally went out there for. So where I used to live, one of the best restaurants in the world, Attica was literally like five feet away from my apartment. And I remember going on going inside the restaurant on a Tuesday, Tuesdays, they had like test kitchen Tuesdays where they would try new things separate from like their main menu. [00:09:00] Went in, started talking to the front of the house manager. And she was like, "yeah, I used to work at this restaurant that you're trying to get in contact with." I was like, "yo, if you could sorta kind of like, give me an email address or something like." I was looking for plane tickets back home to LA and she worked her magic and I get a you've got mail and, you know, he hit me up and was like, "Hey, do you want to come out here for a week stage?" and the rest is history. So I definitely did [00:09:30] find out how that carrot was made. That Anthony Bourdain loved so much.
[00:09:34] Jordan: What was so special about it?
[00:09:36] Brandon: They cooked it in dashi, but that was back in 2010. And I think that was sort of when like Japanese cuisine was sorta kind of just like emerging and like dashi was sorta kind of just like, what's that. So. Definitely dashi.
There's a lot of Asian [00:10:00] influence in Australia just because it's surrounded by, you know, Japan, Thailand, like Southeast Asia. It's just right there where Australia is. So there's a lot of influence on a lot of the menus out there. They probably have one of the best Chinatowns that I've ever been in. Everyone always says New York and San Francisco, but if you haven't been to Australia, they have a pretty good one. The working visa. If you didn't get sponsored by a restaurant and you had to be out at the [00:10:30] 365 day mark. So I did the first restaurant Donovan's for six months and then took a week off, went to no, I think I took like three days off, flew to New Zealand. Skyd-. I did sky diving flew back and then went and started working at that restaurant where, you know, I remember my first day was at 7:00 AM and didn't get done with working. So about like 1:30. So those were, that's what those days [00:11:00] look like. Uh, and at the time I was working like six days a week too. So if you didn't like hard work then that restaurant was probably not for you, to say the least. I think my body was for sure, like depleted, you know, I think if I look back at my experience in Australia, it was hard in the sense of, I didn't enjoy the city itself, you know, like I worked with these people for 14 or more hours. Um, and then you'd go out [00:11:30] after work and hang out, maybe go to a club or something like that, but it, I didn't. There were really no days off. I think when I was living in Dunkeld, um, for six months, I lived right across the street from work. So, you know, I remember I'd put my, what was it, iPod I'd put my iPod on and I wouldn't even get through one song. And that was just sorta, kinda like my day to day, every single day for six months. So it was hard. Like, I, I would love to go back to Australia to just [00:12:00] sorta kinda enjoy it on a personal, personal level. Australia was literally a year of just working extremely hard to sort of build a foundation of, you know, the backbone of my career, I think. I've always been drawn to like fine dining restaurants. There's just. A level of detail, attention to detail that I've always appreciated one being in the Boy Scouts and in the military. So [00:12:30] I think it was a very easy transition for me to sort of like be drawn to like the thoroughness and like the black and white of fine dining. And I don't know, it's just something beautiful about fine dining. I think the, the level of thought that goes into it, the attention to detail and the beautiful presentation, like there's just so many factors that make that a cuisine that I'm just very drawn to. When I came back to California, you know, there was sorta kind of like an [00:13:00] emergence of a food culture here in Los Angeles. And there were like cool restaurants, like Trois Mec and Providence that had like a little bit of notoriety behind themselves, but it was definitely on a high trajectory of like, man, these are; LA is sorta kind of like the pinnacle for like laissez faire, like, uh, restaurants, um, amazing hole in the wall spots, but we were also like a food destination for [00:13:30] exquisite restaurants. You know, I think everyone always looks at New York and San Francisco is sorta kind of like the if you can make it here, you can make it anywhere. But I think right around that time, um, Los Angeles sorta kind of had like a, nah, we, we could do it too. You know, I definitely came back to LA. I knew I was working in fine dining restaurants in Australia, and sorta kind of wanted to repeat that here in Los Angeles and was looking around some of the best restaurants and came across Providence. I worked at Providence on and off for about two and a half, [00:14:00] three years or so and worked with Ludo Lefebvre at Trois Mec. And then I ultimately I'd worked for Chef Michael Cimarusti for about five years. He had a seafood market called Cape Seafood and Provisions. I did that. I was a general manager for two and a half years, and then transitioned to a restaurant that he had had at the Ace Hotel, which I was the chef of that restaurant. So altogether, about five years working with, you know, one of the best chefs [00:14:30] in LA slash California.
As chefs you work at this restaurant, this restaurant, this restaurant to get stamps on your resume, essentially. And I think at the Ace Hotel, it was sort of like a culmination of all right, man, you've been doing this for a hot little minute. Like, let's see what you got. And it was the first time that I was put in a position to sort of [00:15:00] like run a kitchen and do my food at the end of the day. And I think as a chef, that's probably the hardest part, you know, anyone could sorta kind of like follow recipes and the guidelines of, you know, your executive chef. But I think when the ball is sorta kind of in your court and you have to create dishes. It's overwhelming, I think to say the least and fun, but you know, you got to start kind of like, ride that fine line of man. Like all eyes [00:15:30] are sorta kind of on me and what is my cuisine? You know, you've worked in all these different restaurants, but what food defines you as Brandon Gray and, you know, because I don't have like a long lineage of food growing up as a, like a young adult. It was hard for me, you know? Cause we'd go to like the traditional restaurants, Sizzler and Fridays and stuff like that. So I wasn't exposed to Thai food like that. I wasn't exposed to all [00:16:00] these different cultural foods that, you know, I felt like it was hard for me to sort of find my footing. I was at the Ace Hotel for about six months, six months, actually to the day that I had started, that was my first introduction to corporate jobs. And it is completely 100% completely different than working at like, like a mom and pop store or not a mom and pop restaurant, but you know, like a small business owned restaurant in comparison to [00:16:30] this machine. So there were definitely, I had to learn on the fly. So not only was I in a new position as the head chef, but I'm sitting there and trying to navigate HR and, you know, corporate and corporate is definitely a beast.
I think what I was trying to do was bring Providence, the restaurant, to a hotel restaurant, and I think. [00:17:00] It was met with resistance in the beginning, but you know, the menu at the Ace Hotel, there were burgers, there were like steak and potatoes and stuff like that. But I wanted to bring produce from the Santa Monica farmer's market. Like I wanted to bring the same elements of a fine dining restaurant to a hotel environment. And have the staff be appreciative of working with these ingredients and which I know [00:17:30] like the farmers by name. So it was a, it was a culture shock. You know, I won't speak down on the Ace Hotel, but it's, it had its issues. Um, we navigated through those issues and I needed that experience even if it was six months. I think that experience needed to happen. Um, for me to say, learn from and grow. I tip my hat off to all the staff members that have ever worked for me at the Ace [00:18:00] Hotel. Some of them in which I still communicate with to this day.
So now we're transitioning into 2019. I ended up going back to school, um, to get my business degree. I wanted to, I definitely want to take some time away from the restaurant industry, just because that was a whole experience, um, at the Ace Hotel, you know, I had a friend [00:18:30] Daniel Patterson, chef of formerly of COI restaurant in San Francisco, I think was even one of the 50 best chefs in the world.
Um, maybe around like 2018. Um, he had reached out to me and helping out with a project, but I think I just, my mind wasn't in cooking. And I remember 2019 was probably one of the best years of my life because I actually took time away from the [00:19:00] hospitality industry. And I had been doing it since I was 18, so 18, what's that 2003 to 2018, 2019. It was. All right. Cool bet. Like let's grind it out. Let's do 12 or more hours, 12 to 16 hour days, and navigating like relationships, friendships were were hard. That 2019 was just like, you know what? Let's hit the reset button. Let's travel. I from March, 2019 to about October, November, [00:19:30] 2019, I was in a new city or a new country every single month. So I was racking up miles, frequent flyer, miles, just doing things that I'd always wanted to do, but couldn't do because I'd use work as sort of, kind of like a crutch.
At the start of 2020, I was thinking about getting out of the hospitality industry. Altogether. Um, you know, I think I was tired of the shitty wages, the shitty hours, the long shitty [00:20:00] hours, the lack of friendships and relationships, the lack of work-life balance. I'm like one of those people that dedicates myself to my craft. And I think it was a loss, at the Ace Hotel to my confidence. And I think I gained back slowly but surely um, throughout the year. See March, um, March, 2020, um, a colleague of mine had reached out [00:20:30] to sort of help him facilitate and run his, um, his pop-up kitchen. And I was like, cool. He was good friends with Evan Kleiman. He had asked me to sort of make a pizza that sorta kind of just like represented me. Like if I had to present a pizza to this person, what would it be? The pizza at the time was called Windsor Hills. And it's sorta kind of like an homage to sort of, kind of like where I grew up and all the produce was from the [00:21:00] Santa Monica farmer's market, but there's a very famous Michel Bras dish where it's just all these beautiful like herbs and flowers on like a salad. I had sorta kind of presented him with that pizza to give to this unknown person and come to find out it was Evan Kleiman. I remember she had texted me after she had had the pizza and was like, "do you have a website?" And I was just like, "no, like I just started this business." [00:21:30] She was like, "Get a website." So I remember working on it with a friend of mine, uh, up until three o'clock in the morning, her time, because she was based in New York and built out a website. She talked about it on KCRW.
Evan Kleiman is man. I mean, Evan Kleiman is Evan Kleiman you know, she had a amazing relationship with Jonathan Gold. And if you don't know who Jonathan Gold is like, sorry for you. The way she talks about [00:22:00] food, she's just so intellectual when it comes to food. Talking about food. She had Italian restaurants way back when that were amazing. She's just an amazing person. And for that pizza to sorta kinda like land in her lap and enjoy it, like, man, you know, you're doing something right. That carried like a lot of, a lot of weight. And I think it just sorta kinda like spread like wildfire after that. There was LA times [00:22:30] articles. LA magazine and it was looking real good. And it was the great thing is it was only maybe about a month and a half after I'd started the business. So, you know, with no real true PR team, you know, created a business within one and a half months, just based off of word of mouth. And when it rained, it poured[00:23:00]
March 20th, I think is when the pandemic sorta like, shit hit the fan. And I remember slinging like my first pizza, April 7th, I think maybe about a month after that or a month and a half after that, uh, it landed with Evan Kleiman. The business model was so important at that time because a lot of restaurants were [00:23:30] closing. They were trying to figure out how to pivot during the pandemic. A lot of people had went towards, um, take out because you couldn't eat inside of a restaurant. There was no eating indoors or outdoors to where as all the restaurants are sorta kind of figuring out how to pivot their business. Here, I was at a commissary kitchen, um, selling pizzas as takeout to where [00:24:00] it was cool to sort of like when you create a trend, it's always amazing, but to be in the same circle with everyone else, as they're trying to figure out how to pivot, it's great to sort of, kind of like make it out alive in the sense. Um, so I think all restaurants were really just clamoring to figure, figure things out. And here comes this pizza popup. That is cool. [00:24:30] Like I think it sorta kind of has like a cool story. I don't know anything about pizza prior to 2020, you know, like I probably ate maybe about 12 to 15 slices of pizza a year. Um, that was like my average. So here I am running a pizza business, uh, solidified like pizza business in the middle of a pandemic. It just speaking to like my story, like all, if not most ingredients come from [00:25:00] California, whether it's the flour, whether it's the edible garnish on top, the tomatoes come from San Francisco Bianco DiNapoli so all the names of the pizzas are all west coast hip hop songs. If you've ever put two and two together, like kudos to you, but on the pizza boxes, like I started kind of like tag, like graffiti style, the name of the pizza on the box. So it's, it's LA all around. I'm so LA [00:25:30] like you look on my wall and there's a big California flag. There's over 25, like Ebbets Field, LA Ebbets Field hats to wear. I grew up in a 10 mile bubble here in Los Angeles to where it's just like I am LA. And if I wanted to put LA on a pizza, like we're going to get like the best ingredients and, you know, true Napoleon style pizza that uses 280 grams of pizza dough per pizza. I use 340 grams [00:26:00] because growing up as a kid, I used to love Pizza Hut and Pizza Hut has sorta kind of like a, a more doughy texture. I knew that I wanted to use my 17 years of culinary experience on a pizza, but if I've spent majority of that time in fine dining, I wanted to make sure the pizzas were fine dining. So if Thomas Keller or Eleven Madison Park were to open up a pizza [00:26:30] restaurant, this is what they would be doing. They would be using the best ingredients, uh, in season, visually aesthetically, they would look beautiful and it's almost like, fuck the rules, you know, like Italians for pizza said it's supposed to be this way. And it was just like, nah, man, like we have an amazing bounty of produce here in Los Angeles. If corn is only in season for about a month and a half, two months, like I want to put corn on a pizza [00:27:00] that's in season. So on each pizza, there's edible flowers. That in my opinion makes sense for the pizza that it's on. So it's just what I wanted to do. You know?.
The wings are special to me because I hate flats. I hate biting into a wing flat that has two bones. [00:27:30] So what I'd done is I take out one of the bones. So essentially the drumette is like a lollipop. And the wing with wing tip is there's only one bone inside of that. So like I cook them two times the ranch that I make, uh, I put cilantro flowers, parsley, dill, um, smoked vegan mayonnaise. Um, so I smoke oil and put that inside of it [00:28:00] too. So if you taste the ranch. I think you, when you think of ranch, you think of like, maybe like hidden valley or something like that. And this is like not, mom's like hidden valley, like it's whoa, what is this? So again, it's just the attention to detail. Granted, it's only just pizza and wings, but it's just my iteration of what pizza and wings is. So I like to overcomplicate things slash not over-complicate things. Like, I think [00:28:30] there's like a, a nice, fine balance. But traditional tiramisu is you dip like lady fingers and coffee, um, with like a whipped, mascarpone cheese. I have at least like 12 steps to my tiramisu. So I'll start off with the bottom of soaking lady fingers and maybe like eight different Italian liqueurs. Then I'll make like a lemon merengue. So there's lemon zest and, um, vanilla bean, a [00:29:00] little bit of Amoretto. So that's the next layer then I use a special type of chocolate. Then the next layer is ladyfingers soaked in cold brew, cold brew with maybe like 12 espresso shots. Then I make like a Japanese brown sugar mascarpone, then there's a layer of like dusted chocolate and coffee, then some, uh, [00:29:30] Maldon salt, and then some Persian mint on top, just because why put regular mint on there. So, you know, I think it goes back to what I'm saying. Like it's taken the, the traditional classics and, you know, turning it on its head and doing it my way. You know, when you, I think when you, when I was at the Ace Hotel, I was sorta kinda like striving to like, figure out like what my cuisine was or like how to put my own mark on the menu. And I think with [00:30:00] Brandoni's, it's just like my rules. I do whatever the hell I want. And you know, you want a traditional tiramisu? Cool. Like go down the street, like it's not going to be traditional. It's just, someone had coined it as california pizza kitchen. And it 100% is because all pro produce comes from the farmer's market and it's just LA like LA pizza from LA boy, LA city boy. I, you know? You know, it's [00:30:30] creatively something that I enjoy doing, and I just want to chef the shit out of it. You know? The great thing about being a chef is you're still learning, you know, like, um, YouTube, like I find out a lot of information through YouTube. I watch like 20 videos on how to make like the specific mole. So, you know, I'm trying to teach myself and make up for all those years of living in Los Angeles, as a kid with all these different cultures around me, but didn't really have that opportunity to do [00:31:00] it. So, you know, I live it through pizzas and now that the world is sorta kind of like opening back up, like I'm definitely wanting to travel to Italy.
That's actually the first place on the, to do list.
Brandoni's started off as it was supposed to be a revolving idea, so every month I was going to be doing something different. It was going to start off as pizza and [00:31:30] then transition into maybe like rice bowls and then doing like, Oaxacan food and Japanese food, like things that I was always interested in and funny enough, like jokes on me as I've been doing pizza for a year and a half. But you know, when the question is proposed, "what is the future look like for me?" I don't know, you know, I think I've worked. I love working in fine dining restaurants. I think I love working with seafood as I've, you know, worked at Providence for many years. There's so [00:32:00] much hard work that goes into opening up a restaurant because I sort of kind of fell into pizza. Is that what I want? My first brick and mortar to be something that I just of kind of like stumbled upon, or is it back to the drawing board of, you know, creating maybe a hybrid of a restaurant of seafood and like some attributes of fine dining. I don't know. I, I don't have it all figured out. You know, I [00:32:30] think every day is a little bit different. I think it would be silly of me to sort of kill the momentum of the business, but it's just, it's, it's a lot to think about, you know, I think. I battle sometimes maybe with like commitment issues and, you know, am I just talking myself out of opening up a pizza restaurant that, you know, I'm stuck, I'm locked in for about five to 10 years. Is this [00:33:00] type of pizza concept, sustainable. There's so many different elements to each pizza. I think every pizza has maybe like eight different components to it, to where there are no other workers here. It's only me like every pizza that has ever been sold 99% of the time, it's only just me communicating with you. And, but do I think that that's a sustainable restaurant for the next five to 10 years? I don't know. I'm [00:33:30] very grateful to be riding this wave. Is this what I want to hang my hat on? Brandoni's was great for the pandemic because while all restaurants were sort of, kind of figuring out how to pivot, I sorta kind of just like squeeze right in with a model that worked, you know, like people needed to just pick up food. Are people just going to be knocking down the door, wanting sorta kinda like hoity toity pizzas, you know, like, is [00:34:00] that a pizza concept that can sorta kind of like withstand the time being in LA with there being so many different options and is this like a longevity restaurant? And is it sorta kind of just a pop-up so I don't have all of those answers yet. I'm still figuring out whether or not a brick and mortar is the right space for me, but I think I'm still creatively [00:34:30] stimulated cooking and making the best possible product that I can stand behind.
I think the first thing that needs to change is more open dialogue about mental health. Let's look at Anthony Bourdain as a perfect example. You know, we all thought that he had the best job in the [00:35:00] world, sort of traveling the world, eating amazing food and talking about it very eloquently too. You know, we all admired him for, for many reasons. I think. It's almost tab. It's not taboo anymore, but it used to be taboo to start to kind of talk about mental health, mental health awareness. And even though I'm only a year into going to therapy, it's been one of the best things and worst things that's ever happened to me, the [00:35:30] best things is I am understanding the roots of why I do the things that I do to sum it up, but I think one of the worst things, because I'm open, I'm more vulnerable. And I think for someone who's sorta kind of like compartmentalized tons of things. I think it's scary to be vulnerable. It's scary to be open. It's scary [00:36:00] to let people in. And let's start with that. Let's start with talking about our feelings. Let's talk about the kitchen culture, where you work like these long eight to 12 hour shifts. And as soon as you're done with work, you want to go out and hang out with the people that you just cooked with for an additional couple of hours, whether it's going out for drinks and stuff like that. Like, I think we need to beat down the door of like, talking about these issues, [00:36:30] um, in the forefront and having that being a priority, especially in the hospitality industry, because there are certain things that probably could have been different if, you know, we just had somebody to start kind of lean on for some moral support. The colleagues that I work with, you know, these are definitely conversations that are brought up because they're important. And if you don't want to talk about it, like we're going to talk about it just because it's, we can't keep running away from [00:37:00] some of the issues in the hospitality industry and you know, the, the long work hours and, you know, the pay is always not the best. We need to fight for these rights. And there's so many things that we can be fighting for in this profession that limiting the work hours. Um, I think just coming up with like a work-life balance, like a healthy work-life balance where, you know, maybe the restaurants are closed for like a couple of days. And [00:37:30] if the whole, like, if the restaurant is closed on these two days, then everybody has the same two days off. So maybe it's just like, you feel a little bit more refreshed. I don't know. Like I don't have all those answers, but I know that dialogue is probably the most important thing for me. And, you know, let's start having these uncomfortable conversations so that there's a start.
[00:37:56] Jordan: Thank you for listening, everyone. For links and resources about everything [00:38:00] discussed today, please visit the show notes in the episode. If you want to support the podcast the most effective way to do so be to hit the subscribe button on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or any other platform that you're listening in from. Sharing the show with your friends on social media is always appreciated.
Shout out to Sean Myers for creating the original music, and to Jason Cryer for creating the graphics. The show is produced by me, Jordan Haro, with help from [00:38:30] Homecourt Pictures. You can always reach out to me at Jordan H-A-R-0 on Instagram and Twitter. Follow the show @prixfixepod on Instagram or email us at prixfixedpodcast@gmail.com.
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