Shining a Light on Greek Cuisine with Chef Doug Psaltis

In this episode, host Jonathan Havens, co-chair of Saul Ewing’s Food, Beverage and Agribusiness (FBA) Practice, speaks with Doug Psaltis, chef and owner of Andros Taverna in Chicago and owner of Eat Well Hospitality. Doug reminisces about his life, from growing up in a Greek household and spending time at his grandfather’s diner in Queens to working with some of the best chefs in the world and opening several new restaurants. He discusses the impetus behind Andros Taverna – to start a small company with his wife focusing on heritage projects while creating a healthy, affordable restaurant that showcases Greek cuisine in a setting reminiscent of Athens, Greece.  Doug also touches on how the pandemic has changed his perspective, offers advice for aspiring chefs and restaurateurs and shares a few details about his next project.

Transcript

Episode: Shining a Light on Greek Cuisine with Chef Doug Psaltis
Jonathan Havens and Douglas Psaltis November 2022

Jonathan Havens: Thank you so much for joining us on today's episode of our Food, Beverage and Agribusiness podcast series, “Don't Miss a Beet.” My name is Jonathan Havens and I am the co-chair of both Saul Ewing's Food, Beverage and Agribusiness practice, as well as the firm's Cannabis Law practice. And I'm based in our Baltimore and Washington, D.C. offices. Today I'm thrilled to be joined by Doug Psaltis, who is chef and owner of Andros Taverna and owner of Eat Well Hospitality. Doug is a Michelin Star Chef and restaurateur with more than 20 years of experience running some of the country's most esteemed establishments. His expertise and insight into restaurant concept development, along with front and back of house operations, has made him a much sought-after specialist globally.

Doug, thank you so much for joining us on today's episode. I've enjoyed getting to know you in the run up to this recording. Your story's really an interesting one, and, I should add, I had an incredible meal when I was at Andros last summer, and really appreciate what you all are doing there. Would you mind sharing with our listeners your background?

Doug Psaltis: Yeah, so I grew up in a Greek household. My grandfather had a diner in Queens. The only work I ever did were in restaurants. If it was a bagel shop, a pizza shop, or hanging around my grandfather's diner as a kid. Always dreamed to go to culinary school, but worked my way through some great restaurants on the east coast, especially in New York City for most of my life and great training and culinary experience with some of the best chefs in the world. We achieved Michelin stars, New York Times four stars, three stars, opened all these different restaurants, and I had this light bulb moment around 35, 36 when I thought I could take on the world and open my own restaurant. And realized that there was – I had so much more to learn. At that point, I had the opportunity to work with Rich Melman of Lettuce Entertain You in Chicago and really start off by creating one restaurant with him.

The first one went well. Over 12 years, we opened up 21 different restaurants, some with the same concept. And right before COVID, as I was around 45-46, I really wanted to focus on the next chapter of my life and do things and start a small company with my wife. And as things were unfolding around COVID, it was just more and more important and paramount for us to focus on a lot less than meant a lot more. In February, 2021, we opened up Andros Taverna in Logan Square in Chicago, and it's been extremely fun. It's been motivating. It's been – really everything we thought it could be. We're working on a second project right now that will open up this February and we're staying to our little ethos of a lot less that means a lot more.

Jonathan Havens: That's great. And I love that you're doing this with your wife. That's certainly special. So you talked about Andros and I talked about that at the top of the show and how much of a fan of the restaurant I am. Can you tell our listeners who haven't been there yet a bit more about the concept there?

Doug Psaltis: Yeah, so I worked in – as I touched on – I worked in some great restaurants and with chefs in New York City. And in the nineties, all the ingredients were really crazy and exotic and so intimidating. And I overlooked or looked down upon the ingredients I grew up eating – just basic Mediterranean vegetables and fresh cheeses. And then when I started working with Alain Ducasse, one of the best chefs in the world, I recognized that the pantry in that restaurant was very similar to what I grew up with. And they spent a lot of time focusing on the best quality possible. Over time, I created a lot of different restaurants. I always thought it could be fun if it was a Greek one. I thought a Greek restaurant deserved this youthfulness and light and lightness. I thought there was a lot of great Greek restaurants that we grew up with that were tavernas and they kind of – a little the Epcot center view of just Mykonos and Santorini. And then there was the – and those were kind of like your Euro shops or simple tavernas.

And then there was the pinnacle of Milos – which is such an amazing restaurant that I've always been in awe of –that is at almost an unreachable price point for a lot of people. So when thinking about Andros, for us it was just to create a very affordable restaurant, a healthy restaurant, and to shine a light on Greek food and Greek cuisine that I grew up eating in those flavors in a setting that's more reminiscent of Athens, Greece or Astoria, Queens and that's always been the center of cosmopolitan behavior, metropolitan lifestyle for thousands of years as opposed to just that cityscape. So we have a very youthful, urban-ish restaurant, open air. We fly our fish in from the best markets in Greece. We cook our fish whole, we clean it tableside. We have amazing meats, but our vegetables and salads really are the stars of our show.

Jonathan Havens: Yeah, I can attest on the salad front. We actually finished our meal with the watermelon and feta salad.

Doug Psaltis: Oh, yeah.

Jonathan Havens: Better than any dessert I could have imagined, right? Not to say that the desserts aren't great as well. I think we had some of those as well. I want to say maybe frozen yogurt, the Greek frozen yogurt. But yeah, finishing with the watermelon feta salad was – couldn't imagine a better way to finish the meal. So just wanted to switch gears for a second. You know, look, we've talked about it on the podcast before, but I always like to ask folks in your space about supply chain and labor challenges in the food and beverage world. Obviously, COVID has had and continues to have a huge impact, but then there's just general supply chain issues and labor issues that linger. Can you talk a little bit about how these have affected Eat Well and how you've navigated the challenges?

Doug Psaltis: Yeah, the supply chain challenges – we've done pretty good to kind of work through that. Some of it has taught us some patience and some understanding. I think there was this mentality in the past where if – you know, your produce truck is late – just call your produce guy and just yell at him.

Then I think we realize one of the things during COVID is that we're all in this together, right? They have problems. We have problems. How can we work through this? How can we better understand? How can we make some changes, right? We're fortunate, as I mentioned, we work directly with small farms that have not been that interrupted. So that's been okay for us. Some of the things like furniture just might take 15 weeks instead of five. It might take 30 weeks instead of 10. But we've learned a lot of patience through that. As far as for the labor challenges, we were fortunate. We were able to build a restaurant and a small company with an ethos that I believe is healthier and more relevant today than some of the older companies that are dragging around their 1980s to 1990s culture and these big, broad restaurants. It's very important for my wife and I to take care of our employees as that they are our partners, just like our purveyors. So we've tried to create the best working environment possible. We focused on efficiencies when creating our restaurant, so our staff works with ease. We work on efficiency so we can minimize the amount of staff needed for us to operate. And then we try to be the best employer possible.

Jonathan Havens: That's great. Yep, and it certainly shines through. Can you tell us about your future plans for Eat Well Hospitality? What do you envision as the next big thing for the group over the next year or two or longer than that, if you'd like to address that.

Doug Psaltis: Yeah. I think for our team, the most important thing we want to do is continue to build our foundation. Andros has been very rewarding and very inspiring for us. We have a great team. And our goal is to continue to do heritage projects. Our goals are creating partnerships with growth for our employees. And we have one other concept we're playing with that, again, would be a great heritage project that will be nice and small so we can manage it and continue to grow our foundation and the strength of our team. So, if there are some great opportunities over the next couple years, we're ready to take advantage of them.

Jonathan Havens: That all sounds great. For any aspiring chefs or restaurateurs out there, what advice would you give them? I guess, said differently: if you could talk to yourself 20 years ago when you were just getting started, what would you say?

Doug Psaltis: You know, if I could talk to myself 20 years ago – well, I guess it took me 10 years of that time, or maybe eight years of that time to wake up and realize there's so much more to learn. You know, the idea of the race that I need to have my own place, I need to have my own dishes on the menu. I need to be creating, creating, creating is really fantastic and that is a desire for a lot of people. But I think the need to be financially solvent, having an understanding of how to make money, having an understanding of how to run a business, really. You know, whoever cooks the best scallop and chooses their vegetable for it is fantastic. That's really an amazing thing to focus on. But how do you really run a business? How do you make money with the scallops? How do you take care of your staff?

Because the one thing I've learned over time is: if you can't make money, you take it out on your employees, you take it out on your purveyors, you take it out on your guests. So, the money we're able to make allows us to pay our purveyors properly, pay our staff properly and provide great products for our guests. So I think that's the real reward. And I find that's – we double down on that and we see the benefits of it daily.

Jonathan Havens: Yeah. That all makes sense. And I think that's great advice. So, Doug, I told you it was going to be quick. Appreciate your time. We know how much you have going on. Just wanted to say thank you so much for coming on today. We really appreciate your time. I'm certainly looking forward to my next visit to Andros and to all of your other amazing concepts that you're developing the next time I'm in town. I learned a lot today. I learn a lot with all of our guest conversations and today was certainly no exception. To our audience members, thank you so much for tuning in. We hope you will catch us on a future episode of Don't Miss a Beet. Thank you so much.

Doug Psaltis: Thank you guys. Take care.