Chef Eric Adjepong on Food TV, Skipping The Bear and His Wildest Kitchen Mistake

Celebrity chef Eric Adjepong joins hosts Adrienne Cheatham and Joe Flamm to dive deep into the realities of food television, leadership in the kitchen, and the secrets behind surviving the restaurant world. 🔥 In this episode: The mentors who shaped Eric’s culinary journey Lessons from working with Bobby Flay Why top chefs struggle to cook at home Navigating personality clashes and communication styles The challenge of handling bad reviews with grace Why Eric still hasn’t watched The Bear His biggest kitchen fail involving onions and dessert 😅 Follow the chefs: Eric: @chefericadjepong Adrienne: @chefadriennecheatham Joe: @insta.flamm

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Adrienne Cheatham?

  Hello, hello, Joe. It's so good to see you again. And everybody, welcome back to The Chef's Cut. I am Adrienne Cheatham.

• 0:09Joe Flamm?

  And I am Joe Flam. Age, it's so good to be back. Excited for what do we got this week?

• 0:15Adrienne Cheatham?

  One of the industry's brightest stars right now, Joe, we have the one and only Eric Adjepong joining us today. We all know Eric. He's the host of two shows on Food Network, Alex vs. America and Wild Card Kitchen. He's got two amazing cookbooks, Sankofa, Ghana to the World, and he is the chef and owner of the brand new restaurant in Washington DC, Elmina. I'm excited. I love Eric. He's such a cool dude.

• 0:42Joe Flamm?

  Such a cool dude, such a handsome man, one of the best beards in the game.

• 0:46Adrienne Cheatham?

  Truly.

• 0:47Joe Flamm?

  And just a great guy to have a conversation with. So pumped to have him on, hear about his new spot and all the exciting things he's got going on. What do you say? Want to get into it?

• 0:57Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yep, let's bring him in.

• 1:00Adrienne Cheatham?

  Eric, we are so fricking excited to have you here with us today. Thank you for joining me and Joe on The Chef's Cut.

• 1:07Speaker 02

  What's going on, Joe? What's going on, Adrienne? Thank you for having me. This is pretty cool. When did you guys come up with this like beautiful idea?

• 1:13Joe Flamm?

  I think it was a couple of phone calls over, you know, like Adrienne and I, we talk on the phone probably every three weeks, you know what I mean? It ends up being three hours long and we show up late to stuff because we're just chopping it up about everybody we know. And she was like, yo, you want to do this podcast? And I was like, all right, we're already doing it.

• 1:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:29Joe Flamm?

  We're just not recording it.

• 1:30Adrienne Cheatham?

  Right. We've been doing this for years.

• 1:32Speaker 02

  It's such a match made. Yeah, it's such a, because I know both of you as like great conversationalists, either about life, work, obviously, shooting the breeze, relationships, all the above. Like I've had really in-depth combos with both of you. So it makes sense. It really makes sense.

• 1:47Adrienne Cheatham?

  Likewise. That's why we were like, we gotta get Eric because like we've had some great combos all together.

• 1:52Joe Flamm?

  Yeah. And the funny thing is like, this is how Eric and I met.

• 1:55Adrienne Cheatham?

  I was gonna ask, I heard it's a funny story.

• 1:57Joe Flamm?

  So we were both doing a season of Top Chef amateurs during COVID. So we were staying on the same floor, the same hotel that they had shut down, locked in. And so we were texting all week. And then like, we had never actually met in person, but we were messaging each other a bunch, like, hey, are the birds on the wall? Talking to you yet? Stuff like that. You know what I mean? Because we were locked in a room for six days straight before they would let us out. And so the one day I was like, hey, dude, I know you're just sitting in a room alone. Like, I've just been hanging out, like, watching sports games with my cousins via Zoom. And it was the World Series. And I was like, do you want to watch the World Series with, like, me and my cousins and my buddies? And he was like, yeah, you know, I got nothing going on. So Eric hops on the Zoom call and we're like watching game five of the World Series. You know what I mean?

• 2:42Joe Flamm?

  Having drinks, like chopping it up. And finally, my cousin's like, oh, how do you guys know each other? I go, we've actually never met. We're just staying down the hall from each other. And we've been talking. And he's like, you guys have never met each other? I'm like, no, I've never, I've never seen this man in real life. I was like, but we have a million mutual friends. And I go, and we're probably about 120 feet away from each other right now. We're just not allowed to interact. But then we ended up, you know, we were there another week together, filming this together. We became, uh, good friends and had many, many great conversations. So I was really looking forward to, you know, having you on the pod, Eric. You're always great. You're always insightful. Uh, I think you have such a beautiful, wonderful, unique perspective about, you know, food, life and so many things. So very happy to have you here.

• 3:23Speaker 02

  Happy to be here.

• 3:24Adrienne Cheatham?

  And one of the best beards in the game, might I say?

• 3:27Speaker 02

  You know, I appreciate that.

• 3:28Joe Flamm?

  It's a strong beard game.

• 3:29Speaker 02

  It's a strong one. Um, no, man, the mutual respect goes, uh, the respect goes mutual, man. It's both ways, but it's, it's so wild to, to think, man, like, all that has come for all three of us, honestly, since then. And, and seeing each and every one of us sort of thrive in our own respects. Uh, and you're right, it's cool to just be in this, in this moment. So thank you guys for having me. I'm excited to have the show.

• 3:51Adrienne Cheatham?

  This is so dope. The first time we met in person, Eric, was right after your season of Top Chef. And we were at, do you remember it was a MOFAD, Museum of Food and Drink fundraiser? And we were both talking, Joe, this was like, you know how like antisocial chefs can be? And how we're not always socially adept? Um, and so Eric and I were both like talking to all these people. And then like, I just kept kind of fading away and I was standing next to like a pillar by all the people we were talking. And Eric kind of, he was doing the same thing. It was like Homer Simpson, like fading behind the bushes. And he looked at me over to the side. He was like, How are you with these social settings? I was like, man, it's, it can be hard. He was like, me too. How do you get through it?

• 4:36Adrienne Cheatham?

  And so that was how we first connected was like trying to become socially adept. Yeah, trauma bonding. Like we're used to being in kitchens with people yelling, not used to being in social situations. Like making small talk. That was a hard kind of transition.

• 4:49Joe Flamm?

  I think the weird thing with chefs too is like in our work, we constantly are asked questions, right? All day, a thousand questions. And then when you go out in public, it's kind of the same thing. It's a, it's a very one sided conversation sometimes. You're just getting pelted with questions, question, question. What's your favorite thing to cook? What kind of beard oil do you use? You know what I mean? Like just a million different things that, you know, we all get. They just want to ask you a thousand questions about like, is Tom nice? Is he nice? He looks nice. Or is he mean? He kind of seems scary.

• 5:19Speaker 02

  Over, under 500 times, 500, the number we've all been collectively asked about Tom being nice.

• 5:27Joe Flamm?

  Way over, way over.

• 5:28Speaker 02

  Way over.

• 5:30Joe Flamm?

  Slamming the over on that.

• 5:31Speaker 02

  Slamming the over.

• 5:33Joe Flamm?

  We, I think between the three of us, we might hit that by the end of the day. And Adrian's not even in country right now. She's going to have to figure out how to say in Portuguese, Tom is actually nice.

• 5:42Adrienne Cheatham?

  Well, to add to the questions that people ask every day to chefs, I'm going to ask you guys a kind of personal question because there's a big misconception between the reality versus the perception that people have of chefs. So I want to ask you a personal question. How often do you cook at home?

• 6:01Speaker 02

  Ooh, that last night, perfect timing. Super simple, half chicken. You know what I mean? Brick chicken, put some weight on it, sear it, throw it in the oven, and then I had some veggies. I took some chimichanga from the fridge over here, like, you know, prep fridge. And then I just had a really simple dinner, but not often. Like I'm a cereal connoisseur. I can throw a mean bowl of cereal together, you know? So I typically go that route.

• 6:32Adrienne Cheatham?

  Did you work, were you at the restaurant yesterday? And then you cooked all this when you got home?

• 6:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, crazy enough. I went to the restaurant. So my flow is like, I'll come in early. I'll try to hit the gym and then come in early, check on prep. Like attend to something else because there's always others, you know, plates to spin. Um, and then I came back for service. I left a little bit early for service, but then yeah, I made it home. I'm like, I'm hungry. Like you're tasting the entire night, right? Like you're

• 7:01Joe Flamm?

  Right.

• 7:01Speaker 02

  Gradually tasting. So in and of itself, that becomes a meal after like a period of time. Uh, but for whatever reason, I still just had that grumble. And I'm like, you know what? There's, there's a, there's a young chicken in my, uh, fridge. I can just pull that out, cut it in half. Um, and I just kind of just put all the, it's just like a smorgasbord of whatever that was in my, in deli containers in my fridge. I don't have like, you know, condiment, like actual condiments that you go to the, you know, the grocery store. Everything's in delis. Um, so yeah, chimicherry, I had some pickled Fresnos. And there I threw, threw that in there, some, um, some broccoli and I called it a night. Yeah.

• 7:38Adrienne Cheatham?

  Chimichari is a good workhorse. Like if you, if you have rice, if you have eggs, if you have chicken or steak, like that can

• 7:45Joe Flamm?

  It's a, it's a three meal sauce. You know what I mean? That's a breakfast, lunch, dinner sauce.

• 7:49Speaker 02

  Absolutely right.

• 7:50Joe Flamm?

  You need, you need efficiency in your condiments, right? Cause there's a billion out there. So I think it's like efficiency in condiments is key.

• 7:56Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:57Adrienne Cheatham?

  See, my personal go-to coming back from restaurants was fried rice because I always had leftover rice from takeout. And it gets all hard and the starches like firm back up. So you can just saute that. And then whatever vegetables were like languishing and limp and half dead in the refrigerator would just get chopped and sauteed in like 10 minutes. I've got like, boom, got a meal. Put a fried egg on it. That was like my goat or a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

• 8:23Joe Flamm?

  Yeah. I was gonna say, I, I eat the toddler lunch after work a lot of like peanut butter and jelly and like you'd already be like a handful of pretzels and like, you know, maybe some carrot sticks and like whatever. But like the toddler lunch is kind of my go-to after service. If I'm really actually turning on a pan, then it's like, all right, I'm going to take everything I can find, put it in a tortilla. And like make it a quesadilla burrito type thing and like take that to town.

• 8:48Speaker 02

  I like that.

• 8:49Adrienne Cheatham?

  I gotta, I gotta start, start getting on that one.

• 8:51Speaker 02

  Me too. Yeah, it's a good one.

• 8:52Adrienne Cheatham?

  Well, that's going to bring us to our next personal question. And this is because we are sponsored by San Pellegrino. And so as part of San Pellegrino, they have the Young Chefs Academy. Hey, everybody's drinking their Pellegrino bubbles. Um, so we have a thing called mentor moment. So Eric, this is a question we have for you. Joe and I have talked about our mentors a lot. And now you, who is a mentor? That either helped you when you were coming up in kitchens, transitioning to television? Or who's somebody that you're mentoring now?

• 9:24Speaker 02

  That's a great question. Um, you know, this industry is, is so filled with, um, sort of the, the ethos of each one and teach one, right? You learn, um, you pass down information and you don't keep things too sacred, you know, the more you can share, I think the better you end up being. If you could teach something, um, that means that you really know it. Uh, my mentor growing up in this industry, uh, Derek Wagner, um, was a chef out in Providence, Rhode Island. He owns Knicks on Broadway, uh, the best bread spot in all of New England, um, to this day. Derek was just nominated for James Beard this year. He taught me timing. He taught me like how to set up my station. He taught me professionalism.

• 10:09Speaker 02

  You know, like I was a knucklehead. I was like, I was, yeah, I was a knucklehead. And like, he gave me grace, which he didn't have to, like, I didn't deserve it. And I guess that's what grace is, right? Like you get what you, you're, you're getting what you don't deserve. Um, and, and he offered all of that to me and, and in a way that like taught me how to also be a man, like, and, and really like, you know, focus on the things that are very important rather than, you know, chasing, chasing stupid shit like the entire time while I'm in college, right? But then on the, the TV side, because that was something I had literally no idea about, like after TC, after Top Chef, um, I was ready to come back into a kitchen, put my head down and just work like all this TV.

• 10:53Speaker 02

  I didn't go to school for journalism or like, you know, any other TV, whatever people go to TV for, like school for TV for. Like it literally fell on my lap.

• 11:04Speaker 02

  And I did not know I had two left feet. I still kind of feel like I have two left feet sometimes. But I'd be remiss if it wasn't for like Bobby Flay and obviously Alex Wannachelli. These chefs that like have mastered the art of like talking about food and translating food, especially to folks who are just like novice and and and don't know much about it. And they break it down to such a granular level that's not like stuffy, but very relatable. And it's it truly is like, I I feel like I'm, you know, an apprentice watching them sort of like deal with it. It's a skill. It really is a skill what they do. So these chefs are people.

• 11:44Joe Flamm?

  They're they're so good at it, too.

• 11:46Speaker 02

  So good. Like so good. Alex is so witty and so quick.

• 11:50Joe Flamm?

  You don't even realize.

• 11:51Speaker 02

  No, no, not at all.

• 11:54Joe Flamm?

  Like you don't realize how hard it is. And then when you like work with one of them who's like a pro's pro. Like, you know, and I've I've gotten to work with Bobby once or twice. And you're just like, man, this dude just like attacks it like, you know, we've been attacking kitchens. You're just like, he's systematic. He's, you know what I mean? Like the work ethic, all of it. You know what I mean? It's not just like showing up and doing the thing. You're like, man, this dude is like, this is his craft. Like he's putting in work on this all the time. And it's like a masterclass. It's really cool to see.

• 12:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, it really is.

• 12:25Adrienne Cheatham?

  It is. There's something, there's actually a lot of similar, like personality wise, Eric, you actually kind of remind me of Bobby Flay a little bit. Like, you know, some hosts on television are more exclamatory and a lot more like, you know, just big character, but you guys are like who you are. It just is honed in and translates through television really well. And Bobby's always working on stuff. You're always working on stuff. It's kind of like, I know you're from the Bronx, but one of the greatest rap quotes of all time, Lil Wayne, real G's moving silence like lasagna.

• 12:59Speaker 02

  Lasagna. That's right. That's right.

• 13:01Adrienne Cheatham?

  Like, that's like Bobby Flay, you, that's.

• 13:03Speaker 02

  That's Bobby all day. I call him the Don. It's so funny that you said that. He is a real G. Funny story, and I hope he wouldn't mind me sharing it. Like Bobby Flay took me on my first man date. He.

• 13:16Speaker 02

  He, he's a big Nick fan. I'm a huge Nick fan as well. He's a huge Nick fan. We both are. But yo, it was crazy because he, he first wrote me a letter, like wrote handwritten letter. And like, when's the last time you received a handwritten letter from anyone? So it just, it hits.

• 13:31Adrienne Cheatham?

  The last one I got was also from Bobby.

• 13:33Speaker 02

  Isn't it saying? So he does this then, like he, it's, it hits in a different way. And then seeing it on a screen or reading it in paper or whatever, like on, on, you know, type font. He handwrites a letter, like, I love what you're doing, you know, um, I know you're a big Nick fan. If ever you're in New York and I'm in New York, let's go catch a game.

• 13:52Speaker 02

  Oh yes. So I'm like, okay, I reply back to him. And yeah, we go to a Nick game and it's so crazy. Like I, similar to today, I counted at the, at the garden pretty late. And he's standing at the, at the ticket stand, right? Waiting on me, like I had Chef Bobby Flay waiting on me to come to the, to the game. Uh, so we get there and it's so wild, like I, it's so wild. So we go in, I've been to the garden hundreds of times, but never through this specific entrance, right? Like he's got the VIP private entry. We're walking in and it's, it's all, hey, Mr. Flay, hey chef, how's it going? Whatever, whatever. And then they say, hey, Mr. Adjepong, how are you? And I'm like, how do you know my name?

• 14:36Speaker 02

  And he's like, oh, this is the private entry. So of course they know your name. Like these are all people that, you know, like they have to have a list of all the people. So we're walking in and we sit in the president's, uh, like, uh, box or whatever. There's, uh, um, Hassan Manaj, there is Lindsay Lohan there. There's like all these who's who. And I'm looking around like, yo, I fucking made it. Like this is insane. This is incredible. Uh, we go to the garden and I all wake up and preparing for this, like this moment. It was like a Friday night game. And I'm thinking like, you know how during like either the breaks or halftime, they usually do like a celebrity road check, like who's who, who's sitting, you know, in the, in the stands.

• 15:21Speaker 02

  So I was telling my boy like, yo, if they flash Bobby Flay, like, you know, Bobby's here. And I'm sitting next to him. Do I like lean over and kind of like, you know, do one of these?

• 15:32Adrienne Cheatham?

  Hell yeah.

• 15:33Speaker 02

  Like, my friends like act like you've been here before.

• 15:35Joe Flamm?

  Put your arm around him.

• 15:39Speaker 02

  So they did it. It was wild that like, we go there and people are calling Bobby's name like he's a basketball player. Like Bobby, Bobby. And I'm walking with him and we sat down, we watched the game, we chop shop. And it is, it's, a friend of mine got a picture of it. It's still my screensaver today. Bobby's somewhere in there, but it's, it's one of the greatest moments of my life. And I got to meet and hang out with someone that I have idolized on the network. And aside from like, you know, Joe called it, he's a master at sort of talking food and, and personality, but like, he's a badass chef. He's one of the best chefs in America.

• 16:17Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah.

• 16:17Speaker 02

  Period. Period.

• 16:19Adrienne Cheatham?

  I can vouch for that. I've judged about 13 episodes of Beat Bobby Flay.

• 16:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 16:23Adrienne Cheatham?

  And they have such, it's like, like Alex's shows, there's such integrity about you're tasting the food when it's fresh.

• 16:29Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 16:30Adrienne Cheatham?

  As soon as they're done cooking, you're eating it behind in the tent. So it's hot, it's fresh. And you don't know whose it is. It's completely blind tasting back there.

• 16:38Speaker 02

  No.

• 16:39Adrienne Cheatham?

  And I can say he's only lost a couple of times that I've been on because his food is just so good.

• 16:44Speaker 02

  Incredible.

• 16:45Joe Flamm?

  Oh, you, you just see the intensity he cooks with.

• 16:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 16:48Joe Flamm?

  You know what I mean? Like you could see his passion. You could see like, you know, like how dialed he is. It's like, oh, you, you just like, he has that chef gear.

• 16:57Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 16:58Joe Flamm?

  You know what I mean? Where it's like, he locks in and you're like, yo, we're going.

• 17:01Speaker 02

  Oh my gosh.

• 17:01Joe Flamm?

  Like this is a fight. I'm down. Like it makes you wanna like, go even harder. You're like, all right, we're running through walls. Let's go Bobby. Like, you know what I mean? It's just like, it's massively impressive. That dude.

• 17:11Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah.

• 17:12Joe Flamm?

  That, that dude's real.

• 17:13Speaker 02

  He's real.

• 17:16Joe Flamm?

  We're gonna get into our first segment here, Eric. Our first kind of game we play. It's called Fork It Or Forget It. And this is, you know, Adrian and I bring a topic every week and basically, you know, food trends, something going on. And we decide, you know, is that something, something we like? We fork it or we need to forget about it, move on with our lives. Cause there's so much stuff that comes at us all the time. Um, so the one I got this week.

• 17:38Joe Flamm?

  Is new season just came out and I think people ask us about this stuff all the time. And like you're in food TV, Eric, obviously Adrian does a lot of TV. We've all done some like, but you know, for me, it's like food shows in general, but you know, the bear is huge in Chicago. It's a huge one here. Everybody talks about it because it's sort of Chicago. And so I get a billion questions about it a day. Um, I'm sure you guys do as well as like, oh, is it like real life? Oh, but so, you know, for me, it's one where I come home after work, working in the kitchen. And it's like, I just can't do it. I can't do it. I can't turn on a show about a dude stressed out about a restaurant. I can't do it. It's a forget it for me. I have to leave it. I don't think it's a bad show. I watched one season of it. I enjoyed it, whatever.

• 18:23Joe Flamm?

  But it's like, when I get off work, when I get home and I got two little kids, so the morning I am only watching weird kids. Mostly watching Frozen for the 17th, 100th time. So it's like my only me time for TV is nighttime. So it's like, I can't, can't get myself to do it. I can't get myself to do it. I'm just like, I've, I've done this all day. I've done this all day, every day. It's like, been that guy stressed out about a restaurant. I can't come home and watch some dude cosplay. But I can't do it.

• 18:53Adrienne Cheatham?

  That's real, Joe. So you say, forget it.

• 18:55Joe Flamm?

  I forget it.

• 18:56Speaker 02

  And that's, that's like from, from ground zero, man, in, in, in Chicago, like you said, man, it's, I can't even imagine. Yeah, we get, I'm sure I get Adrian for sure. I get filled with those questions, but I can't even imagine what Joe gets on a, a daily basis about, about the bear. I'm in the middle, but skewing a little bit more, forget it. I love the show. I think objectively it's a great show. There's great actors. The, you know, the storyline is great. It's just too intense for me. I'm with you, Joe. It's just too intense. I think Carmy's character is, it's so real. He's stressing out, but then there's like aspects outside of the kitchen that I think they captured very well. Which is why I fork it like, you know, the relationships of like family and, you know, romantic and, and all of that stuff.

• 19:36Speaker 02

  It like, it has, it's, it's its own bear in itself, no pun intended. So like, uh, I, I, I love that aspect because they do capture it very well. But for me, it's like, it's trauma watching because I'm like, oh shit, like that's real. Like I got locked in the freezer. You know what I mean? Like, oh, we're gonna walk in rather like that's, that's, that happens, you know? Um, so it's an intense show. I just can't watch it every time. I'm with you.

• 20:00Adrienne Cheatham?

  I mean, I wanna, I wanna fork it. I wanna fork it. It's like, I respect like the culinary production on that show, the cookbooks they have in the background, the kind of like realness. It's like they respect the culinary industry and the approach to it. But again, if I'm an accountant, am I gonna go home and do other people's taxes when I get home from work? No. I don't wanna go home and like, watch the same stuff that like, I just got out of. And so I've actually never watched The Bear. I never watched it. I haven't seen a single episode, especially because when it first came out, I just heard how accurate it was. And that scared me because I'm still processing a lot of trauma from almost 20 years in restaurants that my brain is not ready to have

• 20:45Adrienne Cheatham?

  it just like, laid out in front of me. Like, apparently there's an episode where the ticket machine thing, and I've told Joe about my worst service ever. It was six feet of tickets. Because the cord had come out and the waiter, one of the runners was like, chef, I have a lot of tables missing food. I'm like, no, we finally cleared the board. We're out of it. He jiggled that cord in the back of the ticket machine. Six feet of tickets came out, Eric. I shit you not. It was just like, tic, tic, tic. And so I've, I heard about that episode. I refuse to watch it. Oh, my gosh. So for me, I wanna fork it.

• 21:19Joe Flamm?

  Yeah, I think objectively, I think it's a good show. I think they nail a lot of the details. And I watched the first season because it's like, I could not avoid the questions anymore. And I was like, I just have to watch this to have an opinion on it because someone's asking me every 10 minutes. And I think like, they nail a lot of the details. I remember my older sister asked me like, oh, did chefs really talk to you like that? I was like, that was my whole 20s. Like, what are you talking about? Like, yeah, chef's getting in my face being like, you know, you're a fucking piece of shit, right? It's like, no, yes, chef, thank you. I was well aware. I realized that when I woke up this morning. But uh, thank you for reaffirming that for me. I was, I was curious because it had been 10 minutes.

• 21:56Joe Flamm?

  So it's, it's, it's, it's maybe, maybe I'll get back to it at some point, but for right now, that's, that's a forget it for me.

• 22:02Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah, I feel like I need, I need a few more years. It's like, I'll throw a fork in it from across the room, but I can't get too close just yet. I'm not there. I'm not there yet. Maybe a couple more years of therapy.

• 22:12Joe Flamm?

  Yeah, I'll stick with watching like, you know, shitty Rob Cops with like Glenn Powell and Sidney Sweetie.

• 22:16Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah.

• 22:16Speaker 02

  I need, yeah, very low brow.

• 22:19Adrienne Cheatham?

  Well, that's going to bring us to our next segment, Eric, and this is what we call review, review. And so this is where Joe and I get the opportunity to kind of clap back on behalf of all our brethren in the industry, when people leave bad reviews and people with restaurants, Joe has talked about this. There are valid reviews that people leave with one star and Joe's like, you know what? That gives us an opportunity to make this up to them. But if you're leaving a review that does not talk about food, does not talk about service, it's like, my water was too wet. My champagne was too bubbly. The sun was too bright when I asked to be seated outside. Like, that's not a good review. So this is our opportunity to kind of bring those up. Your restaurant is pretty new. So there aren't really reviews like that out there yet.

• 23:02Adrienne Cheatham?

  And I've never really seen anything bad written about your restaurants or your food. So I had to do a lot of digging for this, a lot of digging. And even, I couldn't even call it like, it's not like mean, but the only thing that I could find on the internets, all of them, that somebody said is Eric genuinely seems to get joy out of being evil on his shows. I wonder about him.

• 23:28Speaker 02

  I think I know the show too. It was, uh, it was the show, uh, uh, The Great Soul Food Cook Off. Like, it was my best attempt to be Tom Colicchio.

• 23:40Speaker 02

  So there was a little bit of a good cop, bad cop, uh, dynamic that I had with, uh, shout out to Melba Wilson and Cardi Brown, who's the host. And Melba was the sweet, endearing judge that like loved on all of the contestants. And I did as well, but then I had to give like technical sort of, you know, uh, critique, like criticism. And you know, that was just the dynamic, I think naturally that happened, maybe like after we filmed, you know, episode two and we were just like, all right, we just got to stick with this. So it was very much good cop, bad cop. But you know, um, it's funny because someone just like last month said, man, I love, came up to me, I was outside of the restaurant,

• 24:21Speaker 02

  um, you know, after a service and a dude in a group of friends, he came up to me. And at first it was like all love. He's like, man, you're the, you're the dude from the Grey Soup for, I love that show. It was amazing. I thought this, I thought that. But bro, like you're fucking mean. Like what the fuck? And so I went from like high all the way down to low. Um, it was, it was hilarious. I think, you know, these reviews, especially these one stars, stuff that you can't deal with though, specifically like I had one person mentions about the restaurant, like it's hard to get parking. And I'm like, okay, sure. But like, what about us? Like, what did we do in the restaurant? Like, how was the food? How was like, you know, it's, you can't make everybody happy. Uh, and that's what

• 25:02Adrienne Cheatham?

  How does that have to do with me?

• 25:04Speaker 02

  That has nothing to do with me. Literally, I, I wish I could help. Um,

• 25:07Joe Flamm?

  Right.

• 25:07Speaker 02

  You know, but it

• 25:08Joe Flamm?

  Right. You're like Texas mayor.

• 25:09Speaker 02

  Seriously.

• 25:14Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah. Joe's, Joe's got some strong thoughts on these and I crack up.

• 25:17Speaker 02

  Oh, Joe, let me, let me hear one or two, please.

• 25:20Joe Flamm?

  We, we, we have so many where it's just like, it, it's stuff that has, I had, and I'll tell you this one. This is one of the great of all times. This was when we opened Rosemary. I have one night, Eric, hour before service, power goes down on the block, completely shut down, no power. We have to close the restaurant. I have everybody on the phones. We're calling everybody trying to find them new reservations, rebooking them, whatever. We rebook all these people. We put notes in their reservations. We had to rebook them from that date. So we take special care of them, whatever. You know what I mean? It was not a good day for me, obviously. One of these people we rebook, the day they come in, I shit you not, power goes down on the block.

• 25:57Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 26:02Joe Flamm?

  So again, it is, in this one, it was like 30 minutes before service. I'm literally, I'm standing in front of the door at Rosemary, turning people away, saying, hey, I'm sorry, our power's down. We're not going to open tonight. I'm so sorry. I'm taking their names and numbers. I'm rebooking them. I'm sending them over to the other restaurant. I'm doing whatever I can. So this person who the power went out again, leaves us this monster. One star, just like, it was my birthday, he ruined my birthday, like, you know, I booked once and they had to move me and then their power went out again allegedly and they had to cancel me again and it ruined my 26th birthday. I mean, this thing was like three paragraphs. And I'm like, so, I'm like, we have to get them back.

• 26:47Joe Flamm?

  And it's like, I have no, like, come on, I am not coming. I do not have this power.

• 26:52Speaker 02

  Oh my god, yo.

• 26:55Joe Flamm?

  So I finally get them in the door, right? This is like, two months from the original reservation. So they come in, they're like, yo chef, 26 is that double recovery.

• 27:08Joe Flamm?

  So I'm like, alright, I gotta, I gotta really put it on, you know what I mean? So I go out there, I'm like, we're, you know, greeting with bubs, we're full comp on this table, we're taking care of everything, we're doing it up, like, I'm gonna, we're gonna win. And so, I go up to the table, I say, you know, they already got champagne, they're already hanging out, I'm dropping the first course, I'm like, hey, you know, this is something I wanted you to try, a little gift from the kitchen, you know, I'm glad you guys finally made it here, I know it's been a crazy road. And this girl looks at me and she goes, yeah, well, you know, last time, she goes, it was my birthday, and you did ruin my birthday. And like, that was supposed to be a really special day for me, and you've ruined it, and I'm gonna think about that for a long time. And I said, and this was one of those

• 27:53Joe Flamm?

  things that I probably shouldn't have said.

• 27:57Joe Flamm?

  I said, well, I go, to be fair, I go, I had to call 300 people that night and tell them, they also couldn't come to dinner. And then I had to tell all my workers to go home. And then I had to not make any of the money I thought I was gonna make that day, and instead just lose a whole bunch. So it wasn't a great day for me either, if we're being fair. I go, so I'll also probably think about that one for a while. And like, her boyfriend's sitting with her and he's just like, his eyes are like this big, like, oh my god, what did we just get into? And I'm like, I hope you guys have the best time tonight. I want you to know, dinner's on me this evening, and I just hope you really enjoy it. And it was like, and I was like, I probably shouldn't have like, clap act in person like that, but I couldn't help it. I couldn't help it.

• 28:43Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah, I feel like she kind of deserved that. It's like, yes, I get it. It sucked. But it's not just you that that affected. It affected the business owner. It affected all the other guests. It's not just like a slight on you personally.

• 28:56Joe Flamm?

  Yeah, it's a tough concept that theoretically there are other people in the world besides yourself. You know what I mean? You know what I mean? A lot of people haven't really wrangled around that.

• 29:04Adrienne Cheatham?

  It's crazy.

• 29:05Speaker 02

  The double recovery is hilarious.

• 29:08Adrienne Cheatham?

  That's gotta be a new term. I love that.

• 29:12Joe Flamm?

  So the next one, Eric, we wanted to get into is a little segment we call line check. And this is usually we're just talking about kind of what's going on in the industry, what's happening, uh, what's coming up. But I thought specifically, you know, you're sitting in your brand new restaurant right now. You're just going through it right now. And I thought for a line check this week, there's no better line check in to like, I think the opening of the restaurant is one of the craziest things you could do. I think besides like having children and there's a lot of parallels between the two, honestly. And, you know, for line check this week, I wanted to kind of talk about like, you know, for me, it's like people always ask me like, you know, what was the biggest surprise of your one at Rosemary? And like, you know, that was like, took your time, took your energy, whatever. And I always say like plumbing. Like plumbing was the thing that absolutely blindsided

• 29:57Joe Flamm?

  me that I spent so much time, money, energy on talking to people about, you know, thickness of pipes, type of, where do those pipes run? How they're run? So I felt like for this week's line check, I want to check in with you. And I think you're, are you three months in now?

• 30:12Speaker 02

  We are four months this week. Yeah, four months.

• 30:15Joe Flamm?

  Four months this week. Congrats, brother. Um, but like, what's been kind of the biggest surprise or challenge? And also on the, on the good side of it, like the, the happiest kind of accident of, of, of coming through in, in the infancy of, uh, of your new spot?

• 30:29Speaker 02

  Honestly, it's a people game. Like the food doesn't talk back. The food doesn't call out. The food doesn't, you know what I mean? Like, uh, no call, no show. Like the food is always there. Hopefully, if you have some good reps.

• 30:41Speaker 02

  It's it's the people, you know, and managing the people is about thirty plus people that work here. Um, and and getting to know their families and getting to know them and like their personalities and all of that to really like. Have them feel invested in it. I I I've learned a lot about myself, honestly, in a great in the great in the greatest of ways, just leadership and. You know, how to talk to people. We have people from all different walks of life, demographics, ages, you know. Creed and sexual orientations, like there's specific ways to kind of give the same message, like, for example. Uh, if Adrian is my server and, you know, um, and Joe is my bartender. And I need to give a like a very like specific, hey, we need to make sure that like, I don't know.

• 31:26Speaker 02

  Table one O one has uh their Pellegrino and, you know, um, their champagne, their bubbles as soon as they, you know, land. I need to make sure I'm giving Joe that information, but with a different tone than I'm giving Adrian that information, right? Like, and it's just about temperament and stuff like that. So, learning about myself, man, I think that has been a huge. Like even at, you know, thirty seven, thirty eight, um, I'm still like learning ways to to. Adapt and talk to people, which is which is amazing.

• 31:54Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah, people don't realize part of running a restaurant, and this was true when I was, you know, EC at Red Rooster or, you know, a sous chef. Or even like a chef de partie, a lot of the job is kind of being like a therapist.

• 32:07Speaker 02

  Hundred percent.

• 32:08Adrienne Cheatham?

  And like you said, delivering the mess, because you gotta keep people motivated. You have to keep people kind of sipping the Kool-Aid, little sips all day long, because you need to keep them motivated. You need to keep everybody working towards the same goal. And everybody has a different set of concerns. Everybody has a different temperament. And the way I can talk to this person is not at all how I can talk to this person. They will spin out. The rest of service and I won't get a good dish out of them for the rest of the night. And it's just so. That that surprised me too. That surprised me too, but it I feel like I I agree with you. It made me a better person. It made me more emotionally mature and able to be more empathetic

• 32:49Adrienne Cheatham?

  and listen to people better and really tap into what it is they need so that I can connect with them on that level.

• 32:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, 100%.

• 32:56Joe Flamm?

  Yeah, and I think, you know, one of the coolest things about restaurants is, you know, I've said that like, it's a group of people, if you wrote them all down on paper, where they're from, what they've done, they have no reason to ever actually know each other, yet coexist in the same space. And then all of a sudden, you have 30 plus people who should have never crossed paths in this life, who they're all kind of the most important people in each other's life for the majority of the week. You know what I mean? They need each other. They function off each other. It's like a living, breathing thing. And so it's just like wild where you're like, all right, how do I talk to this like 20 year old kid out of culinary school who is working next to this, you know, 67 year old Ecuadorian dude who's been cooking since he's 17?

• 33:41Joe Flamm?

  And like they have very different worries and concerns and abilities and what they know to do, but I need him to do the same thing. I need to be both bought in. And you know what I mean? I need them to both like take those little sips of Kool-Aid all day. So it's just a wild experience. And I think, you know, Eric, you nailed it earlier when you said, you know, one of the things you learned as a young cook is grace, right? And I think when you become that chef, when you become that, you know, chef partner, owner, whatever, if you don't have all of the grace by the bucket loads, it's like you're you're smoked.

• 34:12Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah.

• 34:12Joe Flamm?

  Like if you can't give it to people, you'll never get it in return. And it's just like one of those skills that it's like, if you don't pick up along the way, I think this thing eats you alive, quick, fast and in a hurry.

• 34:21Speaker 02

  Very fast.

• 34:22Adrienne Cheatham?

  I feel like I always gave a lot of grace and then one time I gave too much grace and I almost got punched in the face.

• 34:28Speaker 02

  Storytime by Adrian Cheatham. This is the new segment.

• 34:33Adrienne Cheatham?

  I had a dishwasher and we were hiring from these programs, you know, like for people who had been in prison. Because everybody needs a job, everybody needs a second chance. And I think kitchens are a great place because you can move up the ladder. So I did a ton of hiring and some of my best staff at every restaurant I've ever worked in came from these programs. So I had this one guy who had been in jail for a long time and lot of grace. Give him forty bucks here, twenty bucks here, lot of grace if he needs to go have a meeting. If you want to interview for another job, I respect that, like, I'll give you time to go do that. And then one time I was like, hey, I need you to, like, we're getting killed up here in the kitchen. I need to make sure all the pans are coming back, hold off on doing the trash, taking it out to go upstairs.

• 35:18Adrienne Cheatham?

  Pickup's not until 1 a.m. You don't have to take it out, it's 9 p.m., we're getting killed in the kitchen. I need you and the rest of the dishwashers, all hands on deck, restocking the pans on the line. Okay chef, no problem. Twenty minutes later, my cooks are like, chef, we're out of pans, I don't have any pots, where are all the plates? I'm like, where are the dishwashers? So I go around to the back and I'm like, there's one dishwasher here, where's the other two? I go downstairs and this gentleman just thought he'd knock it out real quick with two other dishwashers. I'm like, dude, I told you, and I was, I was direct, I wasn't mean, I was just like, man, I told you. Like, do this later, please, put it down, get back up to the kitchen like I asked you to twenty minutes ago.

• 35:59Adrienne Cheatham?

  He felt threatened that I had called him out in front of his staff, the other two dishwashers. You're not a, you're not a dishwasher supervisor, like, you're, like, I don't have, there's no hierarchy in the kitchen. Everybody's important. You, there, you're not losing face because I stepped to, you know, I said something to you. He swole up on me so fast. He was like, don't, nobody talk to me like that. I was like, ooh, okay. And I just like, I gritted my chin, I was like.

• 36:31Adrienne Cheatham?

  Cause he like, he pulled his arm back a little bit and I was like,

• 36:34Speaker 02

  Ah, I see.

• 36:34Adrienne Cheatham?

  Just steeling myself to get hit.

• 36:36Joe Flamm?

  Those moments of, am I about to fight a dishwasher in the morning right now? Is this the part of the day I just hit where it's like?

• 36:44Adrienne Cheatham?

  I was like, man, I might get punched in the face tonight. And this was not how I, you know, how I saw my day going.

• 36:49Speaker 02

  That is crazy. What keeping it real goes wrong.

• 36:52Adrienne Cheatham?

  Right, right. And that's, that's actually a good segue, Eric, to our last segment. And this is one that we call walk-in confessions. So I guess that's kind of one of my walk-in confessions is that I almost got punched in the face by my favorite dishwasher one night. But this is where we talk about things that younger us didn't know what we were doing. And it's okay. Everybody looks at Eric Adjepong now and says, you've got two amazing TV shows, two amazing cookbooks, a great restaurant. You're a great person. But what was young Eric like?

• 37:23Speaker 02

  Oh, my gosh.

• 37:23Adrienne Cheatham?

  What are some of the things that if we were to close the walk-in door and these secrets would never see the light of day? That you might've been a little embarrassed that you made these mistakes? What's your walk-in confession, Eric?

• 37:34Speaker 02

  Speaking of the walk-in, it was circa 2009, 10? I was a young squire, a line cook at Mark Forgione's restaurant in Tribeca Forge. And it's so wild now, this year, I'm going to be cooking with Mark, uh, side by side, which is mind blowing. But yo, it was wild because Mark had gave me like, uh, chef, chef Mark gave me maybe like, I don't know, a 50 pound bag of onions just to slice up. You know, julienne, get ready for service. We'll all gonna be caramelized down later on. Yeah, chef. Grab the bag, go downstairs to the prep area and I just kind of lock in. You know, I'm getting ready for like the calluses on my hand. I'm getting ready just to, you know, burn through this, these bags of onions.

• 38:18Speaker 02

  Uh, and he's like, yeah, just throw them in the walk-in. Um, when you're, when you're done, wrap them. Forgot to wrap them. Forgot to do all of that. And on top of that, I put them in the pastry walk-in. So like at the end of,

• 38:34Speaker 02

  so by, by the start of service, maybe by like seven, no, no, like 6:30, when the first tables are getting their dessert, right? Like there's essence of onion and shallot in all of the desserts, like just permeating.

• 38:53Speaker 02

  Like the essence of onion and allium, just all throughout, like these really delicate, like, um, you know, uh, uh, cakes and macarons and like all the most like precious things that you can imagine, that's not supposed to have like that, you know, waft of onion and allium hints of it as you bite through it. And chef, like, he, he ate it and he's like, fucking Eric. Like, that's literally what he said. And I, I never felt so like embarrassed and just like staunch, man. I, that was, that was one that I took on a chin and I will never forget. But that was young me. That was definitely young me. Just like trying to just do my best, but not literally paying

• 39:37Speaker 02

  attention to detail. Throwing a bunch of like 50 pound cut julienne onions in a pastry walk-in and, and letting that sit for like an hour and a half, two hours was not, not the best idea.

• 39:47Joe Flamm?

  The worst part of that too is like, I know from like being a young cook, like you probably knocked that out and were probably like feeling yourself a little bit about it too. You're fucking crush that, throw that in the cooler. I'm done. Let's go. Yeah. And I, I took care of those onions. Chef, I got you. What's next? What are we doing? Like, uh, you know, don't worry, baby Eric's here. I got this. You know what I mean? I'm a man right now. 50 pounds? 50 pounds? Light work. Light work. What's next? And it's like, do you wrap them up and put them in the right cooler? And it's like, what do you, what's, is there a wrong cooler?

• 40:19Adrienne Cheatham?

  You mean wrap them with like plastic?

• 40:23Speaker 02

  Plastic? Yeah, yeah.

• 40:24Joe Flamm?

  They're not on the floor.

• 40:25Adrienne Cheatham?

  Okay. Were they in a hotel pan or a camber?

• 40:30Speaker 02

  No, they were in a hotel pan. So it just laid out just as if, you know, they were sunbathing.

• 40:34Adrienne Cheatham?

  Whole lot of surface area.

• 40:36Speaker 02

  A whole lot of surface area. Exactly. Just, just, you know what I mean? If there was some sort of like omission ray that you can see, just see the fumes of the sulfuric acid just kind of wafting in the space. That is just all the delicate, like, you know, lightly smoked cream, you know, for the anglaise, like all of it, just no.

• 40:54Joe Flamm?

  All those fatty things that just pick up flavor so well. And like Eric sounds like weird Noma shit, like trying to infuse onions in a walk-in over a 48 hour period for no fucking reason.

• 41:05Adrienne Cheatham?

  It's a new technique I'm developing.

• 41:07Speaker 02

  It's a new, yeah, exactly. Oh, my gosh. So embarrassing. I never heard the end of that.

• 41:11Adrienne Cheatham?

  Air infusion.

• 41:12Speaker 02

  Yo, I got that from, I got that from everyone. Barry Frisk, my sous chef was there at the time. Funny enough, we came to the restaurant not too long ago and we chuckled about that as well. All the line cooks, like, still to this day, and I won't hear the end of it. And I deserve it, man. That was, that was just like epic. Just, just brain rot. Not even thinking. But yeah, that was, that was me.

• 41:34Joe Flamm?

  But I think those, those are those moments that helped build that grace. You're like, you know what? Like, I might be, I might be this guy now, but I was also that cook who was like, you know, everybody was probably calling Onion Guy for, you know, three weeks after that.

• 41:47Adrienne Cheatham?

  Oh, Onion Eric. I bet for the next month, everybody's like, yo, did you wrap that up? Did you wrap up your mise en place? Did you put a cover on it?

• 41:55Speaker 02

  Oh, my gosh. Now for like every time, I mean, grace, grace, grace, grace. I think that's the, the theme of the, the episode, man. Just anytime like I have one of my line cooks, you know, I have a, I have a 19 year old line cook who absolutely is in love what he, what he's doing and learning. But he makes like silly mistakes sometimes, you know, we're, he's, he's, you know, we, we ask him to get the left-handed, you know, pot and he's literally looking for it. Like we, we, you know, we gag him all the time. But we love how like, just, you know, eager he is to learn. But when you are like, you're, you're gullible too. You know what I mean? And there's just a bunch of grace that you just have to give. So, uh, it's, it's a moment that I will never forget, but it's a moment that also like I remember when somebody makes a mistake. It's just like, yo, you know, let's figure it out.

• 42:38Adrienne Cheatham?

  That's a perennial joke, the left-handed pot. God, I hadn't, I hadn't thought about that in a long time. Oh, man, you just brought back some memories, Eric.

• 42:48Joe Flamm?

  Some things endure. Some things endure all the time. And the left-handed saute pan will always, will always be there. You know what I mean? The empires will rise and fall, but left-handed saute pan jokes will always, will always live on.

• 43:00Speaker 02

  It always.

• 43:01Adrienne Cheatham?

  Live forever. Oh, man. Eric, thank you so, so much for joining us today. Obviously, we have and could and continue to sit and talk all day, but we know that you have to get, you know, a restaurant that you have to get back to to actually like run today. But it has been such a blast hanging out.

• 43:16Joe Flamm?

  Cannot thank you enough for your time, man. Thanks for being here. Always great chopping it up with you.

• 43:20Speaker 02

  Love you too, man. Thank you guys so much. Congratulations on an awesome show, man. This was a lot of fun. Can't wait to do it next time. Whenever you guys are ready, I'll be back. And you guys are two of the industry's legends right now. I look to you guys for so much. And there's a lot of grace that you guys give me as well. So, um, thank you.

• 43:38Adrienne Cheatham?

  Oh, man, that was a blast. I love Eric. He is such a good person and he's just so much fun to talk with.

• 43:44Joe Flamm?

  Fun guy, and there's just so much depth to him. You know what I mean? You always just get a ton out of him and just, you know, loved having him here. Love having him on the pod, so.

• 43:52Adrienne Cheatham?

  Oh, Joe, so this has been another great time hanging out with you, hanging out with Eric. For people who are listening, where can they find you and follow you on social media?

• 44:01Joe Flamm?

  You can find me on social at Insta Flamm. You find me in real life at Boulevard Steakhouse in Chicago, Rosemary and Il Carchofo. Age, where do they find you while you're traveling around the world?

• 44:13Adrienne Cheatham?

  Well, you know, you can always find me and keep up with travels and the restaurants that I'm visiting on social media, IG at Chef Adrian Cheatham. You can also check out my cookbook, Sunday Best, which was nominated for a James Beard Award a few years ago.

• 44:26Joe Flamm?

  Ayo.

• 44:27Adrienne Cheatham?

  Super exciting. And you can also follow our podcast now on IG, Joe. People can check out at Chef's Cut Pod on Instagram and follow along with all the clips, all the guests, all the cool things that we talk about.

• 44:41Joe Flamm?

  Yeah, and we'll have tons of fun stuff to comment and ask questions on there as well. For Joe Flamm, this has been the Chef's Cut.

• 44:49Adrienne Cheatham?

  Life beyond the past.