Ed Brown, CEO of Restaurant Associates: The Right Ingredients for Hospitality at Scale

Although he wears the CEO suit and title, Ed Brown counters that he’s a chef at heart. He has bridged the world of white-tablecloth fine dining and high-scale institutional foodservice, without losing the soul of either. 

Ed Brown began his career behind the line, rising through the world of fine dining to earn national acclaim as Executive Chef at The Sea Grill at Rockefeller Center. That same philosophy — care, craft, and clarity of purpose — now underpins his leadership as CEO of Restaurant Associates or R/A, a subsidiary of Compass Group, the nation’s largest family of foodservice and facilities services companies. 

Learn what it takes to think big, and all the while, stay grounded in the principle of making quality, fresh, and sustainable ingredients taste delicious. 

Research: Lan Lu, PhD 
Video and production: Jaison Jose of Cocoon Media 

The “Distinguished” podcast is produced by Boston University School of Hospitality Administration. 

Host: Arun Upneja, Dean
Producer: Mara Littman, Executive Director of Strategic Operations and Corporate Relations
Research and Content Creation: Lan Lu
Marketing: Anne Dawson
Editing: Isabella Laikin and James Leon

Music: “Airport Lounge" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0

Transcript

Welcome & Guest Introduction: Ed Brown and Restaurant Associates

SPEAKER_01 0:07

Today's guest has done something few in hospitality ever manage. He's bridged the world of white tablecloth fine dining and high-scale institutional food service without losing the soul of either. Ed Brown began his career behind the line, rising through the world of fine dining to earn national acclaim as executive chef at the Sea Grill at Rockefeller Center. His cuisine was known for its precision, elegance, and a sense of place. And that same philosophy, care, craft, and clarity of purpose now underpins his leadership as CEO of Restaurant Associates, or RA, a subsidiary of Compass Group, the nation's largest family of food service and facility services companies. RA operates in some of the most high-profile environments in the country, from Fortune 500 headquarters to top-tier cultural institutions. And under Ed's leadership, the company has evolved from a traditional food service operator to a modern hospitality brand driven by innovation, wellness, and sustainability. But what makes Ed's perspective so valuable isn't just the scale he oversees. It's the clarity with which he connects food, leadership, and purpose. So today we are talking big picture, the future of food service, and what it means to deliver a quality hospitality experience both within the organization and the tens of thousands of people the company serves each day. Ed, it's a real pleasure to welcome you to the distinguished podcast.

RA's Scale and Place Within the Compass Group

SPEAKER_00 2:02

So Restaurant Associates currently is one of the certainly premium, but one of the smaller sectors inside of the Compass North America family. But I'll qualify that by saying that where they're one of the smallest, we are a $1.7 billion operation, but inside of a much larger operation.

Core Lines of Business and How They've Evolved

SPEAKER_01 2:24

And so what are RA's core lines of business and how do they differ from compass sectors?

SPEAKER_00 2:30

Aaron Powell Well, our core lines of business have shifted over the years. It started by being purely a restaurant company, and we've evolved into a food service company, meaning we do other things. And we've extended our lines of business tremendously, which has helped us grow and also hedge different things like inflation and crises and ups and downs of the natural course of business, including business and industries, executive dining, some premium sports and entertainment events like the Saratoga National Raceway and the U.S. Open Tennis, as well as being in some of the premier tech companies, big bold-face names that you would know. We were with them all over the country. We own several catering companies around the country. So a lot of different businesses to sort of not only hedge against things that happen in our environment, but also they assist one another.

Bringing Restaurants Back to Restaurant Associates

SPEAKER_01 3:27

And so do you also operate restaurants, continue to do that?

SPEAKER_00 3:31

Oh, yeah. So when I when I moved into this role, my main mission was to bring restaurants back to restaurant associates. I always felt very strongly that it was the public-facing image that was the advantage or the unique differentiator over any of our competitors, is that when people say, oh, you you believe in delicious food and hospitality, and I would have to say, you have to believe me, or come to our place and we can show you. We can send you to our public-facing restaurants, all of which are terrific, one of which has the number one rating in New York at the current uh moment, and show people what we do. And that's what we did back in the day when I started in this company a short 35 years ago, and uh sort of ebbed and flow over time how many restaurants we had or didn't have based on the leadership of the company. And in my tenure, I've gone back to being in the restaurant business and it's just proving that it works.

From the Kitchen to the C-Suite: An Unplanned Path

SPEAKER_01 4:30

Great. So you started your, and I mentioned that in uh you started your career in fine dining, and now lead one of the most suspected names in hospitality. So what drove your transition from the kitchen to the C-suite?

SPEAKER_00 4:46

Never was a plan, never was expected. Uh but I did have to admit, uh if I in retrospect, I've always enjoyed the business aspect of our business. I love cooking, I love hospitality, I love serving guests. Uh but being a chef is being a great leader. Being a chef is being a mathematician and a scientist of sorts, um, and you need to understand business. And as you grow in the level of your position, all of those intensify. And so it really uh unintentionally became a natural uh glide path for

How a Chef Background Shapes Leadership

SPEAKER_00 5:23

me.

SPEAKER_01 5:23

So um as a chef, like you said, you're a mathematician, you are so many things. So how has your chef background helped you in your leadership? What kind of qualities did you bring to the C-suite?

SPEAKER_00 5:38

So I think that it's uh a tremendous advantage, and I think that I um I'm very fortunate to be in the position I am because I I come to it with street cred. Uh when I tell a group of chefs or people who are operators working for me, I am not the suit. Most of them I've hired over time or have worked for me over time as a chef, as a chef leader, knowing that I understand how to run their operations as well as they do, in some cases the same as, or better than they do, and that I have meaningful operational guidance to give them. But I also know that I get out of their way enough to empower them to let them do their jobs and to give them the respect of being craftspeople and professionals. And so there's that mutual respect. And what I get for that back is amazing loyalty. And I lead by not telling people what to do. I lead by having people follow me because they believe me.

Still Putting on the Chef's Coat: Aces by Ed Brown at the US Open

SPEAKER_01 6:42

I know it's been a few years, but do you sometimes still put on your chef's coat and walk into the kitchen? I do.

SPEAKER_00 6:48

I do. So I I keep a couple at home, I keep a couple in my office, uh, keep a couple spur sprinkled around the country at different places. And uh I do one uh very uh full-on commitment every year. I do have a restaurant with my name on it at the U.S. Open. It's called Aces by Ed Brown. Uh it's a fine dining seafood restaurant that I I show up there for 14 days every summer. And when people ask me if uh if I miss cooking, I say those 14 days cure me of it every year. And it's great. I love being out on the floor and seeing my guests, and it's a lot of repeat, very VIP guests out there. And so it's fun and it's interesting, and it's good with being with the team in the kitchen for a couple hours each day. Uh but I gotta get back to work. And uh but I do love it. I still love the energy of it. And and when I travel the country in our different uh locations, I do spend a lot of time checking in with the chefs and getting their perspective and making sure that they know that they're heard and part of the leadership of this company.

Leading by Example: Everyone Is Always Watching

SPEAKER_01 7:49

Aaron Powell So those two eyes that you're working in that kitchen every day, you know that all eyes on you. And does that sometimes make you nervous when you're chopping onions or anything that everyone is watching? Oh, this chef?

SPEAKER_00 8:02

I mean, he's I don't think that's any different than having been a chef my whole life. Uh and in fact, it's been amplified, and so it's normal for me as a CEO to know that at all moments everyone's watching you. Right. And I share that with my other leaders in the company. Be aware that you're being watched all the time and make sure that your actions matter and be aware of what you're doing and what your behaviors are. Fantastic. But once a chef, always a chef, right? 100%. People say you used to be a chef. I said, no, I'm still a chef. If you're a doctor, nobody takes away your title because you become the administer of the hospital.

Why Hospitality Matters Beyond Food Service

SPEAKER_01 8:39

Right. Yeah. Many times I introduce myself as professor, and people say, Well, you're dean now. Yeah, but my soul, my core is a professor. That's right. Okay. So at our school, we redefined hospitality as experience innovation. It's a deliberate business strategy designed to bolster bottom line performance by making sure that all internal and external constituents feel seen, heard, and appreciated. So I'm interested in hearing your perspective on why hospitality should matter to leadership teams, even those outside of traditional food and service sectors. So, how do you see other sectors benefiting from integrating hospitality in how they do the business and interact with their clients' constituents?

SPEAKER_00 9:26

I think that intentional hospitality is a requirement everywhere. It doesn't, it's it has nothing to do with being fine dining. Hospitality exists at a fast food, quick serve, catering. It exists at my barber shop. It is a way to run a business. And it's providing hospitality to your guests, your clients, to each other. Very important overlooked piece is providing hospitality to each other, to provide a work environment that makes you feel like you want to be there every day. And hospitality is really more described about not what you did for that person, but how you made them feel, as Maya Angelo has very well said, and we all repeat many times since then. But it's true. You leave a place, if you feel great about what just happened to you there, you're you're gonna be a fan, you're gonna be loyal, you're gonna want to return. That's what being in the restaurant business is, that's what being in the hospitality business is. And as I say, you know, I I never intentionally have our folks focus as much on money, although it's important we're in the restaurant business, not the restaurant hobby. But by way of providing great food in hospitality, it sounds cliche, but the money comes by itself if you've set it up correctly.

Maintaining Creativity and Craft at Massive Scale

SPEAKER_01 10:49

You know, I'm kind of curious. I want to go back to your chef days. Um, you were executive chef, um, and and so that's the mindset every dish, you know, comes out has to be an amazing dish in food and taste and quality and looks and flavor. But now you're serving tens and thousands of meals a day. So how do you maintain a sense of creativity and craft without losing consistency and that uniqueness?

SPEAKER_00 11:16

Well, first of all, on creativity and craft, food needs to be menu engineered. You need to serve the right food to the right amount of people. If you're serving a restaurant that's going to serve 100 people very special meals, that's one menu. That menu won't work for a party of 10,000 people. And you need to understand that. And it's about engineering the menu for food that can be well executed and not suffer the flaws of expanded volume. Um and also uh, you know, not not every not every party is meant to be fine dining. Every every party is different, every event is different. And I think that just realizing that and engineering the food and planning accordingly is really what what makes it stand out or be be special.

Where Ed Finds Food Inspiration Today

SPEAKER_01 12:12

So where do you get your inspiration for food these days?

SPEAKER_00 12:15

For me, it's easy because uh my business is in 30 cities around the country. I'm constantly traveling, and I I eat in the restaurants of every city that I go to, and I'm constantly being inspired by the simplest thing from street food vendors to great quick serve restaurants to fine dining restaurants. But mostly it's that middle, that middle sweet spot of restaurant where they're doing craft cooking, where the chef, there's just a chef in there who just wants to cook because of the love of cooking as an artisan, and just have some delicious food, an ingredient that was really sourced specially, uh, that didn't mess around with too much, to be honest.

Embedding Sustainability Into Daily Operations

SPEAKER_01 12:59

So you've made bold commitments to sustainability. How do you embed those values into daily operations without compromising on quality or guest experience?

SPEAKER_00 13:11

So our job when it comes to procurement is to provide access to all of our chefs with the best possible ingredients at their fingertips that they don't have to go searching for them. So we've got teams and groups of people, not only from restaurant associates, but the larger compass organization that are searching and making arrangements with these different vendors and subsets all the way down the line. So when it comes to sustainability, for example, at large scale, it's hard to be able to deal with, say, a small local farmer who grows incredible carrots, but he, you know, he can grow 45 bushels for you every every few months. You know, we can take 45 bushels in one day. So what we've done was partner with some of our larger produce vendors, for example, and we've asked them at our direction to partner with these farmers, make arrangements with them, go to their farms, pick up from them, don't put them in the trucking business. They're farmers. You go and pick it up from them, uh, and we will uh commit to purchasing them. So it's a little extra work for them. They're gonna go around collecting from these different farmers, uh, but then we're able to um, you know, aggregate them into the system. And we have an order guide so that everyone can order electronically. And on those order guides, there's indications of what comes locally, also what products are sustainable. And, you know, back to the sustainable commitment, you know, it's not a check-the-box moment for us. We believe in it. Uh, you know, when it comes to seafood, for example, which is near and dear to my heart, I literally wrote the book on seafood in 1994 called The Modern Seafood Cook. In 1994, I was talking about sustainability of seafood and promoting as a seafood chef who grew up at the shoreline, I was promoting aquaculture as a positive thing. And many people asked me about that after the fact, like, you realize you put that in your book. I said, Yeah, because you need to realize that fishing methods are increasing to the point of I can already see this far away that one day within our lifetimes, the fish food supply will be much less available out of the ocean, and we better have alternatives to back that up if we want to continue eating healthy, delicious fish. That's better for you and better for the planet. And it won't happen in an instant. We're gonna need decades to be prepared. And so um, you know, here we are today.

Has the Industry Done Enough on Sustainable Seafood?

SPEAKER_01 15:50

Yeah, you were way ahead of the time at that point. Do you think that we have done enough with sustainable seafood uh production?

The Bycatch Story: Sustainability Through Creative Problem-Solving

SPEAKER_00 15:57

No. Not yet. Absolutely not. And I'll I'll tell you a great story about uh one of the best sustainability efforts that I never knew I did. So uh when I opened a restaurant called Tropica in New York City, first restaurant I opened in Restaurant Associates when I joined at the end of 1989, I I had a seafood vendor come to me and said, I used to be a commercial fisherman, but I couldn't stand being at sea. I got sick uh all the time. But I love being part of it and I love being involved. So I'm now working with a whole bunch of the local fishermen out on Long Island where they come in, and I can buy whatever I want from them. They'll sell whatever I want to me, and I'll bring it to you directly. I said, fantastic. And so, you know, there's all the usual things that you get out of out of Long Island, like squid and fluke and uh striped bass and bluefish and all those great things. I said, you know, we could expand our business. How about bringing me something different? He says, Well, there's not a lot different. I said, Well, when those guys guys go out fishing, they pull up stuff, other fish come up on the deck, which is called bycatch. Right. I said, Well, what do you do with the bycatch? He says, What everybody else does with it. We shovel it back over the board, back into the ocean. I said, Well, that's nice. At least they get back to being alive. He says, by the time they get back in the water, they're not necessarily alive. And that's so wasteful. But I didn't think it from a waste perspective. I'm thinking, as a chef, you mean there's fish in the ocean that come right off our shores that nobody's ever seen. Bring me those. And so I started buying bycatch, uh, and I would take whatever they give me. I'll say, give me 50 pounds of bycatch, whatever it is, I'll pay you whatever we agreed, $5 a pound, 50 pounds, send it to me. I got to figure out how to use it. That's my problem. And a lot of these fish they had some names for, many they didn't, and I would just make up names. But since we were a seafood restaurant and a busy seafood restaurant, which had a good reputation, people trusted me. I could put on a rune fish, and people were going to try it because they never heard of it, and they trusted that I knew that it was fresh and that I know how to cook it. And we'd serve them a runefish and they'd love it, and they'd be looking for the next return for a runefish. And so I'd continue- I was encouraged to continue buying bycatch, which became a very sustainable practice, but really it was a differentiator in quality uh for us.

Telling the Story of Local Sourcing: Vessels, Ports, and Menus

SPEAKER_01 18:33

Now, just interestingly, did you remember what names you gave so that the next time one particular fish you name something and it's the same fish with a different name? Aaron Powell Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:42

I mean, it's it's not it's not like there was hundreds, right? But there was probably, you know, twelve or fifteen that we saw a lot, and we, you know, we kept those same names. I was also at that time promoting sustainability by going to small day boat fishermen, which is such a cliche thing, again, to say today, but in 1990 that was very different. And on my menu, which was printed every single day, was printing not only the composed dishes, but a listing of here's the 10 or 12 fish that I have in my kitchen today that arrived in my kitchen today. And next to each of those fish was the vessel that landed them and the port of landing. So it was anywhere from, you know, from South Barnegate, New Jersey, up through Montauk, as far as up to Boston area. And it would be the port of landing and the and the fishing vessel. And people got interested. Oh, I've had a fish caught from the vessel, the fishing vessel Catherine out of Montauk before. Let's try it. Right? Not that it really has anything to do with how that fish tastes, but it got people engaged in a story. And a story is a big part of menu engineering and menu selling. Um and it made people connected to the sustainability story. Now, which year was this

Farm to Table Before It Was Trendy

SPEAKER_00 20:04

happening?

SPEAKER_01 20:04

This is 8990. You're clearly way ahead of your time there, because that this is what is popular now, you know, with the farm to table. You know, they they talk about all of the local sourcing and where stuff is coming from. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:18

But to be honest, and I thanks for saying that. But to be honest, as I said, I admit that I did it more out of a quality differentiator, somewhat bit of a marketing tool uh to put ourselves apart, but it really was a great sustainability move. You know, you mentioned farm to table. My good friend Tom Calliccio loves to say, where else do you think it comes from from the farm to the table? Doesn't come from the sky, right? It's such an overused term. Right. I think there had use for people remembering that there are farms and that's important.

Balancing Local Sourcing With Industrial-Scale Needs

SPEAKER_01 20:51

Now, we know that uh food is coming from industrial-sized farms. So I want to go back into the into the main industry and and you know, talk about the compromise we we we make when we are trying to buy local. And you mentioned that earlier that the amount of um local farmer supply is very limited. So obviously it is at a higher cost. So now we have this trade-off between buying local at a higher cost versus buying from these industrial-sized farms. And so my question is what are some of the practical ways in which our industry can become much more local sustainable without driving up the cost too much? So the cost is definitely more.

The Waste Not Program: Reducing Food Waste as a Business Strategy

SPEAKER_00 21:35

Um, but the way to control that is another unintended consequence of a sustainability measure. Waste not. Waste not, which is a program that we call in our company, and it's about not wasting food, creating waste, which is one of the biggest flaws against sustainability in this country. The world, but especially in this country, the amount of food that's wasted, and I'm sure you've heard that and told that story a million times, is is mind-boggling. And in our kitchens, we actually weigh all wet waste. It's weighed and you have to punch it into a tablet and it's tracked. And we see how much food you waste, and you're scored upon it, and you're bonused upon it or not. And it's not to punish people, but it's to get people into a rhythm, into culture. When it becomes part of the culture, it becomes part of the DNA, then it's automatic. They're looking to not to waste because that's just what they do. And, you know, I keep using the humble carrot as an example. People open a bag of carrots and they chop off the top, they chop off a quarter to a third of the bottom because they think it's too skinny. Now you've just taken 25 percent of that carrot before you even did anything to it, and you've thrown it in the garbage. Extrapolate that to all the other veg, extrapolate that to fish, extrapolate that to poultry. These are all things that take time to grow. They take nutrients from the soil, they take water, they take effort, machinery, people, fuel. I mean, you're wasting so much more than that carrot, you're wasting all of those other things. And so every little bit that you can waste less is huge efforts towards sustainability and it offsets waste. And one of the things that I tell people how to control waste best, besides being mindful and not cutting off the tops and the bottoms of carrots example, is buy less, which is good for business. If you're using five bags of carrots every single day, you order five bags of carrots every single day, because I know I need five bags of carrots every day. Anyone who tells me that is immediately going to get a challenge for me. I don't believe you. When is the last time you ran out of carrots? Oh, we never run out of carrots. Well, then you're buying too much. Then you're buying right. You're buying too much and you're wasting too much. Buy four bags of carrots tomorrow, tell me if you'll run out. I didn't. Usually that story ends up somewhere around three and a half bags of carrots as the right number, and they've been wasting that much the whole time. And again, extrapolate that into bigger and more expensive items, it not only becomes a sustainability story, but it becomes a good-for-business story.

Balancing Technology With Human Connection in Hospitality

SPEAKER_01 24:32

Um, there is also a lot of, I want to pivot a little bit to technology uh and innovation. Um we talk in in in our world, we talk a lot about technology and how it is, to some extent, replacing uh human interaction. So how do you think about balancing technological efficiency with essential human connections that define our world of hospitality?

SPEAKER_00 24:58

Well, the the most important part there is recognizing that the human touch has to exist. And I don't believe in technology or innovation at the sake of hospitality ever. However, I believe in technology and innovation a lot when it can make the guests' experience and the team's experience easier. I would love for the guest to have a better experience, a quicker, faster, uh you know, uh simpler experience. And if I make my team's experience easier because of the use of that technology and innovation, what do they have time for? Giving more hospitality. And that again increases the guest experience.

Innovation at Compass: The Envision Group and Innovation Summits

SPEAKER_01 25:42

So and in in a company as complex and far-reaching as COMPASS, so is there a lot of innovation that is happening and how does that translate into RA? And are there some things going from RA back to COMPASS?

SPEAKER_00 25:55

Aaron Powell Sure. So uh we've got a lot of very talented, smart people working for us uh who are constantly seeking for the the latest and the greatest, and we do a lot of testing. But we also have a large arm inside of Compass, uh a group called the Envision Group, whose sole job is to be discovering on our behalf and sharing with us. Use it how you like. Here it is. Here's here's here's information, here's new technology, here's the latest equipment, here's the latest, you know, POS systems, you name it, guest customer interfacing uh machines, uh, and we pick and choose from there, and we get a chance to pilot them and test them. We do in innovation summits uh where we bring together whole regions of people, say here in Boston, for example, we'll have at one of our places uh maybe a hundred of our top operators with 25, 30 of our top clients to also attend, to set up an innovation summit with food, ingredients, technology, uh, decor, signage, you name all those things that we use every day. And share it as a best practice, but it's also very interesting because we get great feedback from those clients, and they also feel part of our process that they're involved and engaged versus we show up and this is what we do. Some clients like that, some clients don't, but they become part of the process. A lot of them are very smart and have a lot of experience and give us good perspective and object outside objective that we take very seriously and add to what we're doing.

Boutique Mindset at Scale: Engaging Across the Compass Leadership Table

SPEAKER_01 27:41

So you are uh part of the senior leadership team at Compass. And during my conversations, you know, it it's it becomes very clear that you that you bring a very boutique style, despite the size, the big size of your company, and a high-touch mindset. Uh, but the broader Compass group is serving at at a very, very different scale. So do you sometimes, you know, how do you interact and engage with people who are just you know things doing at uh even a mega scale compared to what you're doing?

SPEAKER_00 28:13

And there are parts of our company that are that are working at mega scale, but it's interesting. When I sit at the officers' meetings for North America, and my colleagues there from teams that feed stadiums, teams that feed health care, their focus on delivering great quality in that genre, whatever that means, and hospitality is equal, every bit is equal to mine. We share the same visions. It's incredible. And when I came to that table uh for the first time just a few years ago, I thought, you know, am I going to be the odd duck in this group? It's a small group of very high-level people. And I was pleasantly surprised to see that, you know, amazing their care for detail and quality and excellence at that level prevails. And it prevails at different levels, whatever that means, whatever is appropriate for that genre.

Tackling the Talent Shortage: Listening, Flexibility, and Pay

SPEAKER_01 29:12

Okay, I want to pivot to um talent shortage in our industry. It's real, it's happening. Um it was particularly high during the pandemic. It's eased a little bit, but still, um, when you talk about college educated graduates working in management and leadership positions, um, it's getting very difficult to attract and retain great people. So, what do you think needs to change in our industry so that we can attract more people?

SPEAKER_00 29:42

A few things need to happen, and I think a few things have happened, I know at least for us. Uh you mentioned during the pandemic, literally couldn't beg people to come to work. As we came out of the pandemic, I like to say if you could sign your name and you were breathing, you're hired. Uh but that has shifted. And what has shifted? What has shifted is that we're listening to people's desires of how they want to work. You know, just assuming, well, the restaurant business is tough, and if it's not for you, then it's not for you. And if it's too hot, get out of the kitchen. And yeah, yeah, it's 12, 15 hours a day, six days a week, and if you don't like it too bad, forget it. That doesn't exist anymore. You've got to be able to pivot and be where the people who are are willing to work be where they are. And they're looking for different types of hours, they're looking for different days of the week, they're looking for somewhat flexible schedules, they want to have time with their families. They experienced that during COVID and they don't want to ever go back to the other way again. Um and pay. You know, we were all very comfortable thinking that people were fairly paid. Maybe they weren't or not paid enough. Our our our average rate of pay increased massively from the end of COVID until the last couple of years. And that also works. Um and just being empathetic to the life of the folks that are coming to work with us, uh, and respecting that every time they come to us, we take them away from their families. And that we have to care about that. And we have to care about them.

Major Shifts in Food Service and Corporate Dining Post-Pandemic

SPEAKER_01 31:26

I think as an industry, we need to do a much better job to attract more people. Yes. Um and then we started talking about the pandemic. So I just want to get your sense of what are the major shifts that have occurred in um experience and in food service, in carpet dining, in catering, um, and so forth.

SPEAKER_00 31:48

First of all, I think uh for people's love of great crafted food actually really expanded faster and more than ever during COVID. People had a lot more time to eat, to cook, to care about what they were eating. And as they came back, food was used as one of the biggest tools as return to office, as a return to office amenity for our executive dining and staff cafe clients, which is a big portion of our business. Um we have some beautiful places where the clients provide free food as an amenity. Right. Uh we have some that charge a very reduced price. It's very far, you could never buy in the street for not even 50% what we what we sell it to them for on behalf of our clients. Um and it adds up to a lot of money. But if you took that money and divided it by the amount of associates that were benefiting from it versus what you could possibly give them in money, is zero, is nothing. It's it it barely shows up. Um yet they it works. People love it, people come to work to have food. Uh and it's also a gathering, a gathering space where good things happen when people come and have sort of these casual collisions together.

Renewed Emphasis on Food Craft During COVID

SPEAKER_01 33:15

So I was always under the impression that uh during the pandemic when we could not go out, people missed that aspect, and they did miss the communal, the social aspect of dining out. But what you're highlighting is that in addition to the social aspect, there was a renewed emphasis on the craft of the food, and food itself became so much more important.

SPEAKER_00 33:37

People were growing food, people were procuring food, people were just cooking more, they became much more in tune with what they ate, versus you know, people who you could ask at the end of the day, what did you eat today? Uh I don't know. I don't remember. There's a lot of people like that, versus people who would like list off all these things. I made this and I made that, and I prepared this thing for tomorrow, I'm going to turn it into that. They were very interested, and it was a lot of that. And that was that's good for us.

Advice for Young Professionals: Start With Delicious

SPEAKER_01 34:05

Okay. So uh towards the end, what's one piece of advice you find yourself giving often to young professionals starting out in the field?

SPEAKER_00 34:14

I think staying true to leading with quality, confidence. Uh the mantra in my company is always start with delicious, uh, be grateful, humble, and empathetic. Never lose that. That's extremely important to live by. Uh and that we are here to serve at the pleasure of our guests. We are not here to do experimental hospitality and food service. We'd like things to be interesting and different, but the lion's share of what you're doing is serving people who want just delicious food served well. And I think you have always have to keep that front of mind. And that we are in a business. It is a business, and we have to be conscious of that. Uh keep your head down, work very hard. When you have success, any amount of success, immediately share it and praise your people who got you there, and then lead by example by putting your head right back down and going back to work to earn more success.

Fun Questions: Sunday Special — Ed's Go-To Home Dish

SPEAKER_01 35:22

Perfect, perfect advice. Thank you so much. Um at the end, I have a few questions for fun. Um So when you cook at home, what's your go-to dish for family and friends? What do you end up making?

SPEAKER_00 35:36

Uh my go-to dish is probably a dish that I used to cook for my kids called Sunday Special. And Sunday Special was uh I would take, I would make sort of uh some littleneck clams uh with oil and garlic and some fresh chilies, white wine, and I would sort of start to steam them open. And as they steamed open, I would, and the idea was for me to cook everything in one pot because I didn't want to clean up on a Sunday. And as they began to open, a broth is forming in this pan, the clams are starting to open, everything smells and tastes like clam and white wine, and I would take a piece of halibut and I would just put it into that broth, the shallow broth, and just sort of begin poaching that in there, and then add a piece of butter, which we emulsified with the sauce, and it becoming a sauce. And then I would take the clams out and put them in a bowl and put them up on the table. My kids would start eating the clams. They love the clams. And then as the fish became ready, I give them the fish. And all the while I had a pot boiling with some pasta, and the last course would be reduced that sauce, take the pasta into the sauce, and the last course would be some pasta with the clam sauce. And so in one pot, we've eaten all those ingredients and a lot of fresh chopped parsley.

SPEAKER_01 36:57

Turmeric is my go-to ingredient. I put that in almost everything, including when I'm making eggs. Do you have a favorite ingredient that you always keep in the shelf in your kitchen, and it's going to somehow find its way into everything you make? Absolutely. And it's very

Favorite Ingredient: Black Pepper and the Five Kitchen Essentials

SPEAKER_01 37:13

simple.

SPEAKER_00 37:13

Black pepper. And as a seafood chef, that's very unusual because uh people who work for me over the years like, Chef, you really want me to use black? You need a black pepper grinder on your station. You said black, right? I said, yes. Well, it's gonna make spots in the food. I don't care about spots, I care about delicious. And black pepper, all of that floral flavor is in the hole on the outside, which basically is stripped away to get to the white peppercorn, which gives you the heat, which is nice, but I want the floral as well as the heat, and it's gotta be freshly ground because pepper that you buy ground it it stays around and just loses any potency or any floral notes. You know, when I was actively running restaurants, I traveled the country a lot doing events or media. And I had a couple, a couple of my team who would normally travel with me, and they know that no matter where we're going, bring kosher salt, bring Maldon Flake salt, bring amazing quality olive oil, bring high-fat butter, and bring a black peppermill. Five things. Give me your shoe, I can make it taste good with those ingredients. And basically that's what we did. You end up in a country in the uh somewhere in the middle of the country where you don't know what you're gonna get, I can make it taste good.

Dream Meal: Who Would You Invite and Where?

SPEAKER_01 38:36

So for everyone listening, uh he really doesn't use the shoes in his cooking, but he does use amazing ingredients. Um so my last question for you um if you could share a meal with four people, living or not, who would they be and where would you want to take it take place?

SPEAKER_00 38:56

Oh well, uh I've been asked this question or similar a few times. So I'm gonna try to use parts of different ones, but be fresh as well. Uh one would be uh I think sitting in Marseille at the docks, sharing a seafood stew cooked in the sort of in the back of a boat with several fishermen who just came back in from the ocean fishing, uh, with Jacques Cousteau.

SPEAKER_01 39:28

Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_00 39:29

Okay. That would be one. Another one would certainly be with my dad, who's passed away a long time ago, way too soon. Uh he loved great food. Uh he never saw really my larger success in life, although my father always saw it as successful, whatever I did. But um I would love to have a meal with him. I'd love to cook it for him and then sit down and eat it with him. Uh another would be uh a meal that I have had when he was alive, but he's no longer with us, was one of my great mentors, Pierre Fresni. Pierre Fresni uh was one of the first French chefs in America, came over with the World's Fair, became the chef at Le Pavillon restaurant in New York. And uh, you know, in my upcoming in New York, when all real restaurants were French restaurants, he was sort of the godfather of those restaurants. And I didn't work for him, but he would come around to all those restaurants, friendly with the chefs, and for some reason took me under his wing. And I used to spend time with him in his country house out in Long Island and go fishing with him. And I missed those dinners that we cooked. You know, we'd catch fish, we'd pick vegetables from his garden, we'd cook them together, and here I am at like 22 years old, thinking I'm cooking with the greatest chef in the world, possibly. I just need to be soaking this up and keeping my mouth shut. And uh I did, and I learned a lot, and it gave me a lot of a lot of gratitude.

SPEAKER_01 40:59

Yeah, in addition to learning, I think it's the inspiration and you know that feeling that uh that you have, which you still have after so many years.

SPEAKER_00 41:06

Yeah.

Closing Remarks & Credits

SPEAKER_01 41:08

Fantastic. Thank you, Ed. That was a fascinating conversation. Really, really appreciate the partnership with you and the fact that you came here into this conversation.

SPEAKER_00 41:18

Yeah, my my pleasure and thank you for having me. It's an honor to be a guest on your on your program. And I just want to say congratulations on what you do here at the institution because, as you know, we partner with some of your students who come as interns and hopefully stay with us. Uh, and they are some of the best people that join us. They are so qualified, they are so prepared, and that really speaks a lot to you and the team that works in your group.

SPEAKER_01 41:44

If you want to join the conversation and share your thoughts and suggestions, email me at shawdean at bu.edu. That is s-a d-e-an at bu.edu. This episode was produced by Mara Littman, marketing by Rachel Hamlin, research by Dr. Lan Lu, video and production by Jason Joes and of Cocoon Media. Thank you to the entire team at BU School of Hospitality. To keep up with the Distinguished Podcast, be sure to subscribe wherever you listen to your favorite podcast. You can also learn more about experience innovation in our undergraduate and graduate programs by visiting BU.edu slash hospitality. I'm Arunupneja, Dean of the BU School of Hospitality. Wishing you a great day and thank you for listening.