Deglazed Industry Podcast

Deglazed Chef Jullian Part-1

Scott Morgan,Luis Olivas Season 4 Episode 28

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Meet Chef Julian, a Florida kid who's spent nine years grinding through every corner of the restaurant industry – from starting out baking with his grandma to culinary school to cooking in California and back to commanding the kitchen line. This multi-talented chef brings more than just culinary skills to the table; he's also a songwriter and music producer who channels the same creativity into his art as he does into his cooking. Julian is truly "one of us" – a veteran of the restaurant trenches with the kind of authentic humor and unfiltered insights that only come from someone who's lived every aspect of the bizz. In this episode, he shares his wild journey through the industry with the wit, stories, and kitchen wisdom that make him the perfect guest for Deglazed's behind-the-scenes look at restaurant life. Warning: Kitchen jokes and language included – just the way we like it.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, drink whatever you want over there, bro.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, shit. It's still got some in there. Oh, yeah. Worst case scenario, I'll sleep on the grass.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, you can sleep right there on the casting couch. Yeah, on the casting couch. That's why it's here. Is it clean now? Yeah, man. We haven't casted anything on it

SPEAKER_00

yet. We haven't casted. I can make that happen. You can be the first.

SPEAKER_01

You can be

SPEAKER_00

the first. I can make it happen. I know. a lot of people in Miami. I'm talking about you, but

SPEAKER_01

okay. Yeah,

SPEAKER_00

whatever. I'm being casted?

SPEAKER_01

Why not? You could sub

SPEAKER_00

it out. What do you have to do tomorrow? What do you have to do tomorrow? You know what I have to do tomorrow. You work with me. We're

SPEAKER_01

offering the spot, bro. I

SPEAKER_00

got a giant burp coming out. Oh my God. Let it rip, bro. There you go. There you go. It just kept coming. Love it, dude. It's like you ever felt it in your chest and it just hurts? Oh my God. I love

SPEAKER_01

those, man. I

SPEAKER_00

love them, but I don't like the fart version of it because then you start the question. Is this a fart?

SPEAKER_01

Is it a fart? You know, at my age, you don't trust a fart, man. Or waste a heart on. Here

SPEAKER_00

you go. Last night, I had a giant fart on my couch. No clothes. Try to treat it like a penis and put it directly in front of you. One

SPEAKER_01

fist away from

SPEAKER_00

it. Oh, you're talking about the mic. I was so confused. He's looking

SPEAKER_01

for a penis. One

SPEAKER_00

fist

SPEAKER_01

away. One fist away. Get it where you're comfortable. Now, he can also, if you're not comfortable We all got ADD. Oh, I got the H in it.

SPEAKER_00

ADHD. He's got the hoe

SPEAKER_01

in him. You don't get to hear the clap. You'll hear it later. You'll hear it later. As they say. We'll give it to you again. You got the clap?

SPEAKER_00

We'll give it to you again. Yeah. You're going to give me the clap again? Again. We just gave it to you twice. Dude. Can you not do that? But here's the thing, bro.

SPEAKER_01

If you already have it, you can't get it twice. So I don't understand that. That's not how that works. That's not how that works. If you already have it, if it's in you right now, you

SPEAKER_00

can't get the clap again. I've been tested too many times. Yeah? How many times have you had it? Have you had it? Actually, I don't know what a high number is for that test. One.

UNKNOWN

One?

SPEAKER_01

That's high in my book. Now I don't want to expose my number. That'll knock you out of the game for at least the night.

SPEAKER_00

I've been tested four times. Only three times has it been negative. The first time was only 19 expected. Dude, shit happens,

SPEAKER_01

bro. At least it goes away. At least it's not one of those

SPEAKER_00

that stays. I thought it was a tumor. I I was like, oh no, there's a tumor in my balls. No. No, it was the clap. Fuck yeah, man.

SPEAKER_01

It was the clap. I'll take a clap over a tumor any day. Nah, that's a

SPEAKER_00

disco. There it goes. Is that a Blazy Susan paper? Oh, I don't know. For a second, it looked pink. I was like, yes, Blazy Susan. It came from the dispensary. I don't know. Yeah? Oh, it was pre-rolled?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

All right, so introductions. You know me. I'm Low. Everybody knows Low. You hit it already? Yeah. What the fuck? Hit it again? You know what happens. I'm going to sit here being quiet.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, go ahead. Nah. Scoot. Hey, I'm Scott. He's Scott Scoot. It's been a minute since we've done a podcast. It's kind of fun. Yeah. No, I'm good. Thanks.

SPEAKER_00

Introducing... A.K.A. El Estudianti.

SPEAKER_01

El Estudianti.

SPEAKER_00

As he is known by the Spanish folks at our job. A.K.A. Juliano. Juliana. Juliana is better than Juliana. A.K.A. Julio. Julio. A.K.A. J.Dia. Wow. There's a lot of names. A lot of A.K.A.

SPEAKER_01

You got to at least keep one to the chest, you know, so that... They're not all

SPEAKER_00

going to be on your police report. The only ones I keep are Jules, Julian, and J.D. That's it. That's it? Yeah, that's it. You don't let anybody else call you anything else at work? At work? I mean, they can call me whatever. Baby. I'll let it happen. What's up, babies? Baby. They're all shorter than me. I'll let it happen. Babies.

SPEAKER_01

That's fair. That's

SPEAKER_00

fair.

SPEAKER_01

Lo and I had a whole day when we first met at the first restaurant we worked at where we called everybody, actually probably about a whole week, where we called everybody babies. What's

SPEAKER_00

up, babies? How you doing, babies? What restaurant was this?

SPEAKER_01

Oh, right over here. Yeah, it's

SPEAKER_00

Rick and Barrel. Rick and Barrel. Yeah, and I worked there, too. Who worked there?

SPEAKER_01

When? He knows.

SPEAKER_00

He knows. He knows him. I know Kyle.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, you know Kyle? He who shall not be names.

SPEAKER_00

I just named

SPEAKER_01

them.

SPEAKER_00

Did I get in trouble?

SPEAKER_01

No, it's all good. We're just fucking around. We've talked about bringing Kyle on the show. Yeah. And then we decided we just can't keep the

SPEAKER_00

levels. I would have been like, you're going to bring him on the show and then he's going to listen to past episodes. That sounds very familiar. I'm going to have to keep adjusting the levels. Constantly.

SPEAKER_01

If you ever notice, Kyle talks louder and louder and louder.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, yeah. They're more

SPEAKER_01

excited to get. Yeah. And the longer the sentence goes, you know. But love me some Kyle. See him over at the... I go over to Abaco all the times it's right here you know

SPEAKER_00

i would go i got some real good restaurants

SPEAKER_01

and a lot of fun bars man i'm not gonna lie it's a good time over there

SPEAKER_00

i only know the stuff i'm there because i did a delivery for like produce

SPEAKER_01

yeah

SPEAKER_00

at a yankee peddler i don't know if you've heard it i have seen i've seen them

SPEAKER_01

around yeah

SPEAKER_00

yeah i did that for like two years and uh i only wanted it because i wanted to stay away from cooking for like

SPEAKER_01

dude i feel that bro

SPEAKER_00

yeah how long have you cooked

SPEAKER_01

for

SPEAKER_00

i've been cooking since i was 17 so that makes it nine years now

SPEAKER_01

that's that's I mean, you're young and you've got a lot under your belt.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. I'm trying my best so far. It's like, it's weird. Cause that, that's when I started professionally. But when I started like cooking, cooking, like actually trying, I'd say like 14, but that was all baking. Oh no shit. Yeah. Cause it wasn't. Do you like to bake? I fucking love to bake. I just hate to do it professionally.

SPEAKER_01

That's fair. That's fair.

SPEAKER_00

And it's like, cause bacon just takes so, so fucking long and you're just like,

SPEAKER_01

You actually have to measure and fucking weigh.

SPEAKER_00

That part I actually love. I love accuracy and shit. I love using the scale. It makes me feel like my dad because he was a drug dealer.

SPEAKER_01

That's funny because I just took my weed weighing scale over to my sister's to make... My old roommate from culinary school lives in Tampa. I went to visit her over the weekend. She gave me half her sourdough starter. I'm making sourdough focaccia at my sister's right now.

SPEAKER_00

I fucking love focaccia. I had to

SPEAKER_01

come home And grab my weed scale to measure out all my, you know, my flower and everything to feed it, to get it bubbly, you know, and get it going and

SPEAKER_00

stuff like that. I did the same thing in California whenever I had over because I'm the only one who does it professionally. And they're like, yeah, but I don't know. I have a cup. That's it. So I just go to a smoke shop and just buy a scale because I know I'm not going to find anywhere with it.

SPEAKER_01

I mean, you go to like Williams-Sonoma or even like, you can even go to like fucking Target. Target's got them now. That's true. They've got like the, and it's like what? Weed scales? Well, you can use it. It's a digi. It's just a big, but it's a fat digi. Oh, they're just regular scales for people? At pet shops, like you get like the little travel one, right? The little silver travel one. You can get the big one so you can actually fit a bowl on it. Is that like the jewelry bags? Well, that's totally different.

SPEAKER_00

The jewelry bags. Yeah, that's like

SPEAKER_01

your little grand baggies. Jewelry bags. Like you snap them to open them. I

SPEAKER_00

always called them coin bags. Coin bags. Coin bags.

SPEAKER_01

I think that's what they're actually called, right? Yeah. Allegedly. We

SPEAKER_00

all dealt drugs at different times. Allegedly. Allegedly.

SPEAKER_01

Allegedly.

SPEAKER_00

I don't know. I know they're jewelry bags. I used to sell a lot of jewelry. You sold jewelry? I sold jewelry. A lot of jewelry. You're making it sound like it wasn't jewelry. A lot of nose jewelry. It was jewelry. Was it real? It was nose jewelry. I used to sell a lot of

SPEAKER_01

lung jewelry. Oh, I get it. Jewelry. But I didn't use jewelry bags. I used, you know, gallon bags.

SPEAKER_00

It took me a whole second to realize what was going on here. It's just there's more and more terms. Oh, my God.

SPEAKER_01

From what dispensary? You should, you know, we'll try to get them to pass money.

SPEAKER_00

I didn't get it from any dispensary. Oh. I found that. Who likes free stuff? And I said, eh. It's free stuff. Julian likes free stuff. I love free shit. We'll take care of that. Fell off a truck. We'll take care of that later. You make every normal thing so suspicious. I know, right? It's like, oh yeah, I'm buying milk, but I didn't get it from that store. I didn't get it from that store either.

SPEAKER_01

I just found it. Because it's not pasteurized. Yeah, it's not pasteurized. Everything Lowe does is illegal. Yo, these are nice eggs. Where'd you get them? I can't help it. From my neighbor's chicken.

SPEAKER_00

I can't help it. I just found these eggs.

SPEAKER_01

These are rooster eggs. Did you even know they made them?

SPEAKER_00

You got a giant ass ostrich egg. drag. Just like, where are you finding this? I just have it. I just have it. I found it. Do you want it or not? This is the second to

SPEAKER_01

last pterodactyl egg. Do

SPEAKER_00

you want it or not? What's going on? Sometimes I find shit, sometimes I don't. And when I find shit, I show it to my friends. Don't question it.

SPEAKER_01

And if one of

SPEAKER_00

them wants to buy it from me, I got

SPEAKER_01

it. Oh my God. Oh, that's so funny. Yeah, I hate bacon, dude, man. I do it, though. I like to do it because I like the product. And I'll stick it up. If I could, you know, doing what I like to do. I like to just wing it. I'm shooting from the hip, dude. I'm a hotline fucking chef. I mean, I can write recipes. I can make shit consistent, yada, yada. But if I'm cooking at home and enjoying it, I want to just taste it and go, you

SPEAKER_00

know. You can't taste test it in baking. You just got to wait.

SPEAKER_01

Absolutely. You can put it all together the best you can measure and go, I taste the salt. That's good. But after that, yeah. I mean, right now, I'm letting this shit proof. I didn't have time to wait, so I'm letting it proof all night in the fridge, dude.

UNKNOWN

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Hopefully tomorrow will be good. I'll smash it down for the last one. Fucking olive oil to fuck it out of it. Yeah. I'm going to stop and buy some good flaky salt for the top of it. I've been using pink Himalayan and I set like the grinder on the biggest, you know, to get like chunky salt in there. But I mean, it's not going to be the same as like big flaky sea salt, you know, like makes all the difference in the world.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. I don't use the Maldon sea salt anymore. There's a Jupiter salt farms or something. It's like a local brand. They sell it at Yankee Peddler. I got this. It was just like, I'd say a pint of flaky salt, and it's by$18 or$21.

SPEAKER_01

Damn. I'm not going to be using that. That's expensive. Yeah, I know. That's a lot.

SPEAKER_00

Which is why I only use it on special occasions. I don't use it on everything. But I've had... One container. I've had it for like two years so far.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, snap.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, so special

SPEAKER_01

occasions. You don't have a lot of special occasions then, huh?

UNKNOWN

No.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, my God. No, man, I've got to create a special occasion. This could have been one. You could have brought it. We could have just tried it, bro. That's true. I mean, we'll just have to have you

SPEAKER_00

back with your salt. Like I said, you've got to wait for bacon. But yeah, the thing I like about baking is mostly because I love science as a kid.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And I just like to see shit react. Right. So I just find the numbers cool. I nerd out on baking, basically.

SPEAKER_01

You ever make beer or wine or anything like that?

SPEAKER_00

No. I don't trust, not myself, I don't trust my environment. all the time. Where it's like, you know, let this type of formation happen without you cooking it, like wine, beer, stuff. I don't trust it because if I have roommates or family there, I don't trust them to go near there

SPEAKER_01

I mean, fair. You could build your beer and just shove it in the back of your closet. Yeah. I mean, that's, I mean. I

SPEAKER_00

don't trust my closet either. I don't know

SPEAKER_01

what's back

SPEAKER_00

there. Everything's in there and I don't know what's in there.

SPEAKER_01

Well, I mean, it's all sealed up, dude. You'd be fine, dude. It's all sealed up. I mean, if you like science, that's like your ultimate science because you basically do it all the way you think it's going to work, all the right measurements. You close that shit up and you wait 30 fucking days and you come back and you're like. Dear God. Let's see. Let's see if I make good flavors or not.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. I just got the patient for two days. That's it.

SPEAKER_01

Well, the thing is, that's the key, though. You get yourself four or five barrels, and every week you make one. So every week, starting in a certain amount of time, you get to drink a whole barrel of your own beer. It's a slow start, but then after that, you actually take one day to make your beer. You sterilize everything, and then you put it all together, and then you learn from what you do right and you do wrong. Pretty soon, you're just like growing weed. Pretty soon, you're harvesting every two weeks, or you're harvesting your beer every week. Yeah. I

SPEAKER_00

mean, I don't know. That's the

SPEAKER_01

key to moderation. I've done it a little bit. I'm not great at it, you know, but I appreciate it. It's like whiskey or wine. Whiskey, wine, and beer are like, you know, vodka. Like tequila is kind of the same way, but vodka and certain other things are just chemical, really. You know, I mean, rum, tequila, whiskey, wine, beer. It's all like, you know, like... ancient Chinese secret, so to speak. I

SPEAKER_00

like the shit they do in the stone mill. What was it? Not tequila, mezcal. That's one of my favorites. Smoky. I think the reason why I like it the most is because most people don't like it.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, dude. I'm with you on that. That's why I like scotch. A lot of people just don't drink. Because then I don't have to share.

SPEAKER_00

It's just here for me.

SPEAKER_01

That's fair. That's good. It's just here for me. It's a selfish drink

SPEAKER_00

is what you're saying. But then it's like, I like to impress people in food with like, if you don't like it, I'll find a way to make you like it. Cause for me, it's like, uh, I was thinking that way when, uh, I moved to California cause I hated rice. Yeah. I hated most fish, but I fucking hated salmon the most.

SPEAKER_01

I hate salmon.

SPEAKER_00

I hated seaweed. I hated avocados. Love it. Uh, and then I had sushi, which has literally all of that in one piece. I fucking loved it. Raw salmon though.

SPEAKER_01

I hate cooked salmon, but raw salmon is delicious.

SPEAKER_00

I also hate cooked salmon.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Unless it's on like, some funk and like a Japanese based, like medium, medium, that type of shit.

UNKNOWN

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Where it's like mayo, sesame oil, rice. Then I like it a little bit.

SPEAKER_01

You want to know something funny? I used to make with any leftover salmon we had, I'd cook it all off and I'd make like a spinach, bechamel, and salmon lasagna. Oh my God. Salmon lasagna. And that shit actually fucking, it's killer, bro. Like I'd eat that too. Like, cause all the fat takes up all that oil, you know? And like, you don't get that oily fish flavor.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. For me, I don't know what it is. It's not that I taste fishy. Almost every time I eat cooked salmon, it tastes like metal. I don't know why. Whoa,

SPEAKER_01

trippy.

SPEAKER_00

And it's like, is this like a me thing or is this the type of salmon I

SPEAKER_01

get? Are you picking it up out of the pan? Because that just works with the flavor of the salmon.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. But I always say so like, it feels like I'm chewing on aluminum foil, but it's fleshy.

SPEAKER_01

Fleshy aluminum. Yeah. It's like you're... Like a fucking, what would it be like?

SPEAKER_00

Eating a Terminator.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, eating a Terminator, exactly. Yeah. What part of California did you live in?

SPEAKER_00

I lived in Los Angeles, more specifically. For the first part, North Hollywood. Okay. And then for the last part, in like San Fernando Valley. What years? It was between 2018 to 2019, right on the cusp of 2020. And I was there for my culinary apprenticeship because, what was it? I have been doing cooking for about two years before I moved there. I was tired every day. I was kind of basically thrown into the fucking, I forgot the phrase. You're just thrown into the fucking fire or

SPEAKER_01

whatever. Yeah. Or deep end.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. And I worked at pistache. I didn't know anything about pistache. And at the time they were like the best Parisian restaurant in the County. I did not know that. I just saw restaurant. Yeah. And they, they look like they're doing good. And it's like the most stereotypical, like Gordon Ramsey ask as in like, Think of every bad stereotype in the kitchen. That's happening there. Really? Yeah. The food is really good. The food's really good.

SPEAKER_01

You're talking like everybody's cutthroat and backstabbing

SPEAKER_00

each other? It's more like the chef and the sous chef are very, very aggressive, hard, and mean.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And the rest of the people tend to be... Everyone else is Guatemalan. And I was the only... Floridian there that wasn't the chef of the sous chefs.

SPEAKER_01

Okay. They were from Florida.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. They were from Florida. And it's like, Every single stereotype of the insults a chef could throw at you, they feel it at me every single day.

SPEAKER_01

That's also part of being like my extern, like, you know, like apprenticeship, like you're talking about, it was the same way. Like my chef literally and sous chef hazed me to the point where like, they'd just be like, I mean, I've said it before on the podcast, like he'd be interviewing somebody like who came out of a great restaurant, but, oh, we got everybody great here. You know, we got Lowe over here who's been cooking for years, can do anything. Then we got Scotty over there. He just fucking sucks. And he just, and I just feel like, Chef, I'm right here, dude. He's like, yeah, I know you're right there, dude. And

SPEAKER_00

they sound so serious. I can't tell.

SPEAKER_01

No, he meant it. And I did suck. But I mean, I also stuck it out. And that's what they're looking for you to do. Because it's a hard biz. They want to see if you got heart for it or not. But dude, yeah, well, good for you. You made it through, right?

SPEAKER_00

Oh, yeah. I made it through for two years. I was going to quit at one point. And then one of the sous chefs, the nicer ones, he said, but you'll learn a lot here. I know about chef and you'll learn a lot. He was right. I did learn. More there than I did in culinary school before that.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Where'd you go to school? I went to fucking Lincoln Culinary.

SPEAKER_01

Where's that?

SPEAKER_00

It was on 45th near fucking I-95.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

It was basically Lincoln Institute. Yeah, I was going to ask. It's like

SPEAKER_01

same as like Lincoln Diesel,

SPEAKER_00

Lincoln Welding. And it used to be Palm Beach Culinary.

SPEAKER_01

Okay.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. And I went there for about six months. It was supposed to be a year. Yeah. But they closed down because somehow a hotel had enough money to tell them, we want to buy your building. You're done. And so they were done. Just shut down a whole school. They just shut it all down. All tuition. Did you finish? school. I did not get to finish school. I only went halfway.

SPEAKER_01

Did you like what you did? Did they give you your money back? I loved it. I loved it. Did they give you your money back?

SPEAKER_00

My favorite thing is that not only did they give me my money back, all the equipment that I had and all the equipment they were going to give me, they just gave it all to me.

SPEAKER_01

Nice.

SPEAKER_00

So it was basically, I just got free equipment.

SPEAKER_01

So you got six months of education. Yeah. And free knife bag, free- Free chef's coats, free

SPEAKER_00

aprons. What classes did you take when you were there? It was a- Like health and safety, food science. No joke. My favorite part was the first where they help you get serve safe within the first week. Cause I was like, oh, thank God. I actually do need this.

SPEAKER_01

That's actually cool. They didn't do that for my, for my school.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. They, uh, they train you. And if you don't get serve safe, then you get a license that says you can only cook here. Then it was basically just all the basics you can learn. And then we were finally about to reach baking. And then after baking, it was going to be international.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And that's right when they closed it down. Oh,

SPEAKER_01

that's so lame,

SPEAKER_00

bro. I think like my favorite part was that they always have labs you can just walk into.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Like for halloween was it they were showing you how to make ice cream with liquid nitrogen cool and they said obviously you're not going to be able to just buy liquid nitrogen anytime you want so i'm going to show you how to do it with dry ice instead oh my god tricks man that shit is my favorite trick to do when it's like i want to really impress someone with a just a simple thing but it doesn't look simple it's just yeah i'm gonna blend up dry ice which is very fucking aggravating. You think your shit's going to explode. And now you got powdered dry ice. And then you just make any ice cream base and you just go teaspoon by teaspoon.

SPEAKER_01

And just whisk it in?

SPEAKER_00

In a stand mixer. Yeah, with the paddle attachment. And you just got to be careful because if you do it too fast... too much carbon dioxide, then you got exploding ice cream all over your face. All over. It's

SPEAKER_01

kind of hot. Yeah. It's all over my face. That shit just Bellagio'd on me.

SPEAKER_00

But if you go too slow, then you have nothing. If you go at just the right pace, all right, then you got amazing ice cream. And it has like a Pop Rocks effect where it's like, it feels like it's Soda Wee. or it's popping in your mouth, you get those bubbles in there. But if you want more regular ice cream, just let it sit in the freezer for two days. And then it's like, oh my goodness. That's cool as fuck, dude. I thought ice cream in your body was a bad thing. Carbon dioxide? Well, it starts to evaporate at a very room temperature temp. So it's going to all evaporate. As long as you don't have it in a super, super tight, air-concealed vessel, because then it might explode. Now you're just making bombs. You just put some parchment. You just put some parchment. But you're swallowing this. Cover it

SPEAKER_01

up. That's air. That's trapping air. That's trapping air,

SPEAKER_00

ain't

SPEAKER_01

it?

SPEAKER_00

You're a walking time bomb. Like a

SPEAKER_01

duck. Like a duck eating Alka-Seltzer. You're a walking time

SPEAKER_00

bomb. That was so discarbonized. I'm just obsessed with ice cream.