Episode 164: Alex Raij (La Vara, Saint Julivert, El Quinto Pino, Txikito); San Francisco Cooking School's Jodi Liano on Culinary Students in the COVID Age

Andrew Talks to Chefs

Andrew recently sat down with the accomplished chef and restaurateur Alex Raij, who owns and operates a number of the most personal, specific, and successfully realized Spanish restaurants (La Vara, Saint Julivert Fisherie, El Quinto Pino, Txikito) in New York City, all in collaboration with her husband Eder Montero. Alex opens up about the genesis of her restaurant concepts, her food-focused Minneapolis childhood, and dream projects that linger in her imagination.

And in The Line-Up, our weekly news and commentary segment, Jodi Liano, founder and owner of San Francisco Cooking School, checks in from California to share some insights on what's different, and what remains the same, for culinary students in a late-COVID landscape. What's drawing them to cooking programs, what are their ambitions, and how many of them found the inspiration and courage to take the cooking school plunge because of the pandemic?

We also welcome a new sponsor to the Andrew Talks to Chefs family this week. To kick off the partnership, we welcome Brad Metzer, founder of Brad Metzger Restaurant Solutions (BMRS), to the pod as he offers the first of what will be a weekly selection of positions that his firm is looking to fill. (Andrew Talks to Chefs listeners are encouraged to reach out to BMRS at the special, dedicated email address created just for you at [e-mail].)

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THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW:

Andrew is a writer by trade. If you'd like to support him, there's no better way than by purchasing his most recent book, The Dish: The Lives and Labor Behind One Plate of Food (October 2023), about all the key people (in the restaurant, on farms, in delivery trucks, etc.) whose stories and work come together in a single restaurant dish.

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