u/JamesBonzo

I’m asking for advice in this post!

So a few months an ago I gave a verbal agreement to be the CDC to open a new restaurant. I haven’t signed anything yet but I have the contract.

For some background, most of my experience is in Michelin starred restaurants doing tasting menus. The restaurant I would be opening would be slightly more casual.

I asked the owners (who are nice and have good taste) what they want this restaurant to be. They basically said they are inspired by the “casual fine dining” type restaurants. Think fourhoursmen, Dorian, locust, ect. They told me they would want to operate in the realm of these 1 Michelin star places I just mentioned. That sounded great to me and I feel that I am capable of running a place of that caliber. So I have a verbal agreement.

Since then I have done a handful of pop ups for the restaurant where I have created and executed the menu by myself. These pop ups have been both financially and artistically successful.

So here is my problem. Over time they have revealed more and more things about the restaurant to me that have been concerning.

1. The restaurant will have a type 2 hood and therefore will only have 4 induction burners and 1 combi oven. No other cooking appliances are permitted.

2. The owners say they want to hire only 4 back of house staff that includes; Me, a Sous chef, one line cook, one porter. (The restaurant seats 45)

3. The owners have had a chef consultant who is based in another state creating menus for the restaurant when it opens. Menus that I still have no knowledge of their contents and I have not had any part in creating. This chef consultant has been on payroll long before I even met with the owners.

So I am looking for some advice/I want to know if I’m being overly worried. Points 2 and 3 are especially concerning to me if they want to operate at a Michelin level like they told me. The restaurant is almost done with construction and will be opening in 2 months. I still haven’t signed the contract. If I do sign the contract I’m going to commit myself to at least 3 years so I need to know if I should run away from this opportunity or attempt to take on these challenges and see what happens.

Any advice is appreciated thank you!

(It’s also worth noting because I know somebody will comment on this. I don’t actually care or base the success of a restaurant on Michelin stars. I only say Michelin when describing the quality of restaurants because I lack the vocabulary to otherwise explain the type of quality and standards I wish to uphold)

There’s not much else to this post. I am the chef of a new restaurant opening this fall and as much as I want a paco jet we just can’t put it in the budget right now. Even a used pacojet 2 is out of budget.

Was wondering if any chefs use a ninja creami professionally and how it’s going for them. We have 40 seats. Expecting around 60-100 covers a night.

Does anyone have any recommendations for excellent quality farms that raise ducks. We need about 4 whole ducks with head and feet still on per week.

We are based in Boston so New England farms are preferred but we can use NY or PA farms if we must.

Looking for exceptional quality ducks. We want some gaminess so Muscovy or Moullard is preferable. And they need to deliver to Boston at least once a week.

I know I’m asking for a lot but I figured I’d try.

Just wanted to see what sort of cool things I can do with an excess of tomatoes.

Our farmer friends are just giving us loads of tomatoes for free that won’t sell so we want to figure out how to get something out of this.

For some background we are an 8 Seat chefs counter tasting menu restaurant and we do two turns a night.

Here are things we already do with our tomatoes.

•Koji tomato water
•Tomato powder
•Tomato paste
•Tomato salad for the menu
•Pan con tomat

Looking for creative and weird ways to use a bunch of tomatoes.

Thanks!

EDIT!

I made tomato XO and it was delicious