Michael Solomonov on Zahav, Addiction, and Why Philly is the Best Food City!!

Adrienne and Joe are joined by acclaimed Chef Michael Solomonov to talk his award-winning restaurants, the thriving Philadelphia restaurant community, and the realities of addiction and recovery in the industry. In this episode, we also discuss: The origins of Zahav and the inspiration of Israeli food culture Opening a restaurant during the 2008 recession Why Philly’s food scene thrives: affordability and community Moving beyond traditional French and Italian fine dining Ingredient integrity: prioritizing substance over hype Addiction, recovery, and rebuilding a life in the kitchen Building healthier kitchen cultures and leaning on partners Walk In Confession: Cooking out of a neighboring bodega to keep service alive during a power outage. Follow Michael: @mikesolomonov Follow the show: @chefscutpod Follow Adrienne: @chefadriennecheatham Follow Joe: @insta.flamm

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

• 0:11Adrienne Cheatham?

  This week on The Chef's Cut, Joe and I are joined by chef, cookbook author, all-around award-winning badass Mike Solomonov of Philadelphia, Zahav, and other restaurants. We're going to talk with Mike about opening up the world of fine dining to new cuisine.

• 0:27Speaker 01

  I'm like, nobody is fucking eating like this in the States.

• 0:30Adrienne Cheatham?

  The reason Philly is the hottest food scene in America right now.

• 0:34Speaker 01

  Oftentimes, our employees and our guests share the same zip code.

• 0:38Adrienne Cheatham?

  And how he made it through a night service with absolutely no electricity.

• 0:42Speaker 01

  I was running hotel pans of glazed lamb shoulder 600 feet back and forth.

• 0:49Adrienne Cheatham?

  But first, Chef's Cut Nation, we need 10 seconds of your time. Please be sure to rate and review wherever you get your podcasts and subscribe on YouTube. It really helps.

• 1:01Joe Flamm?

  We have Mike Solomonov.

• 1:02Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yes. Oh, my God, Joe. Now, this is maybe a little controversial, but for the past maybe eight to 10 years, I have said that my top three food cities in the US are Chicago, Philadelphia, and New Orleans. I mean, I think the three cities, they have such diversity, and they celebrate that diversity. People aren't trying to like, conform their cuisine to a French paradigm or a tasting menu format. You have people making really good food. Philly was always known for French fine dining. You had Georges Perrier at Le Bec Fin, and you had Mark Vetrri with his restaurants. You had fine dining French and fine dining Italian.

• 1:45Adrienne Cheatham?

  But when Mike Solomonov opened Zahav in Philly, it changed the game. Like, obviously, in 2026, we know modern Middle Eastern cuisine. But in 2008, when he opened Zahav,

• 2:00Joe Flamm?

  Crazy.

• 2:00Adrienne Cheatham?

  That hadn't been done before.

• 2:01Joe Flamm?

  No, no. And I don't think that gets enough like praise of like, not only did he go out on this limb, but then it's a limb that, you know, so many people have joined him on. You know, you've, we've seen the Renaissance of that over the last two decades almost now.

• 2:17Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah.

• 2:17Joe Flamm?

  And I think, you know, Michael's a huge part of that. Like, yeah, he's won awards. Yeah, he's done all that. But I think his approach to saying, you know, I'm going to take the food of, you know, kind of my ancestors and what I grew up with and take all this technique on all this sourcing, you know, and use that to tell this, right?

• 2:37Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah.

• 2:38Joe Flamm?

  And I think that it plays out over all these different cuisines. I think Italian cuisine kind of was the bearer of it first. And then now we're watching it flow through even all the Afro-Caribbean stuff we've been talking about lately.

• 2:50Adrienne Cheatham?

  Right. And we've had a lot of the people who are responsible for bringing these new cuisines to the forefront of American dining. And that's why it's so exciting to have Mike Solomonov today, because he is one of those people who ushered in new types of dining across America. So I'm super excited to talk to him today.

• 3:17Adrienne Cheatham?

  It seems like the food scene in Philly has just, I mean, it's gone bananas over the past, you know, eight to 10 years. First, we had Cleaning Up with James Beard Awards, then The Fishing Guide and Turned Philly. What has changed in the time that you've been in Philly that the food scene has grown so much? What have you seen change?

• 3:38Speaker 01

  I mean, honestly, so much has changed. I think that the beautiful thing about Philly

• 3:43Speaker 01

  is that just the cost of living and cost of doing business is still, compared to other big cities, reasonable. And that allows for extremely personal, I wouldn't say low risk, because it's still, like, we're still in restaurants here. But like, we are a very immigrant-friendly city, and we have people that move to the city from all over the world that can basically afford to like, open restaurants in the city, you know? And I don't know, it's just a weird thing. I say this all the time, but like, oftentimes, our employees and our guests share the same zip code. And that's a really special thing. I think that

• 4:25Speaker 01

  just sort of the expansion of the city before it was like, when I first moved here, and I worked at Vetrri. At the time, though, it was like, you worked at Vetrri if you wanted small Italian. You worked at Stripeas if you wanted like, French and kind of new American, or you worked at like, Le Bec Fin, and then, or you worked for Stephen Star if you wanted to learn sort of volume and systems and all that. And now, you know, you could go work for Christina Martinez at South Philly Barbeque and make like, the sickest fucking lamb. There's just so many different kinds of places to work here. We have the best Chinatown. Philly is the best Chinatown.

• 5:03Joe Flamm?

  That's what every Philly person used to talk about. I worked with. When we opened Girl on the Goat, it was like, our crew was super Philly-heavy for some reason.

• 5:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 5:11Joe Flamm?

  And all they used to talk about, they were like, the Chinese food in Philly is the best Chinese food.

• 5:15Speaker 01

  It's so good.

• 5:17Joe Flamm?

  Certainly would beat that drum.

• 5:19Speaker 01

  It's crazy good. I mean, it's just crazy good. And there's so, it's like, pretty big, I think, in terms of like, North America. I think it's like, what, San Francisco, Vancouver, maybe LA, and then Philly or something like that. But for, you know, for center city, that's kind of a big deal. And so, I don't know. And then we get huge Vietnamese, huge Cambodian, huge Puebla population. The city is just rich. And so, before, I think it was a little bit less, I don't want to just use the word diverse, because that's not accurate. Philly is extremely diverse, but the representation was a little bit different. And I think that also that changed with the American diner wanting more, the idea

• 6:01Speaker 01

  that before it was like, you know, you'd go to like, Spiaja and spend a ton of money on fancy wine, Joe, right? And that was the idea. Or you go to Liberty then. And that was like, going out. And now, there are so many different ways to experience dining and restaurants, and it doesn't have to be that. So it's, that's what has changed so much with Philly. And Philly's a blue collar city and kind of perfect for that variety.

• 6:24Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yep. I love it. That's like, being from Chicago, like, Joe and I both grew up on the South Side of Chicago. We didn't know each other until we met on Top Chef. But there was something about him. It's like, you can tell people from cities like Chicago, Detroit, Philly, there's just like, this blue collar ethos where it's about work, it's about determination, it's about substance over style. And I think that's what I love so much about the food in Philly, is people care more about the ingredients, they care more about what goes into it. And Joe was actually telling me a little bit about your sourcing, and how that was a huge inspiration for him.

• 7:03Speaker 01

  Oh, that's awesome.

• 7:04Joe Flamm?

  Yeah. So, like, you know, you and I met because when you did your cookbook launch, we did it at Cafe Spiaja.

• 7:11Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 7:11Joe Flamm?

  And I remember.

• 7:13Speaker 01

  That was our first stop on our first cookbook tour.

• 7:16Joe Flamm?

  That was the first stop?

• 7:17Speaker 01

  First stop.

• 7:17Joe Flamm?

  Oh, man.

• 7:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:19Joe Flamm?

  So I, like, I remember being so nervous and like, you know, you sent me the cookbook, and I, you know, I was reading it, you know, like, front to back, and I knew none of the ingredients. I didn't know how to pronounce anything. And, you know, we had a couple calls together, and you were, you were beyond nice. I think what struck me when I read the book the first time, you know, I still, still have, still have. And I still have. It's one of the only books I have two copies of on my shelf, because you signed one for me, and you signed one for my wife. It's, it both sit right behind me. But you were so intentional, not just, you know, when you talked to me through everything about, not just like, how to cook things. You were like, all right, just do it like this and

• 8:02Joe Flamm?

  this, and I'll set it up. And, but you're like, it has to be a Tahiti like this. It has to be lamb shoulders like this. The attention to detail, I mean, to me, that was like, so inspiring. It's like, the, the putting the importance of like, you know, you never talked about like, the plate up with me before that. It was like, we just needed to be like, we need to start with this. Because if we don't start with this, we're not going anywhere. And like, your level of dedication and passion for that, I thought was so inspiring, like, you know, how I thought about cooking since then, like, completely.

• 8:35Speaker 01

  I really appreciate it. I mean, I feel like not that much has changed in terms of my ethos, right? Where, it's funny, like, the plate up, I could kind of care less. But I mean, you know, obviously, doing service, I'll like, change it 100 times. And this goes back to the sort of idea of our cities at large, which is that like, hype doesn't work in places, and it has to have soul and has to be emotional, you know? The food that you all were part of at Spiaja really changed, like, Italian food in the United States kind of before. And I, you know, worked at Vetrri, which I think was kind of on the same, had the same sort of impact, you know? I mean, I don't know. So when you learn from people

• 9:19Speaker 01

  that really care deeply about process and about ingredients and about preserving integrity and not like, you know, likes or fucking whatever it is that we all have to be concerned about all the time, I think it really changes the way that you approach food and then approach people.

• 9:45Adrienne Cheatham?

  This is something, Mike, that we've asked Nina Compton when she was ushering in Afro-Caribbean cuisine.

• 9:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:52Adrienne Cheatham?

  Simon Kim, you know, opening up a Korean steakhouse. Like, how did you know that this would work?

• 10:01Speaker 01

  Well, we definitely didn't know that it would work. We bullshitted investors and said, this is going to be the next big thing. Because there's so many different kinds of gastronomies that make up Israeli cuisine specifically. At the time, before we opened Zahav, if you wanted to be a recognized chef, you went to New York and you French food. And then you went to like either France or Spain. Like, everybody was going to Mugheris or Arzak. I almost did a two-year stage at Arzak. At the time, they only had two-year stages at the time.

• 10:38Adrienne Cheatham?

  Wow. Yeah, if you were really trying to like get into Il Beli, it was the only other like.

• 10:43Speaker 01

  Il Beli was like almost impossible.

• 10:44Adrienne Cheatham?

  Those three were like, everybody was trying.

• 10:46Speaker 01

  It was Arzak, Il Beli, Mugheris, whatever. And so, or you went to Michelle Bra. Or if you went like the Italian route, you just kind of worked wherever and just like, you know, held farm. And so, and then you went back to your city, presumably New York or SF, and you opened a restaurant and you got a Michelin star and you died. And that was like what you, right? That was the goal.

• 11:12Joe Flamm?

  Yeah.

• 11:13Speaker 01

  You know?

• 11:13Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yep, the formula.

• 11:14Joe Flamm?

  A hundred percent.

• 11:15Speaker 01

  That was it.

• 11:16Adrienne Cheatham?

  That was the playbook.

• 11:17Speaker 01

  You neglect your family and you make like $42,000 a year and then you like die, right? And so, you know, I went back to Israel to visit my brother and my mom. And I had been there in a while and I was just like, I was shopping to make a meal for my mom. She bought me a plane ticket and I said I would cook dinner for her friends, which I thought was like five people. And she'd invited like 40 over like two days. And I was like, fuck, you know, and so.

• 11:46Adrienne Cheatham?

  Thanks, mom.

• 11:47Speaker 01

  Getting to travel the country and understand the sort of importance of that food and that cuisine and that place with, you know, trying to plan a meal was really eye-opening. And then I went back a couple of years later and just went to the Hatikva neighborhood. And there, all these different like grill kind of restaurants that were basically presumably just like a bunch of different salads, charcoal. And then there was sort of a communal like taboon or like tandoor oven in the middle. And all the servers would run and get bread from that oven. And so you'd sit down and they'd be like, you want salad? And you're like, yes. And there'd be like 20 different little dishes.

• 12:28Speaker 01

  And then you'd pick your meat, which was like skewered and cooked directly over charcoal, like an inch over charcoal. And this lava bread, this is sort of an Iraqi-style pita that's actually speaks to trade and sort of cultural exchange between, you know, Baghdadi merchants in like India, which is why we also use mango pickle. It's fascinating. That's one, that's like bread, right? And then there'd be all these different salads that discuss sort of anthropology, commonality, conflict even, you know? And it was like so amazing. And I'm like, nobody's fucking eating like this in the States. And actually, that was really, when we discussed Zahav, it was more of like what Laser Wolf is now.

• 13:11Speaker 01

  We just didn't think people would totally understand that. So we wanted to greet more of a restaurant. And Zahav is considered to be a little bit more fine dining, but it's not. I mean, it's not fine dining. It's just, I guess, more elaborate. But that was it. So yeah, I was just like eating there and being like, man, nobody's doing anything like this at all. And I want to be, I want to be the first. I want to be the person to bring it. And I didn't think it would be, I don't know.

• 13:37Adrienne Cheatham?

  You didn't think we were going to win all the awards?

• 13:38Speaker 01

  Well, I don't know. Well, definitely not, definitely not awards, definitely not awards, definitely not mass recognition. And success for us is what? Staying open for a couple of years or not losing money?

• 13:51Adrienne Cheatham?

  Right.

• 13:51Speaker 01

  For five years in a row, being able to pay yourself, that came only after three years. I don't know. Right, exactly.

• 14:00Adrienne Cheatham?

  That's great, yeah.

• 14:01Speaker 01

  I don't know. And then everybody talks about, you know, the awards and stuff. And that's great. But like the reality is, you know, we're almost 18 years old. We made some mistakes last night doing service. Tonight, we have to, the curtains go up and we have to do it better than we did last night. So I don't know.

• 14:18Joe Flamm?

  Yeah. And I think it's, you know, I remember like, you know, reading your book for the first time. And before I worked for Tony, I'd come from two years of making Korean barbecue. So I was like.

• 14:29Speaker 01

  So you're like banjo.

• 14:30Joe Flamm?

  I was like, I was like, like you were describing to me on the phone. I was like, we're going to get banjo. You were like, yes, exactly. I was like, holy shit. I was like, this is awesome.

• 14:41Speaker 01

  Just put a little bit more salt and lemon that you think and you're good. Yeah.

• 14:45Joe Flamm?

  You're like, yeah, dude, we're making like Korean barbecue, but just we're flipping the flavors. And I was like, all right, I get it now. Like, I understand. You know what I mean? And so I thought it was so cool and that, you know, something I do.

• 14:55Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah, and that's been like a common theme with some of the people that we've talked with on the pod. Like, they didn't see it before and they didn't even start off cooking that type of food. Most of the chefs that we've talked with, they weren't cooking the kind of food that they are now known for and that they created this massive space on the American table of bringing these new cultures forward. But at the time that they started, it wasn't being done. And so Joe and I are always like, you know, how did you know? Like, how did you know that this would work? And there is no, there is no one answer. Everybody's like, I had no idea it would.

• 15:29Joe Flamm?

  Yeah, it's like I took a shot, you know?

• 15:31Speaker 01

  Well, we almost went under. I mean, we had a really, really rough opening and we opened in 2008 and.

• 15:37Adrienne Cheatham?

  Oh, that was a tough year.

• 15:39Speaker 01

  Shitty year. I mean, it seems in retrospect after COVID, you're like, wasn't so bad, but it was really, really bad. I was struggling with drug addiction and kind of keeping it a secret. And so we had opened in May. I was in rehab in like July. I found out in rehab on a payphone that we had won Esquire's like top whatever. And then in October, right before the awards for that, maybe it was during, I like received an award next to Daniel Bull, like all my heroes. And then Wachovia and AIG went under and we were doing like 17 covers a night.

• 16:16Speaker 01

  And it was so bad. I was like, you know, in and out of like relapsing and had to borrow money from my dad for the first time. You know, I don't, we grew up pretty modest. And so I had to like borrow money from my dad who was in Israel to make payroll. He knew that I was like 50 or 60 days clean. I was calling my father in a different country to ask for a check for like 10 grand or whatever to like literally make payroll. And after I'd just come out of rehab and I remember, you know, Steve and I were like in the back of Zahav smoking cigarettes, like, oh, fuck, what do we do? Like, I've never had to ask my parents, you know, like I've never been in a position like that before.

• 17:00Speaker 01

  And I was doing it like very early in recovery. And I remember calling him and he's like, okay, are you okay? Are you okay? And I was like, yeah. And so I hang up and then Steve's phone rings and it was my dad calling to make sure that I was like not, you know, use your imagination. And God, it was so shitty. It was so fucking bad. So we did that. And then, you know, we, we had to do like restaurant week, which we never thought we'd be in a, like we would have to. And which was a really important lesson for us, just in terms of being fucking humble and like paying attention to our guest, knowing that our guests are like the most important thing, not our egos.

• 17:41Speaker 01

  And so we did restaurant week, which actually forced us to put a menu in like a five-course sort of vibe, which was like the only, it was like the first time we could actually communicate with our guests on how to eat the food. And I remember we were like busy for the first time. It was like one week. And because it was kind of recession time, they did two weeks of restaurant week. And we, break even was like $40,000 for us a week. We did 52 grand the first week of restaurant week. And I was like, oh my God. And then our, fucking the first Saturday in between both weeks, our hot water heater went out and it cost $12,000 to repair.

• 18:24Speaker 01

  And I was like, oh my God. And so we couldn't stop, obviously. So we just, this is completely against code. We had giant stockpots of boiling water at all times and we were doing dishes in there because we're like, we just had no choice. It fucking sucked. But that was, that was when I think we were going to make it. I was like, okay. Yeah, it was fucking nuts.

• 18:45Adrienne Cheatham?

  And kudos to you for sticking with it, you know, personally with everything that you were going through as well as professionally. Because that is.

• 18:53Speaker 01

  So hard.

• 18:53Adrienne Cheatham?

  I can't imagine.

• 19:02Adrienne Cheatham?

  What's something that you never thought that you'd be doing in your career that you're currently doing?

• 19:06Speaker 01

  I mean, listen, I've got, I live a life beyond my wildest dreams. So like the idea that people like you all that are successful, that I look up to, wanna like talk to me after the shit that I've been through, that I've like done, you know, is amazing. Like that's amazing. Like from a recovery standpoint, that's a fucking amazing. And I would say that the being the privilege of being able to practice hospitality, which is just essentially generosity. After I've taken so much from people is fucking amazing. I mean, that's huge. So that's amazing. I don't know. I mean, God, it's hard.

• 19:44Adrienne Cheatham?

  And you literally have a hummus at Whole Foods now.

• 19:47Speaker 01

  Okay, hummus on Whole Foods, my picture on the hummus, being able to like walk down the street with my kids and.

• 19:53Adrienne Cheatham?

  And can I tell you like, and people are probably recognizing you.

• 19:57Speaker 01

  Got a face for radio, bro. I don't know. I think that if we changed the label, we'd probably sell more hummus, but.

• 20:03Adrienne Cheatham?

  It's so funny. When you opened Dizengoff, I remember my husband and I, we would, you know, take weekend trips to Philly here and there to go to Reading Terminal Market and all the places. And we're like, oh, Mike opened a new place. Let's go check out Dizengoff. And I was like, this is the best hummus I've ever had. When I tasted it, I was like, what is going on here?

• 20:21Joe Flamm?

  When he made it at Cafe Spiaja, that was the first time. And I was like, oh, I've never had hummus.

• 20:28Joe Flamm?

  Like I thought, I thought I had. I was like, holy shit.

• 20:32Speaker 01

  Well, I listen, I mean.

• 20:33Joe Flamm?

  This is crazy.

• 20:34Speaker 01

  Like the things that I don't like doing now, you know, we've got hundreds of employees and I do feel like I'm a bit of an HR director. And I really don't like that. I don't think I'm that good at that. We have an amazing HR director, but my partner Steve and I really do spend a whole lot of time managing all of it, though. I really do try to put a positive perspective on because that essentially is the only control we have in our lives.

• 21:01Joe Flamm?

  I think it's wild too. It's like, we came up in an industry at a time where it's like, you had to like go hat in hand to places to get a job. Right. And be like, please just let me work here. Please.

• 21:13Speaker 01

  I'll work for free.

• 21:15Joe Flamm?

  Just let me be in your kitchen. Just give me a shot. You know what I mean? I'm not a piece of shit. I'll show up tomorrow. Like I promise I'll work hard. And I think like, that's the weirdest thing. Like for me, it's like, as my career's grown, it's like, oh no, like people like, pay me to be somewhere. You want to like, talk to me? Like, you know what I mean? I like beg people to let me like clean their shallots.

• 21:41Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 21:42Joe Flamm?

  You know what I mean? So it's like, I think like, that's the perspective always of like, all the craziness is just like, it's like, man, it's like, we did way worse shit for way less. You know what I mean? To get here. You know what I mean? It was like, you know, so it's like.

• 21:55Speaker 01

  That's the important thing though. Also, and maybe the lesson is to never believe what you read about yourself. You know, and I feel, and like, again, for better for worse, but I would say like, the real question, like, how do I keep going? It's my business partner, Steve, and you know, he and I are besties. We're BFFs and, and brothers. And we've been through hell and back. I could not imagine doing any of this shit alone. And the secret to our success is our partnership.

• 22:24Joe Flamm?

  You know, I, I'd say that all the time. Like somebody asked me the other day, they're like, oh, you had all this stuff going on. How do you, how do you do it? It's like good partnership. It's like at home, at work, everywhere. I have, my life is filled with tremendous partners in everything I do, from my personal life to my professional life. And it's the only reason I exist. And it's the only reason I'm successful. Without it, I am just a wild man on the lam. Like, you know what I mean? There's like, you know, it's like, I need it. I have to have it. Otherwise it's just like, yeah, we're just, you know, dive bar legends.

• 22:55Speaker 01

  You know, we think about this, I mean, we still want to be dive bar legends, but I drink clubs.

• 23:01Adrienne Cheatham?

  That's my goal.

• 23:02Speaker 01

  Bars now. Yeah. It's really awesome. But I think, you know, early on, one of my amazing sous chefs, Shazad Khan, he was the exec sous and eventually CDC at Straight Pass under Terrence, the best cook I've ever worked with to this day, just unbelievable cook. And he was like, uh, you know, a good cook knows when to ask for help. And that was also back in the day where you still didn't ask for help. And, um, you know, it was a hostile, very competitive environment.

• 23:41Speaker 01

  And I remember in very early recovery, being like, fuck, I need to like ask people for help because I can't do this shit alone. And so I think that lesson, I just, is like a template for life. Like I think it's, we're not taught that it's okay to be vulnerable. It's not okay to like, ask for things when you need them. And I'm not just talking about

• 24:07Speaker 01

  like time off or whatever. I just, sometimes it's, it gets to be too much. And you're like, I just, I need, I need some, I need support.

• 24:22Adrienne Cheatham?

  There is a special part of the show, Chef, that we love to get into and we love to call it walk-in confessions. And this is like a funny story from earlier in your career, a time you had to pull a rabbit out of a hat, or maybe it didn't happen, but you, you know, figured it out.

• 24:42Joe Flamm?

  Service that was almost your last one where you're like, you know what? I'm just gonna go out this back door and go into the night. And people will be like, remember that Mike guy who worked here?

• 24:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That happens once a week, I think.

• 24:57Speaker 01

  Oh my God. Okay. So when we did our first major renovation at Zahav, we were expanding. There was like a music studio next to us and they left and then we took it over to create private rooms. We were renovating the kitchen after we had kind of opened the private rooms and they were cutting into the floor to like lengthen plumbing into a different kitchen for more drainage. And they hit like an electrical line that was like from the city, but there was like a live wire in the ground of Zahav and we'd lost power.

• 25:34Speaker 01

  What we had decided to do was because we were renovating the kitchen and the dining room at Zahav is that we were going to do these family style dinners in the private rooms to keep everybody busy and to keep kind of income. So we can make payroll. And we were going to do, we called it lamb shack and it was salads and hummus and lamb. And like an hour before our first service in February, we have no electricity whatsoever to those rooms. So it's fucking 39 degrees. We have no ovens, no lights. And I was like, oh my God. And there was a, um,

• 26:20Speaker 01

  like behind Zahav, behind the courtyard in the back of Zahav is a convenience store

• 26:27Speaker 01

  that had two rationales somehow, which we up until only recently, we never got, we now we have rationales.

• 26:36Adrienne Cheatham?

  But the bodega had them.

• 26:37Speaker 01

  The bodega had them. We just had like, we just had like, you know, like normal conduction ovens. And I was like, okay, uh, okay. So luckily the only things that have to be heated are the pita, the lamb and the rice. And we can make it work with that salads are room temperature. So we've lit what had to have been like 300 candles. We closed all the doors to kind of warm it up in the dining room. We told everybody to keep scarves on. And I was running with fucking sheet trays or hotel pans of glazed lamb shoulder, like 600 feet back and forth

• 27:19Speaker 01

  with pots of rice and all that. And we turned out dinner from that bodega for the first two nights. It was fucking crazy.

• 27:29Speaker 01

  It's two nights. Yeah. Yeah, we had, there was a, there was a fucking live wire. There was a live wire coming from the city.

• 27:36Joe Flamm?

  Drop on that. It's not only like, okay, it's one thing of like, we're going to make this work for one night.

• 27:40Adrienne Cheatham?

  We gotta do this again.

• 27:42Joe Flamm?

  It's like, yo, let's run it back. Like that, that worked. Okay. Right?

• 27:44Speaker 01

  It worked. Okay. Well, the second, the bodega guys were cool. Um, and they definitely got lamb for their staff meal. And then we got those like, you know, those cassette burner, those propane burners. So we upgraded like the next day and got those for like rice. We were still glazing lamb in the, in the bodega and running it.

• 28:04Joe Flamm?

  Playing scratch offs while you're like glazing lamb, you know?

• 28:07Speaker 01

  Or like lighting cigarettes. Yeah. Um, but I mean, I just, you know, having to run hotel pans of lamb shoulders across like a courtyard, you know, it's just, yeah, it's fucking nuts.

• 28:21Joe Flamm?

  That's why like cities like Chicago and Philly are the fucking shit though. It's like, you could go to a place and you're like, hey, I need to use two ovens for the next six hours. And they're like, yeah, no problem. I got you.

• 28:31Speaker 01

  They're fine. They totally get it. Totally get it.

• 28:34Joe Flamm?

  It's all right. You know what I mean? Like wipe your shoes.

• 28:37Adrienne Cheatham?

  Oh, you're from that restaurant next door? Yeah. Okay. We know you. Come on in.

• 28:40Speaker 01

  It is a good, it is a good thing and community. I mean, it takes a village to, with a child and to maintain restaurants and small businesses. So.

• 28:50Joe Flamm?

  It takes every contact in your phone to do both. I feel like, it's like, yo, who do I know who knows something about this? And then somebody's cousin's brother shows up and is like, yeah, listen, I'm going to replace the cord on the back of this cooler. Don't tell anyone I was here. This isn't a job I should be doing, but you know, you may make dinner for my anniversary three years ago. So don't worry about it.

• 29:10Speaker 01

  Right. And then you're like, uh, actually do you have any knife skills? Because we need to do like one part of service. Yeah.

• 29:18Joe Flamm?

  You ever worked garmo before?

• 29:20Speaker 01

  Yeah. I, yeah, I mean, it is, um,

• 29:25Speaker 01

  I don't know. You sort of wish you'd never have to do that stuff, but the reality is we do all the time and you definitely get better at it. But man.

• 29:34Joe Flamm?

  You know, you know what the, the real messed up thing to me is like, and I think with all of us is like, when you hear stories like that, there's a part of me where I'm like, that's the shit. And I wish I was there for that service so much. Like I was like, I want to be in that courtyard with you more than I can describe to people.

• 29:53Speaker 01

  You gotta make it happen.

• 29:54Joe Flamm?

  Such an unhealthy about of like, man, like to like, have to do that for two nights.

• 29:59Adrienne Cheatham?

  Are you having a little FOMO about the courtyard run? You missed it?

• 30:02Joe Flamm?

  He can describe being at a beach vacation. I'd be like, that's fine. That's great for you. I love that.

• 30:07Speaker 01

  I want to be there.

• 30:08Joe Flamm?

  In a courtyard with like candlelight in the freezing cold. And I'm like, oh my God, brother, put me in.

• 30:14Speaker 01

  Don't you feel like what we do, it's like, you're like the team that gets shot onto the asteroid to blow it up? Like we do that every night, you know, we're part of like the Armageddon team.

• 30:25Joe Flamm?

  You're Bruce Willis every night.

• 30:27Speaker 01

  I don't know. Um, I don't know. Or like Steve Buscemi, I think in that movie.

• 30:35Speaker 01

  Right? I don't know. Yeah.

• 30:36Adrienne Cheatham?

  Oh man, Chef, thank you so much.

• 30:39Speaker 01

  Oh my gosh. Love you guys. Thank you so much for having me.

• 30:42Adrienne Cheatham?

  Hanging out with you.

• 30:43Joe Flamm?

  This was so fun, man. Thank you for taking the time. I know you're busy.

• 30:46Speaker 01

  I really appreciate it.

• 30:47Joe Flamm?

  Absolute pleasure.

• 30:49Speaker 01

  It's my pleasure and my honor. And, uh, you know, I can't wait to see you all in Philly.

• 30:56Adrienne Cheatham?

  That's it for this episode of the Chef's Cut. Be sure to subscribe wherever you're listening, especially if you're watching on YouTube where you can get full length video of every episode and be sure to follow us on IG at the Chef's Cut Pod. For Joe Flamm, I'm Adrian Cheatham, and this has been the Chef's Cut, Life Beyond the Past.