Nomadic Hospo | Hubert Haciski Part 2

Chef attends sushi chef institute in California - opens up pop up in Hamburg. A love story about cooking, spearfishing, building a better life, and travelling - all while being in a travelling kitchen. 

It's 2023, toxic kitchen vibes are out. Being drunk on a chartered yacht and yelling at your chef to bake you a cake - out. Taking a phone call before walking into a cafe and ignoring your barista - bye bye. Coffee robots taking over the world, pouring swans and 70 tiered rosettas and tulips -  giving baristas the boot? Please no.

Perhaps 2023 is the year of reflection, hitting the pause button to revaluate, reassess and address.  Identify the gaps, hype yourself up, and lean into your skills and interests to add value in an automised and bland world. Spice it up.

Hubert and I cover a lot in this second part of our podcast episode: how to let go of fear and pursue your passion, how to do your part by living a more sustainable life when it comes to food, the importance of storytelling and sharing your journey, aannndddd- let's talk about working in restaurants and living our best life.
Head to the link in bio to watch the full YouTube Video. Enjoy!

Follow Hubert & Sushibyhu:
YouTube channel: here
Website: here

Platforms:
Virtual Recording platform: Riverside.fm

Transcript

0:04

Hey, bimbos. Welcome back to part two of Nomadic Hospo with my guest, chef and adventurer Hubert Hatch Husky. If you haven't listened to part one, I highly recommend pausing this episode and heading back to start there. Also, a quick note I'm unable to get into my hospital below Instagram account. Just enough. Why I. It's a long story, but Instagram sucks. There are two factor authorization. Shenanigans are bullshit and I've been working on getting back in there for the last week and a half. But in the meantime, I've turned my personal account into a backup because I refuse to surrender. So make sure to follow me there as I'll be posting daily. I'll make sure to drop the link in the show notes. Anyway, in this episode, Hubert will walk us through how he came up with the idea of Sushi by Hugh. As you may have discovered from getting to know him in Part one, once an idea pops into his head, there's no time wasted. He's unlocked his potential. He's found something that has allowed him to combine all of the things that he loves and put it into one entity. Now I'm cooking, I'm spearfishing, and I'm doing hospitality on, like, a whole nother level. And it may just click. It's like, this is what I want to do right now. This is what I want to be. In this second part of the episode, Hubert and I talk about Sushi by Hugh and the inspiration behind it. We cover his time cooking on yachts and the guests that he's encountered very hilarious coffee robots, definitely a thing. Creativity. And what's up next for you? The recurring theme here is everyone has a story to tell whether you're a New York Times bestselling author, a barista, a triathlete, a dishy storytelling, in my opinion, is one of the biggest ways that we can connect with others. And it's one of the most rewarding elements in this whole entire human experience that we're having. It's honestly why I fell in love with hospitality at such a young age in the first place. Having those deep conversations with the people that I worked with and learning something from them, that connection also just in general, made the shift better. And the shift after that and the shift after that. There are true emotions in kitchens, and some of the most beautiful people I've ever met have been from restaurants. If you're not already tuning in from YouTube, make sure to follow me there and tune into video Part one and also the video part two of this episode. Let's just jump straight back in where we left off and thanks for being here. Okay. So that was that was the whole Starbucks. On my laptop is going to die. Seems like you've got quite a lot on your plate. At this point. I don't know. It seems like that, but I don't I don't feel it that way right now. I'm just like, oh, let's see what. Happens. Seems like you've explored your interests really well and it's led you to new opportunities, new doors opening. And I think that's something that everyone can learn from. Because even myself, I've kind of stuck within coffee and just being a waitress and like a shitty, you know, I've never really served in fine dining. I think the the closest to fine dining I've ever dabbled in was literally working for Norwegian Cruise Line, and I was working the dinner service and it was shit. But even like sushi, I know nothing about sushi and like, it's piqued my curiosity and now I'm like, I'm like, maybe I should go onto YouTube and figure out how to become a sushi chef. And you can probably tell me more about it because when I listen to a podcast, couple episodes and I think the most interesting one was the last one, the whole the hotel girl. Oh, yeah, Britney. That's yeah, Britney, Brittany. And I feel like to me personally, that was like, I'm like, okay, so this is basically the hospitality. You know, everyone from us, no matter what, no matter where, how fancy it is, you know, like, I feel like you say it really well. Everywhere you go, you want to serve people. And if you take that quality of everywhere you want to go, I want to serve people. And I like watching you evolve with your podcast and everything. I feel like you want to not only like serve people, but now you're like going into like, I want to educate people and you're putting you're taking that skill forward. So I believe like, like what? Obsession or like one trait goes for is like, I drink coffee when it's cold in the morning because I'm too lazy to make a fresh one. It's the secretary's. You know what? If I would have someone like the coffee girl in my office, I'd be like, This is a busy. Yeah, to me, you can. You can tell when someone really loves what they're doing, you know, just going into a place where it's a very nice coffee, how smiley people are. Can you make a conversation? Does a person take time to make a conversation with you? And if you can tell that the person is making a coffee and like is interested in a chat, but you're also putting off a good vibration. So I'm the sending hospitality going in, understanding like what's what is this person going through? And then adjusting to the situation. I feel like you've cracked a cold. You could eat in the best restaurants and get the best treatments if, you know, like, Hey, this person is stressed, this is how I have to react or Hey, this coffee person is stressed, maybe I chat or maybe I don't, or maybe my order has to be simple, you know, like, hey, like you can you can create the outcome for you from yourself towards how you get treated in any place. And hospitality. It's definitely a it's definitely a certain trait that a lot of people don't have. Like I always say, you can literally tell when somebody hasn't worked in hospitality because they're usually a little shit. They're probably very self-aware or not regarding what's going on around them. And those skills that we learn in this industry can be applied to any anything, any role backtracking. But when you brought up Britney, yeah, I don't know why the. The plunger story, by the way, Brittany, if you if you hear this, the Thunder story, what the fuck it is? So I'm, I'm going back to the States next Monday and she's coming to meet me and we're doing a part to why. But her episode is like, like it was popular, but it's popped off again and everyone's like, When are you going to do another episode with Britney? It was definitely funny and yeah, yeah, it was enjoyable. I was, I was I was cooking next to it. I was just listening in and I was looking at my food and I'm like, listening to this shit story. I was like, I'm all right. But, you know, this is she works at like a four star, 4 to 5 star resort. Like, it's fancy as shit. There. And it just it's funny because it doesn't matter at what caliber you're working. It's always the same shit. Like I believe my worst guests were the ones that were pretending to have money. Does that make sense? Yeah. The people who really, really are rich. I think there is difference between rich be born rich and, like, self-made rich. Like, I would put these three categories. The worst charter I had was like a group thing. Multiple boats similar to like the yacht week, but different. And this woman is just so fucking obnoxious. It's they like four and she just gets fucking wasted every day. Like you watch people getting wasted constantly and she just looks at me and yells from the other side and I'm like, pissed off at that point, like, I never got angry. I never was like, Shut the fuck up or anything. Or like, even in my mind, I was like, I try to always like, do the best I can from the side of the back of the boat, she yells, A shad like in her, like in her, like stupid, like a rusty drunk fucking voice. And I like see her face when I like it boils my blood. Make me a fucking cake And she's like yells at me. So I look at her. I'm like, Go pick yourself a fucking cake. And it's the first time I said something back. I stopped cooking that day. I was like, Hey, if you guys don't behave, I'm not going to make food for you because you're very disrespectful. So to the guy who was organizing the Slack party, he was like, Oh, hash, you Uber like, we apologize. We're going to behave from now. I'm like, Yeah, whatever. And you know what? They were I was listening to the conversation at the table because if you imagine the kitchen or the galley is like here and basically the people are sitting there so I can listen to every conversation like who fucked who, what's in this town, what's in the city? And you get, you hear everything because it's, it's like people as soon as they on a boat, they believe the water. No one has ears and eyes. They know no one sees anything on whatever. And like you hear Tash, the weirdest fucking shit, the weirdest stories. It's like, okay, great. Like my my brain had to, like, filter 95% because I couldn't believe how stupid people are or how it affected or even make their money to be here. Like, I don't get it. Basically the main topics were money, who fucked who and what people are going to be doing when they get home or like their entrepreneurial ship and the crazy ideas they having. That was the worst tip of like a whole year. I've never I've never heard someone say, I have like $1,000,000, I have $1,000,000. I have like so much money. I have so much money for like a whole week. The topic of money was so big and like, what they're going to do and what they're making and like what they're creating, what they're famous for, that they're getting $150 tip for seven days. I wanted to give it back to him. Oh, what would be like This was just a tip that you should that you would usually get for that. Um, the best was $6,000 for a week for me. Mm. The worst was I mean the worst was hundred and 50. The average is between 1500 to, to kind of, I mean it depends on how you really treat your guests and of the quality of the guests. I guess I, you will see everything between like my best was 5k56k but everything between mostly like one one to whatever like, you know, the best the best people were the ones that didn't talk. They just enjoyed, you know, there was the nicest guests were the ones who are like quiet and the like. They really down went from their busy life and they have a drink or two and then they go to bed and they want to learn like about the crew as well. Like they just want to talk to you, learn something, you eat good food and as soon as the food is good, you kind of like you can destroy the mood with bad food really quickly on a boat. If someone is should food, they get bad mood. Is that your mantra? Shit food, bad mood? Have you ever have you ever paid like over 50 grand to go on a cruise and you look at water and like you eat shit food? But I feel like there is there is another thing which a lot of hospitality workers don't do or don't have the chance to do is being a guest. Oh, yeah, yeah. Like we we don't give and this is what I think that needs to change. I feel like hospitality, people need to be guests as well. Like there needs to be something where like hospo workers get a chance to become guests. Just to see. Just to see how awesome it is to be really treated well, you know, like, hey, like, wow. My my action is a reaction, you know, and same the other way around. I also think even when you're working in hospital, like I have noticed, this is a different I don't know if it's all places in New Zealand but like back in the States, all the servers, everyone, everyone that was on shift, we would have dinner together before service, so we would all sit down and enjoy a meal that the chef whipped up and we would all be together. We would be trying the food, talking, chilling out before a medic shift. And it just really set the tone for the night. Not only are we understanding exactly what we're eating, we can describe it perfectly, but we're just getting in tune with everyone. We don't have that here in New Zealand. And I think that's where that's why the hospitality here, I feel, is not well. It's one of the reasons, but I don't feel it's like super on point, like it's kind of losing its touch, it's flair. I don't know. Now you like walk in. I mean, it's not all the time, but as a guest you can just feel when there's tension, like with the people that are working and it's just not a vibe that you really want to be around, I guess. Yeah, true. I would agree. I think I think that's that's the biggest case. Like the energy in a place like I love I love to go to certain coffee places. It's not because of the coffee but because of the vibe. And then if the coffee is like extremely good and this is where you're like, Oh my God, you know, like, that's why it is Coffee's worth €3 right now or 350. Like a good coffee is free for your fifties. That's not, that's not that's a lot of money for a beverage. What is that, New Zealand dollars that like $7, 550. The prices are going up too. So it's just going to be fucked. What's a coffee in New Zealand for right now? Like a good one. I mean, it depends on who you're asking, but I usually just get a filter like a drip coffee, and that's like five, five bucks. If you get your large cappuccino gals, it's probably like seven. If you're adding coconut milk and all that extra, it's it's really expensive. And I think it's going to be pretty shocking to go back home because the conversion right now is horrible. So I think it's pretty much double. So I'll be paying like $10 for a coffee back home. I have a I have an espresso machine. I decided I'm not buy Yeah yeah yeah I only Brewers press office right now but I'm trying to limit I'm trying to limit my coffee intake. How's that going. Let's talk about it real quickly. I just wanted to say be sure to check out who on Instagram at Hubert underscore Chesky. That's h u BRT. Underscore HHC is Sky. Huber is also on YouTube so find him there and fall into a nomadic rabbit hole of his travels over the years, warning it may cause impulsive desires to leave your life and travel. So be warned again. I'll drop all the links to these in the show notes below. Back to the show. You mentioned that you're kind of taking a bit of a break. What's next for you? Like, do you have any grand plans for 2023? I want to make like a story cookbook. Every cookbook is just about recipes. I want to mix, like, experiences in life with, like, cooking. Yeah, it's like you can read it and then there is a recipe and then you can go cook it. And if you don't want to cook it, you can continue reading. Yeah, it's like, but you can always you will always take that book back if you're like, Hey, I want to cook like this Indonesian dish that this guy talked about in his in his book, because I feel like ten years, a decade of experience of traveling, meeting awesome people. If I would go into detail on all these stories, what I've learned books have been written on smaller ideas. I never really understood what I like those ten years, what what they are worth, because you know, you're living this life. But like I, I stopped. I tried to stop social media for a while. I kind of regret it because I think with the following back then I think I reached 35,000 followers and I like was like, Oh, I'm overwhelmed. I like to be private. It might seem weird. I'm learning how to explain this story. I'm learning like now I'm learning how to sell myself because I feel like to me this is nothing special. I feel like I haven't reached the limit. I feel like I can do so much more. But I have friends telling me like, Hubert, you're undervaluing yourself. Like you could take this already and, like, grow to something much larger. And I'm like, how? Like, look, like, to me, this is normal. And then my friend tells me, like, it's in a nice way. He's like, Dude, you make your own videos. You know, I have to Spearfish you fly across the world to set up a restaurant, you set up restaurants like kind of here, Like the pop ups are just like huge restaurants. You create menus, flavor pairings, you make your own website, like, Catch the Fish yourself. And I'm like, I always I never talk about how how I cook or something. I just always say like, Hey, you know what? You want to know how his food tastes. You come there and then you tell me afterwards, you know, the more you talk something up, the higher the expectations goes, and people will tend to get disappointed. I don't talk about it. And this is the beautiful thing here. I never had to sell my product. People came to eat. It was word of mouth. People continued coming, eating. And that was this is that was a goal. Every time I see an ad like this is the best sushi in town, come eat here, is it? Why do you have to say it's the best? Yeah. You know, I just want to be like, just come check it out. I don't want to talk about it. Just come eat. And that's like the mantra. That's why I want to, like, make this book of the experiences from all those ten years and pass on. Maybe like, hey, you know, if someone wants to do something out of their skill, try it and really learn it. Just go do it. Like, what the fuck done? Limit yourself on your people around you. Was saying like, you know, people are like, You can't do this. I think that's crazy. Yeah, I think that idea is crazy. You're doing it right now, you know, like the podcast that you started. Like, I want to know how much excited you had in the beginning. All of it, you know, still having somebody. To me watching from outside. I'm like, This is how I want to talk. There. And then you find out we can't even get online for an hour. Yeah, so professional, but tell me how many good hospitality Podcaster It's like we have a German one, but it's run by, like, a famous chef. And like. Like you have to. They only interview famous people. A bimbo nugget. Surround yourself with people who lift you up. Not those who tell you you can't do this. You can't do that. It seems pretty self-explanatory, right? But you'd be surprised on the people that we choose to spend our time with. And also a great way to identify if you're in love with something, if you're laying in bed at night thinking about it after the honeymoon phase. Yeah, that's love. You're on the right path and all good things take time. You know the saying Rome wasn't built in a day? It may be two years, maybe even five years before you start to see return on your interest. But the people who succeed are the ones who don't give up. Cheesy, cliche piano de married, whatever. But if you believe in yourself, you're going to go places, kid. Long story short, it has taken me two and a half years to fully understand what I want. Stop giving a shit about what other people think about how I look, how I sound. The story is all that. The reason, whole reason why I created this podcast is because I just wanted some sort of outlet where I could vent and talk about the hospitality industry in a way that's not, you know, just really polished and fake and I think just fun and whimsical, just tongue in cheek that goes into the industry. And I wanted to show that. I didn't really realize. But as I think as long as you have. You just have to identify what you're wanting, what's lacking. So like you just said, there's no other hospitality podcast like this. So boom, let's create one. Create something that's going to resonate with other people and they're going to relate to it. Because at the end of the day, we all want to relate to somebody. Somebody is going to look at your journey and go, How do I do that? Like, I want to do that. I want to travel to Indonesia and I want to learn to spear fish and all that. And I think by you sharing your story, you're actually reaching quite a larger audience than you realize and speaking directly to them. You know, it's the same for you. It's like personally, this is speaking for me. I doubt myself a lot. Mm hmm. For some reason, I don't know why, but it's just like, Hey, I want to always reach an adult. But looking from the outside, you know, like I'm taking your podcast, and I'm like, the raw people are, like, the most beautiful beings in the world. And who is more raw than people who kind of serve? I wouldn't say serve. I would say like hospitality when they, like, go through this shit, like these stories. If I would go into like my my craziest story. Okay, that's go into like a story. Like a young chef Apprentice story. Right. And I think this is the worst one I've had. Private dining prepared, the whole dinner thing, five courses, whatever. And basically my job was to prepare. Everything sort of had chef comes in and all he does is just finish this plate. A lot of work, you know, 35 people, 45 people or whatever, a big number of people. I prepare everything from scratch, you know, the fine dining place is five star superior hotel, known for private dining. These long days, head chef is freaking out. Every venue is popping off and it's just me and like another chef up there because two people is enough. He comes up and I put a sauce in like a different saucepan than usual. It was a bit. A bit more volume, so it was like kind of heavy. It wasn't too heavy, wasn't too bad, but it was the only pan in the house that was left. He grabs his fucking saucepan, he looks at me, he goes, You little motherfucker, Do you think I'm a bodybuilder? Grabs this fucking saucepan, froze it fucking over the place. The sauce is just sticking to this stupid shit wall. And then he goes, Get me a fucking another one. So I run. I'm running down, getting a smaller saucepan, filling it up again with sauce. And I came running up again, sweating tears in my eyes. I'm like 19 years old, 20 years old. Like, I don't fucking know, like I'm getting yelled at every fucking day. Like I'm not doing anything right. And he just continues with his sauce and he goes, If this fucking kitchen is not clean, perfect. Tomorrow you're getting fired. I'm like. Oh my God. Five in the morning, I'm in the kitchen. I'm going back down to change. I fell asleep in the changing room at 8 a.m.. I'm back at work. I slept like two and a half hours. And this is like the experience you have to go through. And it's like, you know, if someone would do that to me today, I'll, like, punched him back. Yeah. There's no H.R. in hospitality. Really? So anything goes? No. No, we we've. We've also got burned for, like, he was holding the pen, and he was, like, serving. And every one is an adrenaline. And if you would like, do something wrong, he will just like. Like burn your hand with the hot pan and was like, to the point where you're like, kind of you. You accepted it. I had scars on my on my on my arms everywhere from like hot pants and of course, burning and the ovens, whatever. But those ones were like kind of like personal and to the point where I looked like I was cutting myself. So I got like my forearm tattoos at that point because I was like, I don't want people to see my, like, scars. Like, yeah, you must be thinking that I'm like, like either cutting myself or something. And I had like this in my head. I was like, Hey, I need to get this. I need to get this. Like, I need to get tattoos. And this is where it starts, you know, it's like it's fucks with your head so hard. Like from, like, what's the reason to burn someone to work? Foster There is no reason at all. Yeah. Yeah. And it was like, how to fuck, would you? Why would you do it? And he's like, It's just fun. People play into that whole toxic kitchen environment almost to like, I don't know, it's sometimes I don't think it's actually genuine. They're just trying to be like, Yeah, fuck kitchen and high strung restaurant. But yeah, it's like when you want to yell at someone. The thing is, Gordon is on such a level that, you know, he blindfolds himself and takes apart a chicken. He blindfolds himself. He thought the salmon. I mean, to some people that's very like special. But if, if you go into really like high trained, like chef levels, like we had to take a part in my apprenticeship, I was taking apart a thousand chickens a day. And of course, you can do it blindfolded. It doesn't matter now. Now I'm filleting, I don't know, a ton of fish a fucking day. It doesn't matter, you know, It's like, what are your skills? Like, how far do you carry them? Do you master them or do you don't? And it's that's the thing. He can be a dick to people because he knows he can do it and he knows what the people in front of him can, can do. So he's allowed to. Mm. And I see the same way like being in the sushi chef school. Don't get me wrong, I like the education in restaurants these days is so fucking bad. Some of them I was shocked that people don't know how to like. People don't know how to fish, even chefs these days because everything comes done for them. Everything is like prepared. This, the trade is like kind of like, Hey, just cook some food, don't like, get it done fast, make money. Yeah. And that's where it's scary. It's scary these days. You know. There's literally robots making coffees, like with latte art in California as we fuck up. Yes, sir. Google it. It's there's a whole coffee shop that's just robots. And they're, like, pouring Rosetta's and shit and it's insane. Well, shit, I'm looking it up. I don't believe you. I think. Oh, my fucking God. Yeah. Coffee. Coffee Cafe eggs at San Francisco. Yeah. All right, whatever. No, this is bullshit. Burn it. That's just like the evolution. I mean, not maybe not necessarily robots or whatever, but people just have such a short attention span. Everything needs to be done. Yesterday. How did you not read my mind? I walked in here. How could you not tell what I want? I love when people are just they come up and they're on their phone and you're just supposed to just know what they want, like we get. I just now if somebody comes up to me and they're on their phone, I just turn around and walk away. Cappuccino. I'm here every day. How do you not remember me? How do you remember me? How do you how do you not remember me? I'm here like twice a week. I know the owner. It's everywhere around the world. It's the same thing. You know what? Walk into a place. Be nice owner of your fucking thing. Walk the fuck out or sit down. And if you know the owner, he'll come to you. You don't have to go to him. I'm just going to go in the kitchen. I know the accent. Oh. What? Oh, straight up stabbed. Well, no one walking for my fucking kids. It happens all the time. All the time. You know, my friend has his bar and I don't go there too often because he makes me feel very like he wants me to feel special there. But that certain treatment and I'm like, Dude, like your stress, your bar is full, you know, like you're you're building a really awesome thing. I don't want any special treatment, dude. He's like, Okay, I know, But, like, you're my friend. I'm like, No, I'm just a guest. It's. I just want to be a guest. Yeah. You know, I just want to sit in a corner and just order a drink. Like, I hate pampering. Yeah. Now you've, you've said at the Coffee Girl episode that everyone expects you to make coffees. Mhm. Right. Do you like talk about it now when you go somewhere to a new job, if you would go through a new job, would you be like, hey, I can make you a coffee? And then it just continues where it's like, Hey, this is the best coffee ever. Would you do that again? Would you, would you like. Yes, because I can't not do it like I have to. Number one, I'm going to make coffee for myself. But I also just like if I'm not doing something for somebody else, I feel awkward and I act awkward. So it's just a way to keep myself busy. Hey, can I make you a coffee? Okay, great. And that's 5 minutes that I don't have to sit here talking to this person and be socially awkward and just be busy. Smart. I learned that from you. I can say 5 hours a week from making coffees. Honestly, at work, I'm just copy pasting you at this point. And then when I heard that, I was like, Fuck yeah, yeah. Yeah. And then you just start offering to do other things like, Oh, are we out of milk? Sure. I'll run up and get some milk. Oh, do we need take trash out, whatever. Like there's this little task that I like to do to just shave off, you know, extra time of my workload. I need to start cooking for my friends more at work. Does everyone not already ask you to cook for them? Yeah. I just don't do it on my own. It's on my own terms. I did wonder about that because I would assume that everyone in your life would be like cooking something. The worst thing to do to me. And people know that. And some people some people know that. We go out eating in a restaurant or something and they go, This guy is like one of the best chefs. You guys better don't fuck it up. Oh yeah, yeah. They shoot me and bury me under the table at that point. And I'm just like, first of all, I'm not one of the best chefs. Like, I don't give a fuck. I don't think I could right myself. Mm. I don't even want to compare myself to anyone else. I never want to. Like I don't than I don't like competitions. I don't like cooking competitions. Yeah, I don't know. Why in general. That's just like, why when you're with somebody and they go, Oh, you better make her a really good coffee because she or he's a chef for you. The same, you know, like your friend. And you go to like a coffee place and then your friend might just be like, You better make us a good coffee. She knows what you're doing. Yeah. You're, like, cringing inside and you're like, Oh. It kind of reminds me of, like, when you have somebody that comes in and they used to work at that restaurant and they're like, another one like is as Hubert in the back, is he on the line today? And you're just like, Who the fuck are you? Yeah, like, Oh yeah, I used to work here. I used to work here. Cool. I used to a funny thing, I don't cook. I don't cook in Germany for any restaurants I have issue What? I could not stand in a restaurant here. Like if it wouldn't be my own one. I couldn't send in a restaurant unless I. Yeah, I couldn't be. I'm not a head chef. I think that I have a and I know that and it's a big problem. I feel like it's an ego thing at this point. Um, because I'm wondering, what can I learn from this person? I will try it. But, you know, when you sign a contract and you're like, kind of working on someone and then you're like, realizing they're complete, maybe they're not good, you can't learn anything. That's why you're like, Oh, what am I doing here? But then what I did start enjoying a really much is because I'm working as fish start up. I see who orders what type of fish, which restaurants. So I started delivering the fish to the restaurants and then no one knows that I'm a chef because I'm playing delivery boy, fish delivery boy. No one knows that I have a sushi education. No one knows. I've been a private chef on yachts around the world. No one knows. I've been, like, cooking in lots of places. No one. No one knows. People look at me and I'm like some fucking dude who is stuck in live 31 years old, just delivering fish because he has nothing better to do. It's the best thing I could have done. It's like sometimes I really feel like, Hey, that was awesome. I walk in to this restaurant, drop off the fish, and then I look at the order like, I'm like, Hey, this is so fucking weird. And then I'm in a position where I can ask, What do you do with it? Because they just expect me to be some stupid as driver. And that's like showing interest to cook at home. And I learned the greatest recipes. People give information for free away when they don't know who you are. I talked to somebody else about this, about sharing recipes. And do you think even if somebody were to share their exact recipe with you, you replicated that it's not going to taste the same. It's going to be different. Do you are you are you protective of recipes like do do you not like to share? I don't have recipes. There is another yacht chef on Instagram called Shout Out. The biggest inspiration you have to follow the chef. Of course, you have certain recipes like baking. You always in the recipe. Doing has the same mentality towards recipes as I have. As soon as you look at a recipe, you see amounts. You know what's going in there. You after like I see like a certain amount of years of cooking, especially on boats, is where you have to really become creative because the menu may change in a second. MM The guests are, they wrote down their preferences, they're changing their mind. You, you have to cook every cuisine they want. It's like you're cooking, you're cooking Thai, you're cooking Japanese, Korean. Suddenly you have guests from Australia, you have guests from New Zealand, you have guests from America, Midwest, East, whatever. You know, you kind of like going Mexican. Guess what? You know, European, French, Italian, Spain. And then they want this recipe or like they asked you, do you know how to do this? Because you're like, they're kind of like only to go to like you were a yacht chef. You've been traveling the world. You need to know this, this, this, this, this, this, this. You've been everywhere. They come in with this expectation, so you need to meet it. How do you meet expectation of knowing so many recipes? You start adjusting your creativity at looking at a recipe from someone taking the numbers. And then you have such a free flow that you you basically follow it 1 to 1 by following the flavor profiles, developing it into this new thing. And he I feel like he will say the same thing because I was watching a podcast with him and another guy like a YouTube episode, and they both have their own secret recipes for certain things where like you take the time and develop something and this is the ones that you keep secret because it's so much it's different. MM But the basic stuff, whatever, just look at it. Okay, cool. This is it. I know how to do it and it seems it seems like kind of like arrogant or something, but it's just a trade that you learn on a yacht. You learn this flexibility, you learn this adjustment, you learn like you cannot say no. I mean, of course, if you don't have the ingredients, just figure something else out. You know, like make make it fake it till you make it with the dish. But it's a much different environment. You know, people people expect you to be having recipes in your head. And kitchen here real quick. Look, you're enjoying the episode so far. If you're enjoying the, please consider supporting the show by heading to buy me a coffee forward slash hospo bimbo. You know, the steal for the price of an orange mocha frappuccino. You can help keep the show alive. All money goes towards subscription fees, gear and travel funds. I'm getting here, there and everywhere to keep supplying you the content that you deserve. And the content I love. Xo XO Back to the show. The startup that I'm working for is called Fresh Catfish. So basically freshly caught, like if you were translated, it's developed by two guys who asked the same question as I did. How come Hamburg is a harbor city with a massive port, but we don't have fresh fish, and as soon as I start digging deeper into our fish consumption of people around the world, basically I wouldn't count New Zealand or Australia. Instead, because the fisheries there are very well monitored. The consumption here in Germany is basically based on tuna and salmon. So my biggest wake up was anywhere I go in any shop, I always have salmon. Then you multiply the shops and then you multiply how much fucking food is on the shelf and then you multiply that on Germany, Europe, like how are we maintaining this? And then I was like, Oh, holy fuck, how many tuna are getting farmed a day? Like, how much emissions is this? So that's why I was like, okay, it's clearly I don't want to use those products because there must be something wrong with it. Like, I mean, in a clear mind you would be like, how do they farm it that fast? It's an animal that has to grow. How how, how? And then on the other hand side is there is different catching methods and regulations. So you have trawlers, you have the dredges and all this other shit that destroys the sea floor, takes everything up, huge nets with massive bycatch. But then there is new technology that is just unknown to us. But the price of the fish is different. So, you know, it's always about the end consumption price because now you have real fishermen till today go out, put a net, wait for the tide, the net catches the fish, they pick up the net sort of fish, you know, it goes back to the ocean and suddenly you're having, you know, fresh, fresh fish and 24 hours and. HAMBRICK But the auctions are only in Holland, Denmark and Sweden and Finland, but we don't order from Finland so far. So that's like one way we, they chose the most sustainable catching methods. And we have one guy watching the auctions with a filter so you can filter into auctions which catching method that you want to use. At five in the morning he wakes up, looks at what the boards have caught, then we check by quality. So there's a quality rating. Then the fish goes auction, we buy it and it arrives at the next morning or like the same day in Hamburg, 24 hours from boat to restroom. But now this is to catch. And I believe it's not the fault of consuming, it's the fault of education of the chefs, because We are the ones who have to make a tasty. But if the teaching from the head chefs goes wrong, once it apprentice and like you teach him only to work with one fish where he doesn't ask the question where it's coming from. Are you not educated? Where is this from? He will never learn anything else and he will possibly not be like, Hey, is this good or bad? It's just like you told him what to do. So don't sit like I don't see the customers a fault. I see us as creators of the like sort of the not creators. I feel like we are the between farmer and consumer. Yeah. If someone goes to a great restaurant and he eats this awesome fish that he never heard about it, but it tasted so fucking great, he will want to recreate it. It's always the same. I said, You watch Gordon Ramsay make a fucking dope as salmon. People buy salmon. The fact that salmon isn't sushi's only because of mass produce producing from like Swedish people or Norway. No, Norwegian main traders went to Japan with salmon. How are we going to pay you this much money if you start using it on sushi? And people were like, okay, cool. Like this sounds great. Like if you look into the story, it's just ridiculous. I feel like the more we ask questions and like, really ask like the rough questions, like, why are we eating this? Like, why are you eating this? Do you know where it's coming from? Do are you sure? Like, even like being vegan cannot be, you know, the biggest. Like, don't get me wrong. Like, I'm trying to figure out what's the biggest emissions in the world. It's not farming beef, it's farming rice or something like that. You know, like rice. Farming is the biggest CO2 emission in the world. Hey, let's you know, it's just like what information is being pushed around everywhere in like the food sphere. Like, Oh, who's saying that? And it's just all about education. Yeah. And that's why I feel like we are with fish and. Personally, I came here with the goal to be to change. Love that. How to fuck am I a person who went to L.A. To make a sushi course, come back and, like, take apart, i don't know, 30 different species of fish and see, like, which one is good for sushi in which are not. And like the local ones are like the most tastiest things I've eaten so far. Also, I don't like looking at my own, like I don't like tasting my own food because I know what I really like in my head. I really know what I want to make. So I like kind of judge. I know how it's taste, but I want to be a guest in my own restaurant. And that's why I know that I have a product. Because if I want to be my own guest, I know that I would want to sell this product. That's how I make a menu. It's not about like, Oh, okay, it sounds fancy. It might be good. Not I want to be my own guests. I've went to so many seafood restaurants here, and I have to say, the good chefs, the really good chefs are fucking awesome. Like these guys are pushing new boundaries, new limits, like they're creating. I mean, in Denmark, Noma has been cooking with allergies for like fucking almost a decade and we are just figuring it out. And I'm just like, was I living under a rock or not? Because where is this education? Unless you go into this restaurant or you buy the books, you will never figure it out. And that's what I feel like if if some chefs will listen to this podcast, hopefully, I'm not sure or anyone who eats seafood basically, like be sure to ask questions, you know, like if the person doesn't really know where it's from means that there is something hide. I know from a fact when we get like a pike perch in our facility, the name of the guy who caught it is on this label. Now I know I'm not the only one who seems a bit confused on what's actually sustainable and what isn't. So what is sustainable? Seafood, as quoted from ocean Society dot org Sustainable seafood is seafood that is caught or farmed with minimal environmental and social impacts when done correctly. Sustainable seafood sourcing prevents overfishing, minimizes impacts to other ocean wildlife habitats, and takes into account the social and economic impacts on the communities from which the seafood is sourced. So how do we do our part? As Hubert mentioned earlier, know the source. Identifying where your seafood has come from is the very first step. And even though it might be slightly uncomfortable at first, it is absolutely crucial that you start asking questions either to your chef, your waitress, wherever you're buying seafood. Everyone in this world is built on supply and demand, right? So the more that people start to ask, the higher the demand. For more information on resource turn, Hopefully restaurants will catch on. Our customers seem to really care about where our seafood is coming from and how it's caught. Let's address this. Another great way to do your part. Think about the carbon footprint. When you buy local seafood from farmers markets, the fish has been most likely caught using sustainable methods and in turn that carbon footprint is greatly reduced. You're not buying a fish that's been transported by plane or boat or a fish that might have more stamps in their passport than you do. And even better, if you can buy seafood directly from the fishermen who caught it. This all might seem tedious, but the choices that you make when it comes to seafood will have an enormous impact on our oceans health and will set the tone for generations to come. These practices also don't stop at seafood. We can all create a greater impact by buying local as much as we can consider shopping at a farmer's market, maybe even buying the odd bunch of fruit that doesn't look as pretty something that's in season. It might force you to step outside the box and experiment with recipes, but how exciting is that. To experience going to markets, farmer's markets? And the funniest conversation I heard was someone grabbed the parsnip and it didn't look that well. So she goes like, Hey, I want a better looking parsnip. And I was standing next to I'm like, Why? What's wrong with this parsnip? And she goes, Well, you know, like, you can't either, like, look at it. I'm like, Yes, you can. And she goes, so and she was like, So you're a young guy and you're telling me, you know, how to cook this. And I'm like, Yeah, it's just like, So what would you do? I'm like, Okay, so you take this parsnip, you take almond milk, you put this parsnip, you peel it, put everything in there, boil it, and you take it into a blender, You make positive puree and you want see that this parsnip looks bad, it's pureed, but it's fucking awesome. It's like you use the vegetable that you want. Didn't want to buy. And the lady at the market was like, What the fuck? Like, see, because they were arguing about this person not looking right? And I'm like, Why Are we so obsessed with vegetables looking perfect? And I mean, I'm telling you, pureeing pureeing vegetables is like the best fit you can. You can do like I'm a huge. That's going to be. Huge. My biggest takeaway is I should be pairing vegetables. I mean, I bought a bomb. I should had oatmeal, like, all the time. Really? Oh, well. Fuck yeah, I will. All the white vegetables absorb the flavors and from drinking so much oatmeal lattes, I love the taste of oatmeal. So I take it like my parsnip or Jesus. Forgot the name. I'm sorry. I like a another white root vegetable. You can just peel them, boil them and almost take them out. They will absorb the milk. And then you have like a new sort of flavor of a food and it's just like, great, This is like, awesome. It's like, you don't expect it to be that great. And it's like, Whoa, mind blowing. Like, what the fuck? And that's why I want to make a book. I want to show not not even just like teaching. I just want to give people new ideas. It's you don't always have to use water. I mean, like, okay, we know we can make wine. We use wine in so many things. The best curries come with orange juice. You know. Orange juice. It's like, Yeah. Okay. Yeah, You need to make a book because I need to buy it. I feel it's it's our job as hospitality people. If we want to make if we want to continue like a certain standard around the world, like it's our job either which medium like your medium of podcasts so good because you can actually you know, if someone takes in information out of you and starts asking a question. Okay, So in that point, like I can buy my parsnip with almost like, fuck, yeah, like we've helped one person. Yeah. You know, no matter what we're doing from hospitality, taking that point to pushing ourselves like, fuck, I need to listen to all your episodes, you know, But I'm such like, I listen to podcasts, I put it on and I have everything done in one day. So I've listened to like three of yours and I'm waiting for a moment. So there's more for me. So I'm just going to absorb everything. I'm just going to tell you right now, you're not going to want to absorb all of them because not all of them are the greatest, but some. Of them are really good. I mean, and next time, lock your door at the car before you start filming. Oh, my God. Jesus, You. This is. Yeah, well, I will tell you that next week's one will be really good. I think you'll like it because it's more on, like, creative process with somebody else who's really good at what she does. That's awesome. And then I'll be doing another one with Brett. But Brett, we might do like a really gross like Mukbang. So, you. Know, you know what the funny part is? If you want to have another, another one we need to get into like and I think this one, I would love to be on it. If you have like a multiple people thing, Sexual comments and hospitality. Oh Jesus, I can talk about that for fucking years. Chefs only spend time with other dudes and dicks all the time. So in a sea of pretty girls, I'm like, Oh my God. Yeah. And it's always like, because you're just coming from the front of the house to the back to get something that's being plated. So you have like literally a 15 second interaction and they're like, Your mother sucks cocks in hell or some shit and says something grotesque. And then you walk off and you're like. Thanks, It's never a good time. It's always just like I remember there is a chef at my last job. His name was Angus, and he was so funny. He was from the UK and he would always say, I would come back there and he would just grab a vegetable and he would put it at his crotch and he would be like, I'm going to fuck you in the ass in a minute. And I'm just like, Thank you. Well, this cucumber. Yeah, I like. Thank Cuba. I feel like we could literally talk for like seven more hours all day. I know. But I think we should wrap it up. I apologize for our hour long technical errors. We sort it out in the end. You know what? It's okay. It's fun. It was fun. I didn't realize we were talking for 2 hours. 30 minutes. Yeah. I hope it was fun to listen. Um. Yeah, I love this. I definitely learned a lot. And I hope that anyone listening has also learned a thing or two. Make sure that you ask questions about where your food is coming from, know where it's coming from, and just help educate others. And just say yes to every stupid idea you got. I really look forward to watching your your journey. I can't wait to see how far you go in the future and where you end up. And who knows, maybe we'll end up meeting one day in L.A. at a sushi bar. Definitely. Basically, I'm planning April two two back to back events. So if you want to help and work for free, well. I'm going to be in D.C.. So I think there's going to be enough budget to fly awesome people around. Hey, I hopefully I would be 1,000% down for that. We need good coffee in the back of the kitchen. Nice. Oh, Jesus. So it always comes back to like, I know. The best coffee maker. Yeah. And then I'll just be announcing that you're a chef to anyone I come across. They will see me in the chef tickets or whatever. Thank you for having me. Thank you for having me. Thank you for joining. Thank you for being here. It nice. I've been studying how to tell the story in less than an hour and a half. It doesn't work. No, but all the good stories take time, so that's fine. Wow. Big Thank you again to Huber for sharing his amazing story. I don't know about you guys, but after with him and spending this time creating this episode, I feel rejuvenated. I feel excited. And I definitely learned quite a bit. I hope you were inspired from this. Whether that's how you can take your hospital career and run with it. Be a better chef. Go all in and say yes to your dreams, or keep pursuing that thing that you love because it's all worth it in the end. Once again, be sure to find Hubert on Instagram and YouTube. He's doing some epic shit and he's definitely one to watch. Anyways, guys, that is Cheers up for now. Thank you so much for tuning in and I will see you in the next one.