How did your career as a chef begin?
Probably when I started making sandwiches at eight years old, or when my parents refused to let me have a pocket knife after joining Cub Scouts. The Scouts were teaching us how to make fires, and my parents shut that down real fast. Now I get to make fires and play with knives almost every day. :)
It was a term a client gave me after a dinner once — one I’d not paid so much mind to for a long time before that.
Throughout my career, which has spanned numerous chapters — from music to advertising, working with Spike Lee, to selling couches and CBD — food was always involved with in some way in my spare time. Or always hosting in some capacity. Whether as the go-to person to cook a mom’s birthday or to help lead the charge in the kitchen on Thanksgiving, it’s just where I felt at home. Maybe it’s the way my brain works — recipes or really following steps were not for me. Cooking just felt right. The “pressure” or the heat or really the chaos felt comforting.
The only reason to use the word “chef” is to help identify this chapter and how I’m offering up my passion and love to the world.
I sort of humbly accept being called a chef because for so many years working a desk job, I dreamed about cutting onions while building PowerPoint presentations.
We love all of your different ventures! Tell us about your DUMBO coffee shop, Red Coffee Stand, and your pop-up series, Hot Soup!
They all come down to this human element — the need to gather, provide, build friendships, and introduce people. That’s really at the core of all of this.
I had been cooking fancy dinners back in 2021 and 2022 and wanted something simpler and less focused on aesthetics.
That summer of ‘23, I was making sorbets in my apartment on Sundays and inviting friends over. As fall hit, a friend asked me to cook at a market — I’d planned to do sorbet, but the weather was already getting cold, so I proposed doing soup instead. They all sold out. I tried it again at my friend Tal’s shop, Colbo — sold out again. I was lucky to meet Scarr that night and a lot of folks on the Lower East Side, and the idea of this really simple vessel of food just felt right in a stuffy food scene. There was also a woman there who months later would become my partner.
Early on, soup just kept providing all that I was missing at the time.
I had been asked to cook a fancy dinner, found myself out of alignment with the client, quit the project, and went all in on soup that winter. I created a soup tour — which seemed so silly at the time — but it was an all-encompassing project with a constant pot simmering day over day, week over week, eventually month over month. We cooked at Hudson Wilder, Frog, Prima, Colbo, Public Records, The Hancock, Laorbra, Boreham Studios, and a few of Yukari’s events.
We got some press for what we were building and opened a two-month shop at the old Scarr’s on Orchard Street with my dear buddy Reed Webster, who at that time was making the best bread in New York City, hands down. He had gone out to Italy to learn from his uncle in the weeks leading up to the shop opening.
Months later, while working at Dover Street Market as head chef and opening Hot Soup and Bad Larry Sandwiches, I got a call from Dustin (who I had met while cooking outside of Farm.One - he served ice cream) about a space opening in my old work neighborhood of DUMBO and whether I wanted to get involved. I told him to give me two weeks, called up my friends at Ants Coffee, and we decided to go into business together.
Opening a coffee shop was not on my bingo card, but it created the perfect outlet to serve soup and coffee and meet people from all over the world. It’s been remarkable to see how our punch cards that guests get after their first purchase have completely taken over the shop.
You can sit there on a Saturday as people funnel in from over the bridge, and in the span of five minutes meet folks from Brazil, London, Japan, China, and Ireland - people can say whatever they want about DUMBO it really is a convergence point of the world.
What’s your favorite part about the New York culinary community?
Waking up early and heading to Union Square Farmers Market just as the stands open at 8 AM — maybe a few minutes before — you see all these talented folks, whether buying for their restaurants, their pop-ups, or for recipe development. Lingerings over strawberries that just hit the market, or when nectarines trickle in, or maybe fava beans that will only be there for a few weeks. Watching other people’s excitement over the produce is such a giving energy. Truly electric, healing, and regenerative. So many people with so much creativity, whether trained or just exploring food as an outlet — there’s truly nothing else like it.
I love going into other people’s spaces and homes - watching them bring in technique and heritage - Cherlene Lup of the baogega is a perfect example of that. Just go to one of her meals and thank me later.
How do you incorporate seasonal produce in your dishes and creative ideas?
That is the core of it all. You go to the farmers’ market, see what’s new, and that’s how we cook — that’s how I hope other people cook too. It’s entirely about what’s in season. If there are only squashes in the winter, you gotta get creative, baby.
Do you have anything new on the horizon for your food studio, Essential Herbs?
A lot of what I’m focused on right now is the operations of the business and creating tools to help our crew and other folks in the industry with their food pop-ups and restaurants. We’re also developing a line of soup — the next iteration of Hot Soup — and leaning into weddings, whether that’s fire cooking or otherwise.
Save the date Thursday, Aug 6 for a BBQ at Public Records. That’s all for now.
Follow Along:
@redcoffeestand
@hotsoup.nyc
@essentialherbs.nyc
Essential Herbs Culinary Studio