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TRANSCRIPTION WITH SPEAKERS
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[00:00] SPEAKER_03: Welcome to Canada's podcast.
[00:05] SPEAKER_03: Hello, I'm Mario Tonoguszi, managing editor of Canada's podcast. Joining me today is Connie DeSousa and John Jackson, who are both chefs in Calgary. Thanks for joining us.
[00:17] SPEAKER_02: Thanks for having us.
[00:18] SPEAKER_03: Thank you. We're very excited to be here.
[00:19] SPEAKER_03: Okay, well, let's start by just talking a little bit about, you know, if you can give me the scope of the restaurants that you guys own and operate right now in Calgary.
[00:32] SPEAKER_01: Well, we've worked together a long time.
[00:35] SPEAKER_02: 1999.
[00:37] SPEAKER_01: So, and we were in the United States for quite some time over 10 years working in New York, San Francisco.
[00:46] SPEAKER_01: And we decided to move back home and to open up our own restaurant and to grow our business and our families in
[00:56] SPEAKER_02: 2010. We opened our flagship, but Tarkar roast house, which is downtown inside hotel or remain.
[01:05] SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
[01:06] SPEAKER_02: And then five years following that, we opened up char bar in the Simmons building and the East Village and char bar is our
[01:14] Speaker UNKNOWN: part of our restaurant.
[01:14] SPEAKER_02: And we were inspired by the wood fired grilling traditions of Argentina and in that space, we actually share that building with two other local businesses,
[01:24] SPEAKER_02: film and Sebastian and side walks to visit.
[01:28] SPEAKER_02: We also in that space have two other businesses that we operate, Ali burger is a walk up take out window.
[01:35] SPEAKER_02: And Connie and John pizza and that was the first location for Connie and John's pizza across the street from that.
[01:42] SPEAKER_02: And that's inside the Alt Hotel is our diner called chick's egg shop.
[01:49] SPEAKER_02: And then we just announced that we're opening our second char cut location in the university district, which will also be home to our third heat the location, Connie and John's pizza as well.
[02:06] SPEAKER_03: Okay, tell me the story like how did you guys meet?
[02:12] SPEAKER_01: Well, that was a long time ago.
[02:14] SPEAKER_02: Very long time ago. This is a great story. So I was much younger than I am now.
[02:20] SPEAKER_01: You were nine, nine years old.
[02:23] SPEAKER_02: I was that young, but much younger, I had just graduated culinary school.
[02:30] SPEAKER_02: And John was the chef at the Owlsnack restaurant. Do you remember the Owlsnack?
[02:36] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it was in the wet hotel at the time Calgary's pre-marifying dining restaurant where all of our dishes were finished table side.
[02:44] SPEAKER_02: It was actually where the Caesar cocktail was invented as well.
[02:49] SPEAKER_02: But John hired right out of culinary school. And I was the apprentice and the very quickly became my chef mentor and mentored me for the first half of my culinary career.
[03:03] SPEAKER_01: And Connie ended up competing a lot. She was in the heat himself Africa.
[03:14] SPEAKER_01: And then she went to the world's culinary competition and for Germany.
[03:19] SPEAKER_01: And I moved to New York. And when I was in New York for about five years, and then on my way, I was going to be moving to San Francisco to open up the new St. Regis hotel.
[03:31] SPEAKER_01: And Connie went to Germany at the time living. And we reconnected.
[03:37] SPEAKER_01: And she ended up moving to San Francisco to be the shopping cuisine of the restaurant and hotel I opened in San Francisco.
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[03:53] SPEAKER_03: I want to both of you to talk a little bit about this, but maybe Connie you start. But how did you get involved in cooking?
[04:06] SPEAKER_02: Oh, well, this is also a great story. And it's a great story because John and I stories are so different. But we kind of both ended up doing the same thing in our careers.
[04:20] SPEAKER_02: And growing up both of my parents were amazing.
[04:25] SPEAKER_02: My mother was Irish Canadian. My father is a Portuguese heritage. And I grew up cooking with them.
[04:36] SPEAKER_02: I used to remember the most amazing meals that they would cook at home. And I would help them in the kitchen.
[04:42] SPEAKER_02: And my dad would cook mostly heirloom family recipes that were passed down through our family. And he would always follow those recipes very meticulously.
[04:56] SPEAKER_02: My mom and I would watch cooking shows together and we would get inspired by what we saw on TV and then go in the kitchen and try and recreate it. But I've always loved cooking from a really young age. And when I entered high school,
[05:13] SPEAKER_02: there was a program called Food that I was kind of like home act, but we didn't do any sewing. It was mostly focused on food preparation. And we learned about the Canadian food guide and wrote menus and things like that. And I just took a loving to that class. And actually more focused on that class than my other active.
[05:34] SPEAKER_02: That probably wasn't the best thing, but I knew I feel very fortunate that I found my passion at a very early age. And I took that course all through high school and then immediately following high school. I had decided to go to
[05:54] SPEAKER_02: Sorry, we just have a little background here, but immediately following high school, I decided to go to state our local culinary school. And at the time, it was only a one year program.
[06:03] SPEAKER_02: But I graduated that program on the dean's list and certainly their after met done.
[06:10] SPEAKER_01: And for me, cooking was more out of necessity. I had a single parent, my mom who was raising three children, joined a university at the time and she even joined the reserves to help put her through school.
[06:30] SPEAKER_01: So we had to contribute as very young children and the way that I found where I could contribute to the family was cooking. So I started cooking very early.
[06:43] SPEAKER_01: And I fell in love with it. I mean, at that early age, you know, I found myself experimenting a lot and you know, we had a big garden. Definitely food security is an important thing for me.
[07:03] SPEAKER_01: And I think that that early age, remembering how I will have that creative freedom and the ability to contribute, very non into it. You know, me wanting to make a career of it.
[07:19] SPEAKER_01: So, yeah, I didn't do that well in school. I ended up getting kicked out of high school and I started cooking in kitchens. And yeah, I really enjoyed the energy of the kitchen. I felt kind of like a pirate ship.
[07:40] SPEAKER_01: And it was like an adventure. And I ended up finishing my school, but I continued working in kitchens and you know, worked my way from 14 years old in Saskatchewan. And I enrolled in in state in Alberta, my wife enrolled in university Calgary and we made the move 18 years old each and yeah, it's been culinary journey ever since.
[08:10] SPEAKER_03: So, what do you guys get your inspiration for recipes and stuff like that?
[08:19] SPEAKER_01: I'd say because there is, I mean, we have this really interesting dynamic where there's two chefs, you know, we're co-shaps and we really challenge each other and push each other to do that whole potential.
[08:36] SPEAKER_01: You know, we're calling what come up with an amazing idea for a dish, but you know, by having the conversation with it, we can bring it to a new level.
[08:48] SPEAKER_01: And I think having that exchange really has benefited us as chefs in our growth, but also our business because we have really unique things that we each contribute.
[09:01] SPEAKER_01: But we also go, you know, the ups and downs of this industry sometimes it's really hard and we take turns. And when some, when say Connie's down or I'm down, we build each other up.
[09:15] SPEAKER_01: So having that partnership, I think, has been a really important piece of our formula for success.
[09:23] SPEAKER_03: Mm-hmm. Just curious, what are your favorite foods to eat?
[09:32] SPEAKER_02: You know what we get asked this question quite often and it really depends on the moment.
[09:41] SPEAKER_02: I didn't pray to be at the meat noodle soup. It's beautiful outside and I just am craving like the fresh or basic flavors of it.
[09:53] SPEAKER_02: But tomorrow I might be craving a grazed short rib. I never really know day to day. It's always different.
[10:04] SPEAKER_01: And I could probably eat Connie and John's pizza probably four to five days a week.
[10:11] SPEAKER_01: I love pizza. I cook my own pizza as well, but sometimes I even order from one of our pizza shots.
[10:18] SPEAKER_01: I mean, again, like Connie, the different, we get excited about different styles of cuisine, different dishes.
[10:29] SPEAKER_01: Yeah. And it's always changing and cravings always taste. So yeah, that's a hard one. It always depends on what day the week it is for me.
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[10:50] SPEAKER_03: What about just the actual cooking? Are there any favorites that you actually types and styles of cooking that you enjoy more than others?
[11:01] SPEAKER_01: I think simplicity is my favorite. I love I love getting the best ingredients.
[11:06] SPEAKER_01: You know, whether it be going down to the farmer's market and picking up some gemstone grass, fed grass, finished the local Alberta beef.
[11:17] SPEAKER_01: It's amazing. They're so little you need to do with it. So it's it's sometimes a very complicated process to evolve simple ingredients.
[11:29] SPEAKER_01: So you don't want to mess around with the ingredients too much to let them shine through. And I love doing that and showcasing like the quality ingredients.
[11:40] SPEAKER_02: And we love it as well. John is a beautiful for no one is backyard and a giant wood fired for each grill that we love cooking on.
[11:50] SPEAKER_02: I love as smoking as well. I do a lot of smoking at home.
[11:56] SPEAKER_02: Of like large cuts of local meat.
[11:59] SPEAKER_02: And yeah, we do take the time to entertain quite a bit. We both love entertaining and whenever we're not in the restaurants we're usually cooking for friends and family at home as well.
[12:12] SPEAKER_03: Yeah. What if you know in this day and age obviously it's tough to be in the food industry.
[12:20] SPEAKER_03: It always has been but what do you think is the keys to success involving you know having a restaurant and a food industry type place.
[12:35] SPEAKER_02: Well, you know what, what's really important to us is our mental health and in our staff mental health.
[12:43] SPEAKER_02: And one of the ways to achieve that balance is to at some point in the day try and insert some form of physical activity that's really important to both of us.
[12:55] SPEAKER_02: We both do different things. John is huge into cycling. I just love to sweat. So I'll do anything to allow that.
[13:05] SPEAKER_02: But we think it's really important to have that working home life balance not just for us, but also for our staff as well.
[13:14] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, it took some time. It took some years to be able to get to that level. But you know when you incorporate fitness and concentrate on your health both mental and physical like for us, it became more about the quality of the time that we were putting into the business, not the quantity of hours.
[13:39] SPEAKER_01: And that wasn't an easy one for adjustment for us.
[13:43] SPEAKER_01: And you know, at the end of the day being healthy and being fit and happy, you know, we were better co-shaps, we're better business entrepreneurs, we're better leaders.
[13:56] SPEAKER_01: I'm a better parent. I'm a better husband.
[13:58] SPEAKER_01: And so I think that that is for sure one of the most important things that we've discovered over over the last decade is making sure that both their physical and mental health of us and all of our employees in our business culture.
[14:15] SPEAKER_01: It takes a center stage.
[14:18] SPEAKER_03: What about in terms of the business side of it, what was it take to be a successful restaurant in this day and age?
[14:30] SPEAKER_02: Well, neither of us went to business.
[14:35] SPEAKER_02: So you know what? I think it's just making making good decisions, constantly looking at your checkbook done does that for for all of us.
[14:45] SPEAKER_02: And you know what partnership is amazing in our business. We've got three main partners that through the founders that run our business day to day.
[14:58] SPEAKER_01: And me and Carrie.
[15:01] SPEAKER_02: And I look at other restauranters and I can't believe that there's some restauranters that do it on their own.
[15:08] SPEAKER_02: Like it's so valuable having our partnership where we're all good at very specific things that really complement each other.
[15:18] SPEAKER_02: And I think like I said, I imagine running a business without my partner.
[15:23] SPEAKER_01: And I would say one of the another important thing is never get to comfortable.
[15:30] SPEAKER_01: That for sure it's every evolving and you need to keep your finger on the pulse not only of, you know, different trends and what's happening in the industry.
[15:40] SPEAKER_01: But also what's happening within your four walls.
[15:44] SPEAKER_01: Knowing how people are healing knowing how making sure that you're the culture is on track, making sure that the guests are still getting the same service that you you expect them to be getting, making sure your staff are treating each other with respect and they're getting treated with respect.
[16:05] SPEAKER_01: So for sure, I think that keeping your finger on the pulse of what's happening in our industry and also between your four walls and not losing sight of that.
[16:17] SPEAKER_03: What do you think consumers today are looking for in a restaurant?
[16:23] SPEAKER_01: I think more than anything.
[16:26] SPEAKER_01: They're looking for an experience, something that is not just a meal.
[16:35] SPEAKER_01: They're looking, it's like it's instead of going to the movies and going for dinner, you're going for dinner and it becomes the movie as well.
[16:42] SPEAKER_01: You want some of that takeaway from it.
[16:46] SPEAKER_01: There needs to be like for us that open kitchen and have any theatrics of the chefs cooking, you know, just really becoming immersed into the into the space and being a part of that experience.
[17:00] SPEAKER_01: I think people are enjoying that a lot more and it's becoming a more and more thing that people are looking forward to.
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[17:17] SPEAKER_03: Well, I imagine you know, you're looking back in time, you know, you talk about the open kitchen that you know, really didn't have that years ago.
[17:26] SPEAKER_03: What's it like to have the eyes focused on you when you're when you're cooking and you have that open kitchen style?
[17:35] SPEAKER_02: You know what it was, it was a hard adjustment when we first opened charcut fourteen years ago and kind of brought that open kitchen philosophy to Calgary.
[17:47] SPEAKER_02: But it is so amazing the feeling that you get when when you're in the weeds and you've got a rail full of tickets and you look up in the dining room and you just take a moment to take a breath and just feel the energy of how happy everybody is enjoying the food that you're preparing and enjoying each other's company and it's really gratifying.
[18:15] SPEAKER_02: So from our end, it's also I think equally as gratifying as the diner as well.
[18:23] SPEAKER_01: What do you need off of each other's energy?
[18:26] SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
[18:28] SPEAKER_03: What do you know you look into the future? What are your thoughts and plans that you're looking at more restaurants?
[18:36] SPEAKER_01: Well, right now we're looking at charcut number two in university district and that's as far as our where I mean we're really about where for us it's we need to make sure that this is successful.
[18:54] SPEAKER_01: We want to deliver I think expectations are going to be pretty strong and we're really excited because you know when we first conceived charcut, you know, 15, 16 years ago before we built 14 years ago, you know, we had a lot of amazing ideas, but there's only so many of the ideas that you could fit in one concept and under one roof.
[19:22] SPEAKER_01: So we're definitely brought in there and we're exploring some of the things that we didn't get to with the original charcut.
[19:30] SPEAKER_01: So you'll see a lot of stuff that's being done at the charcut down down different from what we're doing at the university district, but there will be that bridge of similarities and some of the signature dishes that are crossover.
[19:47] SPEAKER_02: It's funny looking back at our original business plan, we had five restaurants that we wanted to open over five years because we did have all these ideas and we couldn't fit them all into one restaurant.
[19:58] SPEAKER_02: So I'm really proud we didn't actually get to do that five restaurants in five years, but both of us are really proud of how we've grown our business and we've really consciously grown it organically with our staff.
[20:13] SPEAKER_02: And as the staff has reached their peak in one of our restaurants, we open another restaurant for them to grow even further and that's really kind of how we've organically grown our business.
[20:30] SPEAKER_02: And I don't have any regrets about it.
[20:34] SPEAKER_03: When you look at Calgary itself, how would you describe what Calgary is like today in the culinary area and the sophistication of first of all consumer and second of all, I guess the offering that Calgary has now.
[20:54] SPEAKER_01: Well, Calgaryans are very well traveled, educated, their expectations have definitely changed over time because they know what premium is and they understand what expectations should be for when it comes to culinary scene.
[21:12] SPEAKER_01: Fortunately, we have one of the best culinary scenes globally.
[21:17] SPEAKER_01: We've traveled all around the world as culinary ambassadors to Calgary in Alberta and we have seen what's out there and our chefs are comparable with the best chefs in the world and in some cases they're better.
[21:32] SPEAKER_01: And that goes for our restaurants, we have some of the best restaurants that we have ever eaten at.
[21:39] SPEAKER_01: You know, I definitely think there's room for more public relations when it comes to letting more people in places know how amazing our food is.
[21:52] SPEAKER_01: But yeah, it's grown.
[21:55] SPEAKER_01: I think it's really great that we have the size that we have, but it's our clientele is very unique. Calgary is very unique because we love watching each other become successful.
[22:11] SPEAKER_01: So when you see these restaurants get in the top 100 and the top 50, all these ratings, Canadian Mice or international, it's amazing.
[22:24] SPEAKER_01: It's really great to see how Calgaryans like Rally for your support and are so excited for it.
[22:33] SPEAKER_03: All right, wonderful.
[22:34] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and it was exciting to be a part of the growth of our culinary scene in Calgary as well. 15 years ago when when we open charcutt coming from a city like San Francisco that had already established a really strong culinary scene coming back to the Calgary that was just in the midst of growing their culinary scene.
[23:01] SPEAKER_02: It was really cool to collectively with other restaurants in the city to be a part of that growth and now to have known that collectively with other restaurants in the city, we help build that foundation is really gratifying as well.
[23:19] SPEAKER_03: All right, wonderful. Well, thanks both of you for joining us today.
[23:23] SPEAKER_03: Thank you.
[23:24] SPEAKER_01: Thank you for having us.
[23:25] SPEAKER_03: All right, wonderful. That was Connie de Susa and John Jackson who are two chefs in Calgary with several different restaurant brands and dining establishment.
[23:37] SPEAKER_03: So I'm Mario Tonoguzzi, managing editor of Calgary's podcast. Thanks for joining us today.
