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Five Rules for the Good Life Podcast: Daily Summaries Delivered
by Darin Bresnitz
The best advice usually comes from someone who learned it by living it. On Five Rules for the Good Life, I sit down with my favorite people from the culinary community and ask them to share five rules on something they know inside and out. Each episode gets straight to the good stuff: the habits, opinions, and little revelations that come from years of doing the work. Short conversations with plenty to chew on, and something you can bring into your own life at the dinner table and beyond. The Guests Chefs, restaurateurs, writers, bakers, artists, and the people who make food culture worth caring about. Some you already love; others you’ll be very happy to meet. All have a perspective worth learning from.
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- 6 days ago13 min
Tatiana Ettensberger's Five Rules for Opening a Restaurant with Your Best Friend
“A partnership is also so much about having your own little parts of the restaurant that are actually just yours. Then we bring them together in a way that complements each other.” ~ Tatiana EttensbergerThis week I sit down with Tatiana Ettensberger, co-founder of Wilde’s in Los Feliz, who shares her Five Rules for Opening a Restaurant with Your Best Friend. As Wilde’s celebrates its first anniversary, Tatiana shares what she and her lifelong BFF and business partner, Natasha Price, have learned about building a business while protecting the relationship that started it. From making time for each other outside of service to encouraging time off and knowing when a secret code word is necessary, her five rules offer a thoughtful, funny, and honest look at working with someone you love.I have always loved the idea of building something with your best friend. Taking all those conversations, shared meals, and late-night plans, then turning them into a place where other people can make their own memories is a pretty incredible thing. What I admire about Tatiana and Natasha is how much thought they have put into making that work, giving their friendship the same care and attention they give Wilde’s. Being able to tell each other where they need help, cheer each other on when they take a night off, and recognize that an equal partnership can look different on either side of the kitchen door takes real trust. Hearing Tatiana talk about how their first year has brought them closer makes me even more excited to see what they build together next.Photo by Kort HavensIntroductionHello and welcome to Five Rules for the Good Life.I’m your host, Darin Bresnitz. Today, I sit down with Tatiana Ettensberger, who is one of the co-founders of Wilde’s, a Los Feliz restaurant that is celebrating its one-year anniversary.She’s here to share her five rules for opening a restaurant with your best friend. She talks about the importance of making time for each other outside of the restaurant to be each other’s biggest advocates and the outright necessity for having secret code words. It is a great conversation for anyone who is thinking about starting a business with a dear friend in their life or for anyone who’s already done so and is looking for a way to navigate their relationship.When you have a moment, please make sure to rate and subscribe to this podcast wherever you listen. So let’s get into the rules here on HRN.Tatiana, so good to see you. Congratulations. One year of Wilde’s. Thanks for making time for the show.Thank you so much for having me. I’m so excited.Friendship, Hospitality, and Building Wilde’sFor anyone who’s never worked in a restaurant, how would you describe those relationships that you form with the people you work with?There’s a couple ways that I could think about it.Anytime someone asks me how work is and how owning a restaurant is, the one thing that I’ll always say after a slew of negative things, I’ll try to turn it back around and be like, the best part of it and the reason why I entered it is you’re constantly having fun. That is so much to do with the camaraderie that happens when you work in restaurants together and it bonds everybody together. I think that’s what happens when you’re in any form of service industry.There is a bit of us versus them mentality that comes where you just have to be on the same team. Of course. Through that, you just end up truly becoming family.There’s a reason it’s called, as cheesy as it might be, family meal. Then you also end up spending pretty much all of your time with the same people every day. When you’re working dinner service, you’re spending time with people at the time when people are normally socializing with other friends.It just becomes your entire social life. I’m a huge Survivor fan. I feel like everyone who goes on Survivor, they all become obsessed with each other and are lifelong friends, even though they spend 28 days together.It’s because you’re going through intense adrenaline-filled nights, night after night.When you met your longtime friend first, business partner second, Natasha Price, did you immediately think we’re going to open up a restaurant together or did that come later?That is such a funny question because I was one and she was two. I don’t know if my brain even had real thoughts at
- 1 weeks ago8 min
Eric Bach's Five Rules for How to Build a World, Not Just a Product
“Young people are drinking, but they’re being very particular about what they’re drinking.” ~ Eric BachA Note About The TerroiristBefore we get into this week’s episode, a big thank you to everyone who showed up for the Santa Cruz Film Festival and the Green Film Festival of San Francisco for the world premiere of our documentary, The Terroirist. We were absolutely honored to take home the Morton Marcus Award for Best Documentary Feature at the Santa Cruz Film Festival and are looking forward to taking the movie on the road to Austin, New York, LA, Minneapolis, and Fairhope, Alabama over the next few weeks. And if you can’t make it to any of the screenings, it will be available on streaming platforms on November 13th.What makes someone buy into a world instead of just buying a product? This week, I sit down with Eric Bach, co-founder of Good Boy Wine, to talk about his Five Rules for How to Build a World, Not Just a Product. Through their wines and annual Good Boy and Friends festival, Eric and his partners bring together food, music, art, and a community that shares their curiosity. We get into trusting your taste before everyone else agrees, knowing what to leave out, and creating experiences that give people a reason to show up. It’s a great conversation for anyone trying to turn their interests into something bigger—and figure out how to keep the magic intact as it grows.I’ve always been drawn to world-building. From making television to throwing events to putting together this show, I love finding ways to bring the people, food, music, and ideas I care about into the same space. That’s what I love about what Eric and his partners have built at Good Boy. You can feel their taste running through everything, and spending a day at Good Boy and Friends, I got to experience how all those pieces come together. There’s great wine in your glass, something you want to eat, music you want to hear, and people you’re happy to spend the afternoon with. It’s a world they clearly want to live in, and they’ve made it easy for the rest of us to want to join them.IntroductionNow on to this week’s episode. Hello, and welcome to Five Rules for the Good Life. I’m your host, Darin Bresnitz.Today, I sit down with Eric Bach, the co-founder of Good Boy Wine, whose annual festival, Good Boy and Friends, is LA’s preeminent wine, music, and food gathering. He’s here to share his five rules for how to build a world, not just a product. He talks about the importance of trusting your taste for mainstream consensus, how to make curation a part of your daily routine, and that by creating participation, not just consumption, will lead to a larger world.It is a great conversation for anyone who’s ever wanted to build anything and for those who want people to buy in to what they’ve built. Please take a moment to subscribe and rate this podcast wherever you listen. So let’s get into the rules here on HRN.Young People, Wine, and Finding CommunityEric, so good to see you. Thanks again for sorting me at the festival. I had an absolute blast. Five years, congratulations. Welcome to the show.Thank you. It’s good to be here. I hope you had a good time at the fest.There are endless articles about how young people are not drinking, but anyone who attended the latest iteration of your festival, Good Boy and Friends, saw that this is not the full story. What do you think the media is missing about young people in wine?That’s our whole mission, get young people drinking again. Someone needed to do it.Yeah.Young people are drinking, but they’re being very particular about what they’re drinking. They are wanting to do it in social settings. COVID really amplified, obviously, everyone working from home.People are looking for ways to participate and feel connected, feel part of the community. At the same time, they care about what they’re putting in their body. We take that into account as we’re putting this little festival together.Wine as a Vehicle for CultureThat social aspect really came through. What
- 2 weeks ago9 min
Jason Hall’s Five Rules for Opening a Restaurant Anywhere in the World
“Experience the local hospitality scene. You’ve earned it. It’s one of the biggest privileges of international travel. It’s that thing that will get your light bulb to go off.” ~ Jason HallOpening a restaurant is hard enough when you live around the corner. So what happens when it’s halfway around the world? This week, Jason Hall, Vice President of Culinary at Tao Group and Executive Chef of Cathédrale, joins me to share his Five Rules for Opening a Restaurant Anywhere in the World. We talk about building a team you can trust, doing the work before you board the plane, and understanding the neighborhood before you move into it. There’s also tennis, late-night marketing calls, and a dessert in Rome that found its way onto a menu in New York. A great conversation about what it takes to bring hospitality across borders without losing your footing along the way.Having spent plenty of time traveling for work in the culinary world, I know how quickly the excitement of a new city can turn into another airport, another meeting, and a very confused sleep schedule. What I love about Jason’s approach is that he makes room for the things that keep him feeling like himself, even when everything around him changes. Pack the tennis racket, find a yoga studio, and make time to sit down at someone else’s restaurant and let them take care of you. We’re lucky to work in a world that gives us so many opportunities to eat, explore, and meet people. Finding that balance helps you actually enjoy the life you’re working so hard to build.Photo by Justin LevyIntroductionHello, and welcome to Five Rules for the Good Life. I’m your host, Darin Bresnitz. This week, we grab our passports and travel the globe with Jason Hall, the Vice President of Culinary at the Tao Group and Executive Chef of Cathedral.He’s here to share his five rules for opening a restaurant anywhere in the world. He talks about the importance of making sure that your house is in order and that no matter where you are or what you’re doing, you need to maintain your routine. It is a great conversation for anyone who’s ever wanted to open a business or a restaurant not in their backyard and to understand what it takes to work with an international team of professionals.Please take a moment to rate and subscribe to this podcast wherever you listen. So let’s get into the rules here on HRN.Bringing Food and Entertainment TogetherJason, so nice to meet you. Thank you for making the time, especially with your cross-globe travels. Welcome to the show.Thank you. Great to be here.So many people have tried to pair entertainment with food and usually fall short on elevating the cuisine. How are you within the Tao Group able to keep these two disciplines on the same level?One of the things at Tao Group, we have a very deep team in each department when it comes to design, when it comes to service, when it comes to culinary, when it comes to marketing.The secret sauce for us is making sure those elements are consistent across the board. When you have alignment through the vertical and you’re developing a concept, that’s how you can bring that energy to life.Being able to bring this to life has really been prevalent in America’s approach to using restaurants as a night out, not just as a stop on a way to a club, but really mixing the two together. Have you found this to be similar all over the world or is America just catching up?It depends on the place. I think in the major markets, you really have that connection of restaurant and nightlife. Of course, in New York, all roads are paved through Tao with that, right? They painted the picture of having a really high energy dinner, then leaving your table and walking through the door into the nightclub.That’s a very New York thing to do. In the smaller cities, they’re catching up. The Nashvilles, the Houstons, the Scottsdales, they haven’t quite got there. In the major cities, yes, that culture exists.Creating a Feeling Across CulturesBeing able to visit and work across so many different cultures and cities, how many different parts of the globe are influencing each other or is they isolated and only swapping a few ideas?I’m pretty privileged with my position with the Tao Group, so I’ve been able to hit a lot of those markets. It really depends on the place and the people.If you’re entering that market or you’re going there to
- 3 weeks ago11 min
Josh Loeb's Five Rules for Longevity in Restaurants
“Every day, doesn’t matter how great we were yesterday. Every day we have to come in and go, what can we do differently today? What can we do better today?” ~ Josh LoebTwenty years in the restaurant business gives you plenty of stories, but I wanted to hear what keeps Josh Loeb excited about showing up tomorrow. The co-founder of Rustic Canyon Family Restaurants joins Five Rules for the Good Life to share his Five Rules for Longevity in Restaurants as Rustic Canyon celebrates its twentieth anniversary. We talk about quality, keeping it fun, having each other’s backs, and the work behind a seemingly simple dish that makes you wonder why yours never tastes quite that good at home. From knowing when to retire a beloved burger to giving each chef room to find their voice, Josh shares what it takes to keep a neighborhood restaurant growing alongside the people who love it.What I love about Josh and his colleagues is that twenty years in, they’re still pushing, still refining, and still asking what they can make better. That might mean spending more time on a stock, rethinking a sauce, or letting go of a dish that everyone once thought would stay on the menu forever. Having spent so much of my own life in the food world, I have a lot of respect for people who can keep that curiosity alive while doing the daily work of taking care of their team and their guests. Rustic Canyon remains one of my favorite places to eat in LA, and hearing Josh talk about the care behind it makes the trip across town feel even more worthwhile.A Personal NoteBefore we get into this week’s episode, a quick personal note. The documentary that I produced alongside director and producer Jeffrey Reiner on legendary winemaker Randall Grahm, The Terroirist, will have its global premiere this Saturday, October 17th at the Santa Cruz Film Festival and then a follow-up screening at the Green Film Festival of San Francisco on October 18th. We will also be a part of the Austin Film Festival and have its New York East Coast debut on November 9th at City Winery.The documentary has been three years in the making and we are so excited to share it with the world. Now on to this week’s episode.IntroductionHello and welcome to Five Rules for the Good Life.I’m your host, Darin Bresnitz. Today I sit down with Josh Loeb, the co-founder of Rustic Canyon Family Restaurants, whose flagship restaurant, Rustic Canyon, is celebrating their 20th anniversary with a series of guest chef dinners throughout October. He’s here to share his five rules for longevity in restaurants.He talks about the importance of focusing on quality, how to keep it fun while keeping up your craft, and that by having everyone’s back, you build trust with everyone you work with. It is a great conversation for anyone who’s looking to stay in the long game or for anyone looking to pick up insights for someone who’s been in the business for over 20 years. Please take a moment to rate and subscribe to this podcast wherever you listen.So let’s get into the rules here on HRN. Josh, always good to see you. Thanks again for having us in the other week. Always one of my favorite places to eat in LA. Welcome to the show.Thanks so much for having me.Twenty Years of Rustic CanyonIt was a great meal and you served quite a few great meals over your 20 years in business, which is truly an incredible and unique milestone.Is there anything from those early days that still guides you today?The restaurant was always built around change, but also being really familiar and staying the same. The core principles are the exact same that they’ve been since day one, and that’s really boiled down to three things, which is great ingredients across the board, all the way through the kitchen, craft, making everything from scratch, and then making sure that we’re taking our work very s
- Oct 5, 202610 min
Liz Alpern's Five Rules for Nourishing a Crowd with Soup
“I started Queer Soup Night because the things I knew how to do were make a lot of food and throw a party.” - Liz AlpernLiz Alpern knows how to feed people and give them a reason to come together. The creator of Queer Soup Night joins me to share her Five Rules for Nourishing a Crowd with Soup, from thinking through where people will eat to keeping things simple with a little flair. We get into the resourcefulness behind a great pot of soup, the power of showing up for your community, and why making a shopping list can be its own act of self-preservation. With her forthcoming Queer Soup Night cookbook arriving in January 2027 and now available for pre-order, Liz shares an approach to hospitality and activism that starts with the skills you already have.Liz and I say “soup” 51 times in this episode, which feels like an appropriate level of enthusiasm. I love how deeply she cares about soup and how that passion carries into her activism and the community she’s built around feeding people. She thinks about everything from what’s in the pot to whether someone walking through the door will feel comfortable, welcome, and cared for. Her rule about starting with what you know really stays with me: Liz knew how to cook and throw a party, and she put those skills to work bringing people together when they needed it.IntroductionHello, and welcome to Five Rules for the Good Life. I’m your host, Darin Bresnitz. Today, I’m joined by the creator of Queer Soup Night, Liz Alpern, whose new book, Queer Soup Night, the cookbook, Over 50 Ways to Activate Community, will be available everywhere January 2027.She’s here to share her five rules for nourishing a crowd with soup. She talks about the importance of understanding where the crowd will be eating, how despite best efforts, you can’t make everyone happy, and that it’s always great to keep it simple, but add a little flair. It’s a great conversation for anyone interested in upping their soup game, but also understanding how to feed people and create community around activism.When you have a moment, please subscribe and rate this podcast. So let’s get into the rules here on HRN. Liz, so nice to meet you.Thank you for taking the time. I’m so excited to talk to you about Queer Soup Night and the new book. Welcome to the show.Thank you. I’m so glad to be here.Soup Community and ActivismThere are so many dishes that exist in almost every culture. Bread, noodles, but almost none as prevalent as soup.Yes.What is it about this dish that connects people all over the world?Oh, I could talk about this all day. A few things come to mind for me. At the heart of soup is resourcefulness. Whatever you got, you can turn it into soup.My ancestors in Eastern Europe were able to pull together a few scraps of chicken, a half an onion, and a crusty carrot and turn it into something. When you’re talking about the way that ancestral cuisine developed, we’re talking about cultures that were resourceful, that didn’t have grocery stores, that didn’t have refrigerators. Every culture around the world developed in this way.So every culture around the world developed a resourcefulness and soup is it. You can get so much out of so little.I love soup. I love how democratized it can be. I have always believed that food is and should be political and stand for something. What drove you to bring together community, activism, and soup?I have always been a passionate soup lover, if you can’t already tell from the way I speak lovingly about soup. Always dreamed of feeding everybody soup. So much of what I love about soup is the abundance. You can just picture that giant pot of soup.I always envisioned serving my friends and community that soup and certainly did in my own home. I always wanted to make it bigger. It wasn’t until the first election of Trump that I felt propelled to take some initiative and do something different.A lot of people were looking for ways to get more involved in some of the resistance work that was happening. I felt like this was an amazing opportunity for me to feed people that I’d always wanted to. It turned out that people wanted the soup.I love how you’ve brought people together all over the country and that these voices are represented in your new book, Queer Soup Night, which is part cookbook, part manifesto, part activism guide.You got it.Why did you want to bring all these elements together in this book?We have been throwing this party, Queer Soup Night, since 2017. Our 10-year anniversary was coming up.Congratulations.Thank you. It felt important to me at that time to mark this moment of having reall
- Sep 28, 202611 min
Julia Sherman
“Touch everything when you’re at the market. It’s OK if you look weird sticking your nose in bunches of this or that. You’ll look like a pro to anybody who knows what they’re doing.” - Julia ShermanJulia Sherman, artist, author, and creative force behind Salad for President, joins me to share her Five Rules for Making a Better Salad. We talk about finding joy in the process, cooking with all your senses, checking your ego, and finding fresh inspiration at the market. Julia also makes the case for giving dressing its due—and for making a salad you’re genuinely excited to eat.I love salad, and I love that Julia is on a mission to help everyone make better ones. She sees a bowl of vegetables as a chance to play with color, crunch, flavor, and whatever looks good at the market. By the end of our conversation, I wanted to get into the kitchen and make my one reliable salad twelve different ways.IntroductionHello and welcome to Five Rules for the Good Life. I’m your host, Darin Bresnitz. Today, I sit down with chef, artist and author Julia Sherman, whose new dressing mixes salad for president is available everywhere.She’s here to share her five rules to make a better salad. She talks about the importance of cooking with all of your senses, how to nurture your inner shopaholic, and that by using the freshest produce leads to the best results. It’s a fantastic conversation for anyone looking to up their salad game with tips from the master who makes every bowl beautiful.Please take a moment to subscribe and rate this podcast. So let’s get into the rules here on HRN. Julia, always a pleasure when I get to see you, and I get to chat.Loving SaladI know you have a lot on your plate right now. Thank you for making the time.Of course.My favorite thing to do is to talk, so...You literally wrote one of the books on salad. What do you love and what have you always loved about this type of dish?I’ve loved salad since I was a little kid, which was strange then. My love of salad is layered.I’m a passionate gardener. I’m fascinated by plants, produce. Salad to me is such a direct way to work with that material.It’s really about honoring the ingredients. It’s about not doing too much to them, really building a dish around produce. One side of it is aesthetics.It’s really about composition. It’s about color, what plate you use. The last thing was really that I used it as a foil to start conversations with artists.I wanted to be setting myself up for a life where I was cooking with artists and facilitating conversation and how could I do that in a way that didn’t feel intimidating? Everybody has a salad that they make. Even the simplest salads are exceptional. I found that salad was a thing that I could use to get my foot in the door with artists by saying, would you make me a salad? When they would say that that was an unusual request and they were a little befuddled, I would be able to explain to them salad can be conceptual, a salad can be putting things together in a way that’s about contrast and juxtaposition.Maybe it’s not even edible. It was this really open ended prompt that did loop back to the way that I prefer to eat, but was also a framework for a conversation. I feel like salads have been in the conversation so much these days.Salad TrendsI rarely go out to eat or even have a meal or salad isn’t a big part of it. Why do you think salads are trending right now?If I’m going to be idealistic, it’s because people are awakening themselves to the greater world of fruits and vegetables and that the monocultures that we’ve all been living in are depressing and uninspiring as more and more people shop the farmer’s market and even what you see the farmers are offering has changed so much. It’s sort of a status symbol to know your fruits and veggies to start to have more of a specific grasp on what the full spectrum is that’s out there.Salad for President, Dressing For YouYou’ve been such a good guide and teacher, both in your cookbooks, through your social video content. And now you’ve gone as far as creating your own line of instant dressings, also titled Salad for President. What inspired you to bring the flavors you love directly into people’s kitchens?Over time, I’ve been making salads under the moniker Salad for President for over 10 years now.The amount of times that I’ve heard people complain about making dressing, it’s a pain point.Sure.One of the things I love about cooking is that you don’t need a lot of pre-made stuff.But I do think that if the grand ambition is to get pe
- Sep 21, 202610 min
Dale Talde
“It starts with finding the best and then figuring out how to do it consistently.” - Dale TaldeDale Talde, co-founder and executive chef of Food Crush Hospitality, stops by to share his Five Rules for Staying in the Game. We talk about knowing what you do best, hiring talented people without giving away your equity, and why your next great opportunity may already be sitting in your inbox. Dale explains why the best product has to come before the business model, and how accepting eighty-five percent can make room for a family, a community, and the next project. It is a conversation about failure, longevity, and continuing to stand back up, with a little walk through our shared years in Brooklyn along the way.Dale is one of the people from the food world I have known the longest, and over the years we have been through a good amount together. We have watched restaurants open and close, projects come together and fall apart, and both of us keep finding the next reason to get back in the game. There is a particular kind of friendship that comes from knowing someone across that much time, through the wins as well as the moments nobody posts about. Staying in the game for a long time is something we both take pride in, and I am grateful that after all these years, we are still here, still creating, and still cheering each other on.IntroductionHello and welcome to Five Rules for the Good Life. I’m your host, Darin Bresnitz. I’m always excited when I get to sit down with today’s guest, Dale Talde, who is the co-founder and executive chef of Food Crush Hospitality.He’s here to share his five rules for staying in the game. He talks about the importance of delegating and not giving up equity, how your next project can already be sitting in your inbox, and how 85% is the key number to long-term success. It’s a great conversation and a little bit of a walk down memory lane as we talk about our time in Brooklyn and how Dale has stayed in the game for so long.Please take a moment to subscribe and rate this podcast on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you listen. So let’s get into the rules here on HRN. Dale, my brother, so good to see you.Dale’s Salad DaysYou’re looking stylish as ever. Thanks for making the time to stop by the show. Of course, brother.You know, we go so far back. Anything for you. I owe so much to our friendship, always a legacy.Speaking about going far back, you’ve been cooking for decades now. What do you remember from your salad days on the line that still rings true today? Coming to work stoned is a terrible idea, especially when you’re not very good. Absolutely.When you are starting off in this game, especially if you’re not the best cook and you’re still learning, come with a clear mind. Don’t party the night before. Take all that stuff very seriously.In our industry, we work hard and want to live hard too and party hard. But when I was a really young kid, I was really immature and I was just showing up to work. All the young culinarians out there come clear minded and even business owners.They see a lot of guys are just like, I’m going to live my life. And if I’m going to smoke a joint at noon and show up to work at two, how good of a boss are you going to be?Taking RisksTaking those risks, not taking it as seriously as you could in the early parts and even the middle parts of your career, did you ever feel like you were in jeopardy of getting bounced out of cooking professionally? A hundred percent. I worried about my job every single day that I showed up for work.There is an edge to a lot of great business owners and restaurateurs where they keep that edge. It could fall apart at any moment now, and I could be left with nothing. The ones that keep that edge oftentimes are really successful.With that edge comes a lot of neuroses. There’s a neuroticness about them at work that could be good or bad, how they channel that energy. When you have in your head that this can all go away at any moment now, you push.Pushing in a really positive thing in our world.Longevity DailyWith your hospitality group, Food Crush Hospitality, and your restaurant Goosefeather, and everything else that you’re working on, how do you implement the idea of longevity in what you do on a day-to-day basis? I have this approach that I took from a mentor of mine, Stephen Starr. If it’s not broke, do not fix it.It pertains to a lot of the staff, how you manage staffing, how you manage your executive chef, your director of operations. With that, you have to constantly communicate with
- Sep 14, 202611 min
Dave Beran
"Great risk, great reward, great failure, but great reward." - Dave Beran James Beard Award–winning chef Dave Beran, the chef and owner of pasjoli and Seline in Santa Monica, joins me to share his Five Rules for Finding Your Culinary Voice. We talk about the importance of self-awareness, learning how to accept the hard truth, and surrounding yourself with people who believe in you enough to tell you what you need to hear. Dave also explains why defining your identity gives you the foundation to take bigger risks—and why confidence sometimes has to arrive before certainty. Together, his rules offer an honest look at the long, complicated, and deeply personal process of discovering who you are through the work you make.What I love about Dave is his continued effort to refine his voice, even after the awards, the acclaimed restaurants, and all the proof that he could simply keep doing what already works. He remains willing to question himself, listen to hard truths, and keep editing until the food feels completely his own. Finding your voice is not a single revelation; it is a lifelong process of paying attention, taking risks, and having the confidence to change when something no longer feels true. Watching Dave continue to do that work reminds me that mastery is not about reaching a final destination—it is about caring enough to keep searching.IntroductionHello and welcome to Five Rules for the Good Life. I'm your host, Darin Bresnitz. Today, I sit down with Dave Beran, the chef and owner of pasjoli and Seline here in Santa Monica.He is the recent recipient of Best Chef: California from the James Beard Awards and is here to share his five rules for finding your culinary voice. He talks about the importance of self-awareness, being able to define your identity, and having the confidence to take risks. It is a great conversation for those starting their culinary journey and those looking to refine their cuisine as they move through their career.If you have a moment, please subscribe and rate this podcast wherever you listen. So, let’s get into the rules here on HRN.Finding a Culinary VoiceDave, always a pleasure to see you. Congratulations on everything. Welcome to the show.Thanks for having me. Great to be here.Going back to that first restaurant job you had in Bay Harbor, Michigan, at Latitude, did you have an idea of the chef you wanted to be, and has anything stuck from that time?No, I had no idea. Latitude was cool. That was a fun summer job. I’d just eaten at a couple Chicago restaurants with my dad. Went there and I saw this, like, cool, fancy restaurant that seemed fun.Sure.Started cooking there. I was 19. I just thought it was neat. It was artistic. The food tasted good and everyone who worked there was cool.Yeah.This is a fun place to be. I didn’t know. I had no idea.Chicago is where you made your bones, and you worked at some of the most legendary restaurants, like Tru and Alinea. Now you have your own spots like pasjoli and Seline. What was the moment when your culinary voice started to coalesce?There’s been several points. For me, it’s been a moving target. There’s been a lot of times where I’m like, “Oh, this is me. Oh, now this is me.”Sure.As of recently, it’s the most confident I’ve been in what I’m trying to do. It’s very much ebbed and flowed. At Alinea, there was a point where I would say a quarter to a third of the dishes on the menu were things I’d created.It’s incredible.I thought they were mine. The bubblegum dish at Alinea was a very famous dish. In hindsight, yes, that was my dish, but that dish doesn’t exist without Grant Achatz and Alinea, for that matter. I was very good at doing what I could do through his lens and accentuating his own thought process and, frankly, helping to evolve the thing that he’d created.I get to Next and it’s all new. I hit a window of three menus—Hunt, Vegan, and Kaiseki—where I felt like this was my food. This was my style of menu. Now I look at some of those dishes in hindsight and I think it’s not so much that I had an identity as much as that’s when I felt most confident. They’d created a foundation for me to be creative. That was a framework. I was creating within that framework.I was very quickly reminded that it was not mine when we switched to Steakhouse. Suddenly, I was making a steakhouse menu, and the internal fights around that menu and the personal struggles that I had of, “I’m not going to do a four-course with à la carte,” and ego gets in the way. I realized that my creative evolution was ultimately going to do a disservice to that restaurant because the more in tune with what I was doing, the more in tune with myself and my desires, the more I was moving away from the philosophy of a restaurant that always changed
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About Five Rules for the Good Life Podcast
The best advice usually comes from someone who learned it by living it. On Five Rules for the Good Life, I sit down with my favorite people from the culinary community and ask them to share five rules on something they know inside and out. Each episode gets straight to the good stuff: the habits, opinions, and little revelations that come from years of doing the work. Short conversations with plenty to chew on, and something you can bring into your own life at the dinner table and beyond. The Guests Chefs, restaurateurs, writers, bakers, artists, and the people who make food culture worth caring about. Some you already love; others you’ll be very happy to meet. All have a perspective worth learning from.
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