Chef Christian Gill: The Art of Reinvention

Summer means wide open spaces in a whole lot of extra miles. Last place you want your engine to give out is halfway to nowhere. Out here, low oil or a weak battery is just an ambush way to happen.

“That's why every oil change at Valveline is the oil change of glutes at 18 point maintenance check.”

These text are trained to help spot issues early and give you a run easy. Valveline, instant oil change wisely. Sometimes the hardest journey in life isn't becoming successful, it's becoming yourself. Chef Christian Gil grew up in Lexington, Kentucky, raised by a single mom who worked tirelessly

to give her son opportunities she never had.

She pulled him out of one world and into another and rolling him in a performing arts school where he discovered theater, creativity, and the power of storytelling. But with that opportunity, came a different challenge. In one place, he was told he didn't belong because of where he came from. In another, he was told he didn't belong because of who he had become.

So he learned to adapt. He found his voice through theater. His discipline in the kitchen and his purpose through food. His career took him from Disney to corporate restaurants to one of the most demanding culinary jobs imaginable.

“Creating fine dining experiences inside an art museum without the kitchen most chefs would”

consider essential. It forced him to become resourceful, creative, and relentless in his pursuit of excellence. Eventually, that journey led him to boon town biscuits and whiskey. The restaurant he'd been dreaming about since he was a little boy. It wasn't just another restaurant.

It was proof that a dream carried long enough could finally become reality. Then everything changed. His best friend and business partner, PJ passed away unexpectedly. Just weeks later, the world shut down. COVID changed the hospitality industry forever and Christian found himself finding to keep

not only a restaurant alive, but also his team, his purpose, and himself. He chose therapy, he chose honesty, he chose to keep moving forward. Along the way, another dream began taking shape, television. Under the mentorship of Guy Fieri, Christian learned an entirely different craft. He went on to compete on food network, appeared on Netflix.

He feeded Bobby Flay and became one of the most recognizable culinary personalities in the country. But as the media landscape evolved, he once again found himself adapting, reinventing and searching for the next chapter. Today, Christian serves as one of the culinary faces of Spiceology, while building something

entirely his own. The culinary gang. A creative hospitality platform built around food, storytelling, collaboration, and community. This isn't just a conversation about celebrity chefs or television. It's about identity, reinvention, mental health, friendship, and what it takes to keep believing

in yourself when life keeps asking you to start over. So before we start talking about television, before the restaurants, before the awards, how

any times can a man reinvent himself before he finally becomes the person he was always meant

to be. Chef Christian Gil, welcome to Walking Talk. It's an unknowable amount of times that you can reinvent yourself, mostly because you never really know when you get there until you do. Like, you know when a dish is finished, but then at the same time, sometimes you don't

know when a dish is finished and reinventing yourselves, reinventing ourselves, adapting and re-adapting just to survive. You're doing that until you no longer have to. Sometimes you, like I said, you don't necessarily know that you're done. But when you are done, it feels great.

Are you the dish? I'm the dish. I mean, listen, it's a terrific analogy, and if you look at it that way, do you have to add?

“Do you have to take away, is there enough negatives to be?”

You're the dish. You've got to work on yourself. Everyone is the dish. I mean, there's also the fact that being the dish and being a perfectionist, all of us in the industry at some point, to some degree, are perfectionists of our craft.

Like, you keep working on yourself and keep working on yourself and there's a point where you have to just stop, you've done enough and admitting that, admitting that you've done enough, admitting that you, you have to stop that you are a great place. That's hard for all of us to do. Well, to start with your mom and recognizing that she needed to bring you out of the

environment and bringing you into a more positive place.

I really, my mom never, like she never let me see her sweat.

I never went hungry, even if she did, she never let me see the struggle. I became aware of it eventually, because we all do this kids, but in the early days of young Christian, I was just happy to go like a kid, a lot of family and I just, that's

Where I lived and the crime, the violence, it just kind of grew with me or I grew with it.

Well, we talked about it on our prep call. And when you go from hood to performing arts, that's a major contrast. That's two different, really, two different worlds. Hood to good. Hood to good.

Yeah.

“Do you know what it reminds me of, Prince of Bel Air?”

And the reason is, you go from, you go from neighborhood, tough, whatever, to a place in an environment where the people there are not at all. And you start to learn to change, like, just by nature of being around it. And then when you go back home, what's going to be using? They don't recognize you.

Yeah. Is that, was that your experience? Essentially. Like, I, like, saying that I grew with everything that was happening around me and my environment, that my mom was doing her best to work to the point where she could take

us out of that situation.

I never, I never really, like, I didn't, I wasn't a bully.

I was the one getting bullied. I was the one people who's still in the basketball firm or, like, playing with my friends with the, or action figures or gyro and somebody step on it, take it, like, I couldn't ever play basketball. Like, I was always too shy of here too small to, you know, who with the other kids,

even though I'd go to the court, like, that was, that's where I grew up and leaving there. Because eventually, like, after, after a little bit, we moved to my mom's first house. She was able to purchase. But when I first was, when I first got to Scapa, I was still in, still in the hood. And so leaving there, going to school, like, this whole new world, the magic place I've

never been. I remember when I went from leaving in New York as a child in Brooklyn. And then moving to what, at the time, was very rural, down in very rural, down in South Florida. And it was a major adjustment, you know, I had to learn how to talk again.

I had to re, you know, re educate myself on speaking, because when I was, you know, like, more in New York and whatever, you know, all that around these people, you didn't, didn't really play well.

“And at the end of the day, you have to realize where you're at and adjust.”

It's not even about coats, which means it's just about adaptation. It's being able to adjust to your surroundings, not camouflage and not necessarily fit in, but be able to survive. And like, a lot of times, like, I dealt with that too growing out. Just, you know, was I coat switching or was I just becoming myself?

Yeah. I don't see it as a coat to it. You know, you have to adapt. Yeah. Yeah.

Absolutely. But that kind of shaped you into who you are today, no? Yes, they molded the clay. So theater, how did you actually find yourself involved with acting?

When I first audition for the school for creative and performing arts in Lexington, Kentucky,

my mom wanted me to go there for music for vocal music and visual arts. I sang in church from the time that I was really young and, you know, once you can start audibly making some sort of pitching noises in there like, yeah, that was how I started. And she, you know, my entire family was very musical. My grandmother played the organ in my grandfather's church.

She taught my mom, her sisters, how to play the organ piano. My grandmother taught me a little bit. My mom tried to keep that going and then like I said, I sang. So that's originally what my mom sent me in there for was for vocal music. But when I got there that day, I saw a theater and I was like, oh, that was this.

Oh, I want to paddle about. And like I had already done on TV a couple of times. So I was in the United Way, a big brother's big sister who's so I had to go on TV.

“And they're like, oh, what do you want to do with your name?”

He needs a little, he needs a big brother and I'm like, my name's Christian. Oh, and it would be a buddha ever when I grew up. That's, that's what I said. I don't want to be. And I was like, oh, this is cool.

And so theater. That's what I auditioned for. I also auditioned for Visual Arts as a minor because I really love drawing my mother. Wouldn't make me sit at the table. And draw still lives.

Impressionism. Like we would work on, pointylyism. We worked on all of that. One of my uncles. Great uncles was a really cool artist and he was very accomplished.

Like, he taught my mom and her sisters and my mom was like, you're going to sit here. Like, I played with Legos maps string.

I don't know why, but there's reading books.

“And then building Legos sets from nothing and then maps and string.”

And then art, lots and lots of drawing. So when I got there, when I got to, all of that to say, when I got to the audition day. For some reason, my mom didn't have to go in. Like, I audition for vocal music.

But I also went and it's not going to audition for theater. And then we got, we got her back that I got both. And I chose theater. She was mad. She was big mad.

I don't know that she necessarily wanted me to be like the next Johnny Gill or Bobby Brown, you know. I don't know that she wanted that. Specifically that.

But she wanted me to continue to develop my vocal capabilities and singing.

I wanted to be a goofball on stage. And then I realized that I could do both from theater. Because it was your paragative. I do what I want to do. I tried as a fourth grader.

The theater came before TV. And TV came before National Recognition.

“Are you really a chef or are you a storyteller who happens to cook?”

I'm a chef. I've earned my title the hard way. Trial by knife, trial by fire. This episode is brought to you by Trimark, the largest food service design equipment and supplies provider in North America.

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Now, I've cut blood done everything to that I could ever do to become a chef. And I definitely tell stories with my food. And I do my best to use the gifts that I have and the skills that I've been trained in, and that I've developed to tell better stories with food through experience. Our dining experience pop ups and different brand experiences with the culinary gang,

ritual, dark water, and all these different thematic experiences that are built around the food. So, I've learned how to manipulate the food to tell a even better story, and how to take the story and apply it to the food. So, you're a storyteller, chef. I've seen your knife work.

Chef and soy tar. Yeah, chef and soy tar. And you're saying my knife work is that of a, of a barred instead of a swordsman with our same. I think I think of it that way. But so, I'm saying that you seemingly know what you're doing.

See? I don't turn the knife sideways, sir. I point the knife up and down. Thank you very much. All right, so I know that one of the struggles that you had coming up,

and it's probably one of your biggest testaments to everything you're doing, is your time at the Cincinnati Art Museum. Oh, yeah. I mean, I would say that I definitely was not a chef until cutting my teeth, close hands burning everything at the art museum.

Not burning the art, but burning. You know, hypothetically, poetically tried the analogies there.

“Take it early, but John's going to add it in post, right?”

He was just going to make me sound cool. No, I do all of that, so I suggest you're really nice to me. Oh, okay. Yeah. You're really nice here.

Thank you. Thank you. Lies. I, I do not consider myself. I did not feel like I earned the title of chef or

felt myself that I was truly a chef until my time at the art museum. And there was no, no disservice to the art museum. If anything, this situation there just created like the environment created an opportunity to be more artistic and creative. Like it was forcing me to because they didn't.

They don't have gas to my knowledge to this day. They still don't have gas. The curatorial squad, some of the called. Curators. Curators.

Curators. Curators. Curatorial. are of the national treasure, nickels cage, people, curators. Yeah. Great. Great. Great. Great.

Great. Great. Great. Great. Great. The first one. They, you know, they were just very, very

admin that there wasn't gas. They, I don't think they understood how the answer systems and hit systems work. But the art museum went along with it and they're just like, no, we won't have gas. It's fine. I had two, I had three steamcattles, two five gallon steamcattles and one 20 gallon steamcattles and I had a pair of convection ovens and that's all I had. I got a couple of i-burners. That was, but that was what I had to do weddings, you know, 150 to 200 people,

So it became imperative that I evolved and continued to push myself to learn. I read a lot of

“cookbooks, a lot of cookbooks. I, you know, I feel like we weren't really in the 2012 to 15 range,”

like in that pattern. I feel like we weren't still really obsessed, like using the internet to our advantage. I wasn't going to like food network.com or anything like that. I was just reading cookbooks. I felt like if they managed to put it on paper and publish it, then it must be good and it was. Like I did. At that point in time, you're making a sketchface at me. I feel like yeah, there might be some cookbooks that are just coloring books. But, you know, the ones that I read,

I felt really good about. And that just led me to create more diversify the, you know,

international cuisines that I was trying to apply. Like we had all of these different openings at

the earth museum. We'd have these installations. We'd have Baroque and we'd have high fashion and like high concept and pointless. Like we had all of that come through. And every single time one of those new exhibits came through, I would have to create a brand new culinary experience to go along with the opening for the exhibit. Every single time. And it was the most challenging thing at that point time that I'd ever done, every single time. So it was constantly pushing myself constantly,

having to get better at timing, getting better at manipulation of ingredients, like knowing my temps back and forth, like all of it, being able to keep things in a hot box and keep them stable for 45 minutes to two hours. Like that was, that was my life. And it was there that I truly feel like I earned the title and felt confidently that one day I could have my own restaurant and be chef. Shave was telling me these were all pop up books. No, okay. I mean, there it is, house.

When you lift a page, the, uh, the paperwork turned here. Yeah, this is a, okay. Yeah, not every chef gets to go down the path of having their own place. And it's special. It's definitely an experience. You would think there would be more chefs,

“opening more restaurants. But I believe in an on its site, it doesn't happen as often as people think.”

Even though there's tons of restaurants is, you know, hundreds of thousands of restaurants, millions of restaurants. But there's that many more people that work in these hotels and restaurants and clubs and everything that don't ever open anything. You got to experience that. I did. I let alone, like, just addressing that for a second, becoming a chef and earning the title of chef, you, they're all walks of life. They're all paths. They're all kinds of different paths. It's

the goose bumps, choose your adventure novel where you can choose how you get there, and then it's

going to be the same if you choose that direction. So if you go to school, great. I'm never going

to knock anybody that goes to school. I, you know, not going to knock anybody that doesn't go to school and goes the route of just working their way up in the industry. You learn different ways. But we all

“come to this conclusion that people got to eat and it should be good. And that's that's what makes”

partly makes a chef. Opening your own restaurant, learning how to manage more staff, learning how to manage the day-to-day, the bag of house and the front of house, knowing the bar menu front to back, knowing your entire alcohol program, as well as you know the ingredient list, your your bars like cleaning the toilets, treating everyone your staff and your guests, press whoever, treating them like they or family members. Yeah, but it's not just that. You also know

everybody's life story from your staff to your regular clients that come in. All of a sudden, you're, you know, you're half of a counselor. I don't think of that of it as like a school counselor, like I have summer camp counselor. Well, it could be either one. It depends on the person that you're dealing with, but at the end of the day, you're helping people in their lives. They come to you there. You become a confidant to a lot of these people. Yeah, you just end up with

25 friendier every week. Like, now I'm not going to tell Sally that you took her bobcorn, please don't come back in the kitchen and ask for a friend tries again, like, please. No, you're right. But boom town was your dream. Boom town was the dream originally, the dream and the vision of PJ Newman, my best friend and co-founder in the business. He shared that vision with me and we

to his front of house. I was the Barbara wallwatt's Oprah. Oh, it, you know, I have the culinary

“experience rooted in Southern cuisine, golf, Gigi, you know, deep South Georgia, Central Kentucky,”

Appalachia, Appalachia, Appalachia. Walk and Talk Media is proudly supported by RAC porcelain USA, creating durable, beautifully designed tableware for chefs and hospitality professionals, learn more at RAC porcelain.com. I had that and he had this overwhelming passion for making people happy in the industry and hospitality. So we went from close to close eating every biscuit we could find at every biscuit restaurant we could find,

whether or not they wanted us to be there. And in the end, we felt that we had all the information possible to create the most sincere form of Southern biscuit meets Western frontier concept

with whiskey that we possibly could. Basically, we're skiing. Boom town. So there's like the

Oregon Trail. Oh, we had a dish with sweet potatoes and it was the Oregon Trail. We also had like Sally gets a dysentery, but he made me take that off of them in you. People, if you don't know what this is, if you don't know what this is, then reference to, you've got to just have to google Oregon Trail and dysentery and you're in, you'll know everything. Let me just, just the Oregon Trail part. Yeah. Well, it did well. It'll lead to it. But if you, if you, yeah, look that up by itself

and might not be so savory. Or you can, you can look up Apple to E and games. Okay. In games and games. I got dysentery was like the frontier version of OZMP, so that's okay. That's the well-lements of the band. So much weight loss that you die. Yes. That's a party. It's really fun. It's such a fun party. So owning, owning restaurants. He was our best friend. He was my best friend. He was, I was like best friend to a lot of people because he was a great bartender before. He was

a great restaurant owner. Having a great vision, having a great brand, creating a great brand. He was, I met him originally when he worked at Baker's Field, which was a, it's a restaurant, tacos, and Tequila restaurant in Cincinnati. He was based on, based on Cincinnati. It's grown beyond that now. But that's when I met him. That's when we became friends. So from there,

PJ was always the ultimate snackster. He was always looking for snack,

whether it was taco, didn't matter what it was. It was snack. And then he considered himself a snack. And then we would, we'd snack everywhere. Like with the biscuits and with, with all the whiskey, you know, increasing all of that knowledge to build a restaurant. We would do those things together. I am a fat ass. And the reason I say that is because as you're telling this story, I'm like, oh, I can totally be there for this. Oh, yes. I hope so. There's, there's a meal. But then there's

“snacks to plus the whiskey at that. Yeah. No. I mean, yeah. That was one of the key defining moments”

we wanted to bring. We did originally is that there would always be snacks. Like the bar snacks,

but for everyone. So when you got to the restaurant, you were greeted within 30 seconds of sitting down. You got water. And you were also brought snacks, both vegetarian and made it there in snacks. So we had housemade chitrononus. And then we had housemade vegan chitronus. He's tofu skin. So you can actually actually flash fry fried tofu skin. And it puffs up just like chitronus. I am looking at you with a very skeptical face now. Well, you, you, you question one of them. I was a

chef or just a storyteller. So I'm questioning everything now. Would you tell me about tofu skin, tofu, you know, chitronon. Get out of here. Come up again. Maybe. Maybe. I don't know. Yeah. I, but so you, you, you guys are living your best lives. You're doing it. You're doing it through it.

“Then the tragedy happens. How are you, how are you taking that? And still leading the team?”

How are you, how do you handle that? Because, you know, when you're, when you're, when you're run a restaurant, whether you work in it, own it, whatever, it's 24/7. And it's a barrage of everything that can happen happening. And, you know, with 60 people, 80 people, 100 people, whatever, whatever, you know, whatever, staff number. Because a lot. And I was dumbed them. I lived right next door to boom time. I'm like the fourth floor of a four story, a five story walk up. I was the

They'd come up and ask for my, my dog, because I had to come in down there. And I'm like, what, guys? Yeah. They knew where I lived. My staff would, would come upstairs and just come sit in the air conditioning. And I'm like, what are you doing? And I'm like, one break. I'm like, we don't, what break? And they're like, we cleared the line. Like, we cleared the rail. Oh, okay, fine. Go sit in the walk in. What is this? We crying the walk in. We sit in my apartment.

“That's what we would do. Okay, fair deal, fair deal. So how are you, how did you manage to”

continue leading the team? So the day PJ passed away, I was the first one to be made aware.

I was the first one on the scene. And I had to call his parents and call his wife and find the resolve to go back to work and figure out what to do next. And it was like four blocks away. So that was the longest walk of my life. It was back to the restaurant to figure out what was next. And I thought about what PJ, what would PJ do? And, you know, if tragedy struck and it was something that was going to take everybody out for a while, like, how would he handle that?

And goofball used to constantly look to me for HR, like, if we needed to let somebody go,

hey, what are he like, Christian? Like, we're going to do this. We're going to do this because

you know how to do. And I'm like, at this moment in time, like walking back to boom down just like,

“what would he do? He would ask me what to do. That's what he would do. And because he trusted me.”

And so I got back. I went downstairs. I pulled my management team downstairs and I said, okay, because they all knew something because the Airbnb hostess called the restaurant. And then my GM was like, Christian, you gotta go. And so when I got back, I pulled them downstairs. I somehow. I can't tell you how I told them, but I told them. I don't

remember, like, that's something that I've definitely blacked out. And I know amount of therapy to this

day has been able to take that box off of the shelf and figure it out. But I told them, I said, we're going to take care of all the guests that we have. We're going to stop the weight, but take care of everybody that's been waiting one to two hours. Bring your brain to the restaurant. As soon as I last person in the set, we're going to lock doors, serve everybody that's in here. Don't tell anybody else. Just let me just get the next, like, three hours.

And I'm sure that that was it's own burden that I gave my staff. And, but they did it. We got the restaurant closed. And they knew. It was a pretty tight-knit staff. It was, it was a small crew. It was no more than 18 people all day long. I think on that shift that we had, like, 15. And they could tell something was up. Like, and a lot of them had been there since day one. And this was January 2020. And so we closed and then we got everybody together.

And we told everybody. And let me know. They were in just as much shock as I was. I bolt myself together enough to be able to just do my best to lead and do my best to, to just, you know, land and air. But that was, was it? And we closed the next day and formed all the staff. The announcement went out on on social media. And the roller coaster just went from there. I mean, January 2020. January 18, 2020. I had maybe a week.

I think maybe two weeks. Maybe. And investors and landlords, and they were like, I

“came to me and they were like, you know, if you want to walk away, we'd only understand.”

If you're done, we understand. What would you like to do? And they gave me a couple of days and I said, I'll take it. Like, I think that's not only what PJ would want it, but we built this together. And I have this, this sense of loyalty to my staff. Like, a lot of our staff were from the neighborhood. They were, and we were in a, you know, not, not so elegant part of town, but

lost staff were one, two-time felons and care, PJ and care. Everybody deserved another chance.

“Everybody loved what they did. Everybody cooked. Everybody clean. It was like Starship Troopers when”

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We'll learn more about the mission at the burntchefproject.com. And so I said, yeah, I'll take it on. I'll keep it. I'll run it. And as you know, we go from one mountain, one calamity, straight into another. So you're not shy about a lot of the stuff. And you've been very open about therapy and mental health. And in this business where it's famous for, hey, it's famous for telling the people that work in

it, push through it. You know, buck up, just put your head down and work through it. Your therapist would have told you, hey, man, take your foot off to gas. But you're weighing PJ, you're weighing the staff. Everybody's looking at you like, oh, I don't know. I'll shut this thing down. I don't even know if I'm sure to agree, maybe from the outside looking and outside of our staff, I'm sure people are like, hey, like, don't, don't throw this away.

I'm sure there are people that were like that, that thought that or had those feelings.

“I don't know about my staff. I think they honestly at that point in time would have understood.”

If I said, that's where we're folding it up. If I said that, we're wrapping it up where, yeah, 86 boomed down, they would have understood at that point. Because they were all feeling similar. And in terms of just pushing through the push through or the colleague quits, like throwing in the towel, like they were all weighing the same thing. Because I also told them that, I'm like, if you don't want to stay like I understand,

when everybody stayed. Because it was a rally. We all felt like there was a, we didn't even know

when it was coming. No one knows what was coming. This was the, the second act of the movie.

We were hitting the climax. We thought we were hitting the climax. We thought we were hitting this ending the pinnacle. And then we thought we were hitting that penultimate episode of Game of Thrones. The, you know, dragons enter in the next evil phase, which, of course, is COVID. My goodness. But I felt like everything that could happen to a restaurant owner, operator, chef, that could happen to a person on one other and restaurant happen to me within

span of six months. And I know that I'm a better person for it now, but you're correct. Like, because of COVID, I ended up in therapy and I'm in therapy to this day, happily. If I had had my therapist before COVID, if I went to therapy before, he might have said something different. It probably would have said completely different. You know, from what I, what I chose to do, to your point, we, we, we have to push through the rush. We have to get through the rush. We have

“to get out of the weeds. We have to pour ourselves out of the weeds. That's how we look at it.”

Overall, that's all a lot of people look at it. And so that's what I felt like I had to do.

But there's always another choice. People see Netflix, Food Network, beating Bobby Flay,

but very few people see what it took to get there. With all of these experiences in conjunction with your television, what did this entry point into entertainment teach you?

into entertainment taught me that I need to run with my eyes open, not close.

Instead of just trying to grin, grin and bear it, close your eyes and hang on on the roller coaster,

“you have to just open your eyes. So you see where you're going. I started in 2017 with”

unscripted reality, food television and six weeks on the road with Guy Fietti. On Guy's Big Project, which was his version of Food Network star, where he brought a handful of us along and it was a competition. He brought a handful of us along to learn how to be him. And so you had it in them to have their next touring food travel food show, like Trevor Rocha. And it was

six weeks straight. Six weeks on the road with him learning his every move, what it like his

routine, what the schedules were, the, you're laughing because you assumed that I also bleached my hair and I did not. My hair was blue. But learning his routine, learning learning how to navigate

“with people on camera that had never been on camera, how to work and how to work a room,”

work a kitchen with two people as opposed to just one. Someone that just couldn't get there, someone that was too much like learning how to manage people, but from standpoint of entertainment from television. And then also for me learning how to simmer down because being from theater,

I always was trained to throw any mode to the back of the hall to throw to the back of the theater.

Person in the very last row underneath the mezzanine made it needed to be able to see and feel what I was feeling. So I needed to project those emotions in a mode, sincerely, like that. And with that, the art of subtlety and and talking and communicating to the people in front of me in the camera. It was when I got on the show. I was loud and boisterous and very theatrical and eventually everyone got tired of it and they were just like, you're good, but you're not great. And you're too loud.

And to me, I was like, when you mean I'm too loud. Like, I'm not yelling. I'm not projecting. I'm using my inside voice, but I wasn't subtle in my approach and my delivery and, you know, it's going from this to this instead of this. And I go in all the way up here, it's going from this to this. And that's enough. But that took me, or two, six weeks to learn and do years to understand. But that entry point then led into more opportunities, juggling and open restaurant with more

TV opportunities, not learning how to adapt to the content monster. I mean, it took all of us a while, but my entry into TV and then into entertainment taught me that I needed to be an authority and in my field. I needed to be an authority and Southern food at that point time. They wanted every single chef to just have their own category. Like, they wanted people to turn on TV and go, that's Christian. He's the biscuit man. That's Alex Cornishelli. She's I'm chef. Alex Cornishelli.

“That's Guy Fieri. He has Spiky here and he's things of flip-flops. Like, that's why”

everyone was an avatar for one thing. Everyone was this specific archetype. And that changed very quickly with COVID. Like, we all stopped filming for a while. They had to figure out, you know, we had to figure everything out in the pandemic. And with production, they were figuring out, you know, insurance liabilities. Like, what happens when everyone gets sick? You know, all of that. So everything stopped and everyone started making content at home. And then everyone started paying

attention to the content at home, because there's nothing else to do. And in paying attention to the content at home and having this overwhelming barrage, a salt of entertainment, whether it be info-tamed or edgy-tamed, or whatever it was, there was an abundance of it. And then we slowly just started scrolling faster and faster and faster and doing scrolling deeper and deeper and deeper into the minds of Maria that is media. Until we add to this point to where, you know, you have

eight seconds, ten of 10 someone to keep them. I refuse to give into that. When we started

with segments and whatnot. That was before TikTok. This is before the, you know, seven second

“reals, eight second reals. Support for Walk and Talk media comes from Metro Food Service”

Solutions, trusted by kitchens that need storage and workflow that actually does the job learn more at Metro.com. Into this day, when we film, you know, I mean, listen, we're not doing 15, 20 minutes, but I'm still filming two, three minutes and take it to leave it. You know, take the parts you want, leave the parts you don't. I don't care. But I am not putting out eight second pieces of material. I won't do it. And, and I'll be damned. We're going to bring it back.

We're bringing back the old school. Okay. We're going to do it. Early. I feel like we're on the come up. I feel like it's coming back. People are finally becoming tired of the spastic erratic content that was growing. Yeah. They're becoming tired. The long one was, you know, well, just current events. They're becoming tired of that. They're tired of hearing about that. They're tired of watching someone turn on a, you know, they're tired of turning on their favor creator

for them to say, you know, fish jerky is delicious. Today we're going to make ice cream just so that they get a rise out of people to get them to go swimming in. I'm like, start people are starting to get tired of that. And long form content can be beautiful. And with that food in long form content is quite beautiful. And even beyond that, the food part, yeah, that's, I mean, it's great.

But the stories behind the people who are making your food are pretty incredible, because it's not

like, yes, you can go to culinary school and, and that's terrific. But it isn't like, hey, I went to college to be an attorney or I went to college to be a doctor or I went to college. It's not that. Like these typically speaking, my enlarge up until 15 years or so ago, 20 years ago, you got into the restaurant because you had a record. And I mean, my record is you were in prison, you were in jail, you couldn't go get a normal job and you ended up in food. It's just

“that's how it works. It's still like that today. But it's crowded with culinary school,”

celebrity this and all of that, right? But I think that we're at a place at this point where

the stories are incredible. Obviously, there's a lot of people who get hurt. And obviously,

there's a lot of people who, you know, they clock out and that's it, right? There's a lot of bad stories of the bad endings I should say. But the people who succeed and there's quite a number of them. Those stories are beautiful because it's it's like the human experience in the raw. So yeah, food is pretty. And if you could put on a pretty plate and you weigh that up against this their experiences in life and what got him into the kitchen, man, that's I think that's to me,

that's that's where the action is. The story for every single person that got into the kitchen is deliciously complicated every single story is. And it's worth diving into because everyone's perspective and everyone's journey is different. I would not be sitting here. We wouldn't be sitting here. If it weren't for PJ believing in me to be able to help him bring this dream to fruition, I, if it wasn't for my lack of caring about my mental health, I, if it wasn't for that, I wouldn't

have kept boomtown open. You know, and then if it wasn't for my, my road to recovery in mental health and therapy, processing, being able to work through things on not only on my own, but in therapy. And then with my friends and family, if it wasn't for that, then also will not be here today.

“And speaking of here today, you cooked up a couple of dishes. I think that came out beautifully,”

beautifully. I'm a chef. Thank you, chef. And let's get into that. What were they? It was our first today. We will have a fresh oyster, a freshly shrug right off the vine. Where did you say those from? Those are from Tampa Bay. That. Yes. Them. Them. Them. Them. They are way to second. Limwell, they are. I do the clay. I do the clay. Those oysters came from right here in Tampa Bay from Calusa, Oyster. And I got to tell you something. How, how you saw? I mean, I did. I, I, I, I,

chucked them. They were beautiful, delicious, alive. There are so many times where you just don't even

came from Tampa Bay, like, I, you saw my face. I was like, you lied. I even showed you, because I

took some footage yesterday when I went to go meet up with them at, you know, at the dock of the boat. And everything. And you saw it. I showed you a little beyond in the videos when they come up. I am so thrilled about it, man. I'm over the top because there are good people. Read is it read and he's the owner of their great dude. And they do a terrific job. Actually, there's two reads. Read number one. Read number two. Good people, man. Read squid. Awesome. Awesome gang.

There's the last name where it chids. They're fantastic. Like, the four. You made stuff?

“I mean, if you want to stretch this, you can.”

No. No, I, I, I, I, I say like the apropos funny thing there. I know that I'm not going to put in a bit, you know what I'm saying? I mean, I picked up on the thing that you were talking about. Yeah, you know, I'm on fire right now. It might be a little invisible, but I'm on fire. Can you drive it? You guys are horrible. You guys suck. Right on it. I was talking invisible. I was kind of invisible. Like Clay Aiken.

So yes, so we have these beautiful fresh oysters from the bay of Tampa. I do the clown. We did this wonderful thing where he's trying to stop me from talking. So what we did, we shook the fresh oysters and I did a composed oyster, a pair, a pair rice vinegar,

“minionette, shallot, a little bit of red/one pepper, and some fresh chives, and a little bit of”

crystal hot sauce. That is my favorite hot sauce for all things oysters, and then some Korean jelly threads from Spiceology. I thought the oyster was delicious. I mean, I made it. I thought so. It was fantastic. And obviously, you know, John Hernandez shot them and the photography work, of course, is also delicious. Oh, my beautiful green, that vibrant vermilion. No, that's not. Shared truce, racked porcelain plate. Yes. And by the way, thank you, Tina. Oh, Tina. Yes,

Tina Davis from rack. Tudy. Yeah, girl. Because we actually met in Chicago at the rack party for the NRA. That's right. It was a good time. I was like, I couldn't tell if if you were going to let me be chenanigans. But it was a great time. I walked in. All right, I walked out onto the bout, onto the court yard for Randa. And there I watched tall standing there and looking good. Hair flip it in the breeze. His beard just slowly flippling, wank tumbleweeds. Majestic, if you

know. And I said, is that Fred Durst over there? I was here. There's something to break. I guess that's ironic, because it's a, that's a porcelain coming and give him something to break. But I thought you were Fred Durst. Yeah, that's your number of person number two to say that. I mean, you do have blue eyes. So this is that kind of show. Yeah, okay. But yeah, I know it's a true. I mean, I've had a couple of people now tell me, uh, Fred Durst. I, I have a hard time with it. I was like, I would like something.

What's going on behind this book? There's a lot of pain. Did you break anything? Always. You do

it for the Nucky. I do it for the Nucky. I do it for the Nucky. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining us coming back to us right now. I'm talking to Fred Durst. I do it for I did it for the Nucky. I do it for the Nucky. I do it for the Nucky. I do it for the Nucky. I do it for the Nucky. So we did the oyster. And then I had a meat with another group, forged the organ trail of Florida and meet with Halburns to get the scourry up because we did the Bonnie that I beat Bobby play with.

“And he was really, I mean, I'm actually reading it. Okay. So here's to do. I think it to eat that.”

Yeah, but I did, I did steal. Not a shame at this point. But no, I'm not going to do it now. It sucks because it's, I'm looking at it. It's right there. But I did steal a nicely breaded and seasoned common deer. I stole it. I just, I didn't think I would. I took it. And it was really good, man. I want to have it with everything else on that Sammy right there. I might take a chance. I don't know. Take a chance. Take a chance. Take a chance. Take a chance. Take a chance. James, James. James, you're mine.

Bobby first day in length. I am still free. Please eat my bunny. Do you my very best?

A fresh on shrimp. If you put it to the Tesla launch was not limp. I could, I should stop. She's like, and I mean, he's like, if you don't, I want to take a path. I am leaving this in the

crab-highland seafood dip, creating chef driven crab dips made with real seafood and bold flavor, learn more at crab-highland seafood dip.com. The old dark dog from the office, and it went hard. Somebody will get it. All right, so listen. You've said over under an hour. I'm just providing whatever entertainment I can. We're all in the same gang. All right, listen. You are, sort of, stop at silence. Wait a minute. All right, so this Sammy beat Bobby play. It beat the mess out of

them. Beat the mess out of them. Yeah, I will, I have to say, for this was one of the greatest TV accomplishments. I think that I have. That's one of the things I'm the most proud of.

Because I had never competed in front of a live studio on it. You know what I was saying?

It's like, this would perform in a live studio. I was recording it. I always was like, oh, okay, I'm sure it is. And then I walked out and I was like, oh, they're actually people. You're in the real and they're not plants. And that and then knowing that those people are getting to see behind the curtain, they're in the room where the sausage gets made. They get to see the cuts, they get to see resets, they get to see all of that. That freaked me out. Because up until that point,

I think that was 22, 23, 23. Up until that point, it always been close that. I had never been on an open set like that or a controlled open set. And I was freaking out. I had no idea what the star ingredient was going to be in the quick fire. And I did not know if I had the traps to beat him. Because at that point in time, it was less than he won more than 70% at that time. I think it was like

“86%. And I just wanted to non-buy us myself. That was that's what I wanted. And I beat”

this lovely chef in the first round was the star ingredient was bok joy. I love bok joy. I love

all types. And they had all types in the quick fire. And the one thing I remembered, make sure that the star ingredient is the star of the show. And I had bok joy in like seven different ways in this, in this like bok joy is the VJ that I made. So I had like a bok joy, tigers milk, like leche tagging it. Like I had that. I had fried bok joy, frond, and leaf. And I had sauteed bok joy. And I won, and then Bobby comes out. And there's all the different shows,

the different unscripted futile was been chosen from Netflix to Food Network, Food Network, Food Network Canada. They all have different like change over periods. This is probably the fastest. This one runs at a breakneck speed. Like Bobby keeps it like a well-oiled machine. So you have a moment to breathe before he's out there in front of you. And it's okay. What are you making? I'm staring him down. I'm like, don't, don't say something stupid. Just say where you're supposed to say. Like they

gave you the line. Say, "Bond me." What was that? But the one on my left shoulder is just like, says I'm in dumb. Save a thing. And I was like, "You like biscuits?" And he goes, "I love biscuits." Because he's beat people with his black pepper biscuits. And he was like, "You're like biscuits?" I love biscuits. That's not what we're doing today. And he actually laughed. I was like,

“"He's a human." I watched a god bleed. Like that's how I felt. And then I said, "I'm going to be”

"Bond me." That's what we're doing." And he looked perturbed genuinely. And I couldn't tell. I was trying to read him. I couldn't get a read on whether or not that was real or not if he was done for the camera. But when we cut to reset, to like actually run, he was like, "Can we just do biscuits?" And go home. And I was like, "No." Now we're at a busy hour. I'm like, "Bong on, I'm gonna beat you with this." And he genuinely ate that. And he was like,

"I've eaten more than a handful. I've eaten a few. I haven't made a lot of them." And at that point in

time, and it would always happen to every single show, it's like the rush, the door clicks,

the the printer, the first check off the printer at the beginning of the rush, like when all the

“covers start coming in. They say, "Go." And that's what I hear. I hear the printer. And then I lock in”

and go. And I did. I knew exactly what I was going to make. Didn't know whether or not all the ingredients were going to be there, that like I used what I could find. And I didn't care what he was making. I knew what I was going to make. And I knew it was going to have flavor because that was one of the

"I'm going to do that, right?" Just don't bleed into my shrimp when I cut things like. And we're

like halfway through the cook. We are both pretty quiet. Like, JB's move came over and he was trying to like, you know, do an interchange with me. And I'm like keeping toe to toe with him. And then

“he was like, "Oh, I'm going to keep going." And I was like, "Yeah, I remember when you were in the league."”

And you had a, you know, the lure suit on. And like, you got to push down the hill in a wheelchair and ran into a piano. Like, I'm like, "Go keep and toe to toe with him, given him these like deep cuts." And still cooking. And then he goes, he goes over to Bobby. And he starts antagonizing Bobby. And I looked at the clock and I looked down and realized that I was head. I was like, "Oh, no." This is when people start messing up. Like, I was a head. And my internal

clock, because that's the other thing, is that Bobby's a master of the clock. He knows how long everything takes to cook. That's his, that's his clatter tutorial. Let's his call a scene. So he's Russell Crowe and we got the one with the, yeah, like a, um, communist. And so he's both in, in, in, in his arena. And I look down. I see that I'm, I'm ahead. I see, and like, I'm tasting everything. Everything tastes exactly like I want it to. Like, I know this front and back. I can know what I'm

doing. Because I made a panning-based Kurt panning career early. Instead of or we may only go to Duke's Mayo once. I don't have time to make a real mail. So Duke's Mayo-based panning career spread, uh, some lime leaf, fish sauce, brown sugar, and ground peanuts, shrimp paste, like, I asked for MSG and they were like, "No." And I was like, "Fine. I'm a poodle mommy in here."

Otherwise fish sauce and shrimp paste. So I'm like building a sauce, let it rest. It's the first

thing I do. I'm making these quick pickles. I'm, you know, I'm dredging the shrimp and getting those ready to fry these giant prawns. And I left them whole those prawns. The one thing I did really, really, back at a set me home. Because I left them all. But I saw I'm doing all these things. And then Bobby leaves his station, like, leaves to go get something from a fridge or a blast trailer or whatever. And I'm at the produce, like, I'm in the produce aisle at the pigly,

weekly. I'm in the middle, combing through produce, trying to get, like, cilantro and stuff and tie basal. And I look over and I see this pot. I see this blender. And he's missing an action. So the dumb dumb mom, my shoulder goes, "Go over there and go taste what you got in a buck."

“And like, the, the reasonable one, the therapy one, I was like, "You should probably just go”

back to your station and keep going. Going over there and taste that dude. Me, he ain't doing none of the hand me. We're gonna go taste it." And I went over there and I stuck a spoon in and then ran away. Like, stuck a spoon in. I tasted it. And then ran away. Like, when they showed on TV or on the episode, I tasted it and then turned and he turns to go back to his station. It was the most like, "No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no." Like, it felt like I

hair your mouth curly, like, beans, which, like, Elmer Fud, buckling, it felt like that. And then, the hosts are just like, "Oh, just not going to do that." What's it taste like? And I was like, "This is fine." And I was like, "This is fine." In my head I'm like, "This is too gross." Like, it was this peanut coconut sauce that he was making. Because instead of going via the means, he was trying to just, in my head when I tasted it and I was like, "Okay, he's just trying to combine the elements

of, you know, Southeast Asian cuisine of Gulf of Siam. He's trying to combine all of that together." And so you're coconut milk, Thai, and then you've got peanuts and it's prevalent in a lot of Vietnamese and Thai food. Like, "Okay." I'm like, "Okay, but it tasted bad." Like, it was, there's too much lime juice. He's a big fan of Tangerine juice. Like, that's his asset of choice. And, but it tastes like lime juice. And it was, it tasted better. But I couldn't on tea. Like, I had one yet.

I didn't know if I was going to win. He could turn around. That could have been a bacon switch. He could have known that I was going to do that. They might have told him it was here.

“I don't think so. Because I did it real fast. Well, dumb dumb told me to real fast. I think it”

could come up. But I did it. But he, it just didn't taste. It didn't taste like what I was expecting him to produce. But he was, I could tell he was working. Like, he was, he works. He truly is. He wants

chefs to come in and to win. But he's no slouch at all. He never slouches off. And so I go back to my

station. I taste mine again. Reinvigorated. Like, now I'm like, okay. Like, we're extra locked. And we're

up. And there's like a minute and a half left. And I looked down. And I'm done. And I look over and

“Bobby's half plated. Like, he's struggling. And I was like, just fuss with the plates. Just fuss with”

them. Give the camera off. Oh, my God. Oh, last minute. Oh, like, given a little bit of that, Razzledale. That's the therapy side of me, the dumb dumb side of me. Go over there, mess with him. And I was like, oh, I don't know. Go over there right now. And so I went over there. And I just held my hands up. And I was like, do you need an inch of our hands? Like, I'm like, I'm like, looking at him from his plate. Like, you mean, you want some help? And he's laughing. Like, he actually

he's laughing. Things that's funny. Things that's funny. He finishes. Like, there was one we're done.

And at that point time, I was like, okay, well, I had fun at the end of it. Like, I was locked in

“in super serious and just wanted to do it the right way. And then when I realized that I knew what I was”

doing. And then I was, I was good on time that I, I was keeping pace. If not outpacing outpacing Bobby, at least in that competition. Then I eased up a little bit and began to, you know, just become more fun. And then I won unanimously. And at that point, I was like, no one can tell me that a, I don't see some of my food, or b, that underseasoning your food is a good thing. Now we can tell me that. There are times where subtlety and a subtle hand is needed to let ingredients shine,

especially local ingredients. Like, those oysters today. There's a time and a place for that, but you can still properly season your food and let those ingredients shine. You just got to know what to use.

“Once again, time, time put in, years put in, perfecting what I knew and what I wanted to learn,”

what I wanted to grow in to become a chef, not just a storyteller. What did beating Bobby change for you? No, change the whole game. It opened the doors. It gave me more validation. It showed more in the unscripted television world, more producers, more program development, folks. It showed them and viewers at home that like, I, I wasn't just this boisterous chef, unguised grocery games winning with, you know, Cincinnati, Charlie Poutine.

I already felt and knew that I had become a chef and that I was every day representing to vest my ability and continuing to earn that title of chef. And because restaurant, multiple restaurants pushing through all the adversities I was overcoming to my best to overcome, I already felt that way. But in the entertainment field, beating Bobby Flay definitely gives you a next level crowd. It's, it's pretty interesting how the relationship you have with

spysology actually comes to market because you're able to do TV shows, you're able to, you know, work on your thing, the culinary gang. What's next for you? Next, after these messages. And after what's next? I mean, thinking about what's already come to be,

boondown, COVID, opening the second boondown, closing the first boondown, stepping away,

I applied for maiden cookware and spysology. And spysology said yes. And I've been there for almost five years. And yeah, they give me, they give me the breadth to be able to continue with unscripted television to activate these really cool collaborations with other brand partners, not only for me, but better aligned with them. Because you know, one chip rises all the rise. The more I do all of the cool things that I, I, the more we create all the cool things

that we're creating with the culinary gang and then the more I continue to do food content in all facets and all outlets, just the better, better it is for everyone, more authority that spysology gets for its chefs. So there's not that many of us. And then, you know, the more ability I have to, you know, create with not only their products with others. So next is more therapy. Because we're not going to let that go. Even if we feel happy, you know, we go. We go therapy.

okay, what's time to go back therapy. Grishing those corner gangs going to continue to grow

“is a content machine and consultation. So we consult in the food and beverage industry”

from, you know, small independence all the way up to regional chains. We consult on flavor, on media, content strategy, hospitality, PR, all of it. So there's the gang is alive and thriving and there are multiple members in the gang that can, in the business and the gang that can, you know,

accomplish these tasks and then provide these services. So we're continuing to grow that business.

So you'll see the culinary gang pop up in New York more. Because we do events close to

“because we have ritual, which is one of our really cool, really unique events. Unique experiences.”

We have assassin, something to come. We do events in New York City. We've done events with hexclad with Made in Cookware with Campo Grande, Rack, Porcelain, Zinc. Like we have these really cool partnerships and we continue to crank out these defining experiences. Everyone's like, oh,

you're never going to get this anywhere else. Well, with one of our events, you never will get the

same thing twice, ever. No matter how cool it is and how cool the menu is and how successful that menu is, we will never do it again. It literally is. That is a one night only, like, it's just like with Day of Math, he's been, you know, every single live out of album. Every single live album for Day of Math, these bands can completely different because he, they're more on one album or he, we're on the other. That's on the menu. That's a change of

so one might be spicy and one might not. Just don't crash into me. Okay. I mean, I might switch 86 to the number 41. So, and that's okay. Yeah, all right, this is today was freaking awesome, man. I'm so happy that you and Shake out to come out and hang with us and do awesome content. How did people find you, Ben? That's gonna be a food brush ninja and the culinary gang on Instagram, chef-crushinggill www.theconeragang.com. Yeah. Okay, and let me tell you something. I feel like we should

“probably put together some sort of a collab as well. I think we should do a dinner collab. Yes.”

Yeah. Do you want to jump to the new gang? You just gotta learn. Okay, I'll walk the line bro. Let's go. Let's go. All right, come with us. Oh my goodness. John, as usually you did great. Listen, Halper and Richard, Olivia, you people are awesome. Read and read over at Kaloosa Oyster. It all came through in the class today. Appreciate everybody. We are out. [Music]

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