Chef's PSA

Episode Overview In this solo episode, André Natera talks about what it actually takes to build a great kitchen team, and makes a direct argument for why surrounding yourself with people from diverse backgrounds produces better results than hiring in your own image. The instinct to hire people who look, cook, and think like you

Episode Overview In this solo episode, André Natera runs through his top ten kitchen pet peeves, the behaviors, habits, and recurring failures in professional kitchens that experienced chefs find inexcusable precisely because they are completely avoidable. These are not complaints for their own sake. Every pet peeve on this list points to something real about

Episode Overview In this solo episode, André Natera breaks down what chef consulting actually looks like in practice, stripping away the vague descriptions and getting into the specifics of what a consultant does when they walk into a struggling restaurant operation. The work is not glamorous and it is not primarily about menus. It is

Episode Overview In this solo episode, André Natera makes the case that mentorship is one of the most powerful and underutilized tools available to any chef trying to build a serious career. He describes it as a cheat code: the ability to compress years of hard-won experience into a relationship where someone who has already

Episode Overview In this solo episode, André Natera maps out the learning resources available to cooks and chefs in the current environment and talks through how to use them deliberately rather than passively. There has never been more access to culinary knowledge. Books, video, podcasts, online courses, stages, and peer networks all exist in a

Episode Overview In this solo episode, André Natera continues his two-part series on opening a restaurant with the practical work that happens in the weeks immediately before the doors open: pre-opening operations, mock service, and staff training. This is the period that determines whether a restaurant opens with confidence or opens in chaos. The decisions

Episode Overview In this solo episode, André Natera kicks off a two-part series on opening a restaurant by laying out the pre-opening critical path: the sequence of decisions, preparations, and milestones that need to happen in the right order before any restaurant is ready to open its doors. The critical path is not a checklist.

Episode Overview In this solo episode, André Natera reflects on Marco Pierre White and the conclusion that Marco famously reached at the peak of his career: that the cost of maintaining three Michelin stars was not worth what it required of him as a person. He returned his stars, walked away from the kitchen on

Episode Overview In this solo episode, André Natera concludes his four-part series adapting Robert Greene’s 48 Laws of Power through the lens of professional kitchen culture. Part 4 covers Laws 34 through 48, culminating in the final and perhaps most important principle: be formless. The most effective leaders and the most dangerous competitors are the

Episode Overview In this solo episode, André Natera continues his four-part series adapting Robert Greene’s 48 Laws of Power through the lens of professional kitchen culture. Part 3 covers Laws 22 through 33, centered on the theme of transforming weakness into power. These laws deal with the more subtle and psychologically demanding aspects of professional