Michelin Star Chefs: Why Food Quality Matters w/ Phillip & Margarita

Summary

Pursuit of Wellness Podcast Summary
Episode: Michelin Star Chefs: Why Food Quality Matters w/ Philip Franklin Lee & Margarita Callous Lee
Release Date: January 20, 2025
Host: Mari Llewellyn

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Introduction

In this engaging episode of Pursuit of Wellness, host Mari Llewellyn sits down with Philip Franklin Lee and Margarita Callous Lee, a dynamic husband-and-wife duo renowned for their innovative approach to the culinary arts. Together, they own multiple acclaimed restaurants in Austin, including Sushi by Scratch, Pasta Bar Austin, La Wolf and Wheat, and Not a Damn Chance Burger. Mari delves into their journey, philosophies, and the secrets behind their success.

Navigating the Pandemic (00:00 - 03:32)

Philip opens the conversation by discussing the challenges their restaurant empire faced during the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite thriving with five restaurants in California pre-pandemic, lockdowns forced them to close and repeatedly shift between indoor and outdoor operations. As restrictions tightened, they made the pivotal decision to relocate to Austin, Texas, to keep their business and staff afloat.

Notable Quote:
"We have five restaurants in California pre-pandemic. We're killing it. It's going great. Pandemic happens."
— Philip Franklin Lee [00:27]

The Joe Rogan Effect (03:32 - 11:08)

A turning point for their Austin venture came when Joe Rogan, a prominent podcast host and public figure, dined at their Sushi by Scratch restaurant. Rogan's glowing endorsement on his podcast led to an overwhelming surge in reservations, transforming their pop-up restaurant from a quiet establishment to a sought-after culinary hotspot almost overnight.

Notable Quote:
"Anytime Joe plugs you on the podcast is pretty big."
— Philip Franklin Lee [05:56]

Restaurant Philosophy: Quality and 'From Scratch' Approach (11:08 - 39:12)

Philip and Margarita emphasize their unwavering commitment to quality by making everything from scratch. This philosophy extends to every aspect of their menu, from sourcing raw ingredients to meticulously crafting each dish. Philip explains that their dedication stems from a literal interpretation of the restaurant definition—serving food entirely prepared on-site without relying on pre-made components.

Notable Quote:
"We're going to make everything from scratch. So if we wanted to have prosciutto, I would have to buy a pig, and I would have to break it down myself, and I would have to cure it..."
— Philip Franklin Lee [39:09]

Sourcing Ingredients (39:12 - 58:32)

A cornerstone of their culinary excellence is the meticulous sourcing of high-quality ingredients. Philip shares his longstanding relationship with a broker at the Toyosu Fish Market in Japan, ensuring the freshest sushi-grade fish for their establishments. This dedication often involves significant investments, such as purchasing a 90-pound quarter tuna for $4,000, to maintain their high standards.

Notable Quote:
"I work with a broker who has a spot at the Toyosu Fish Market. And that's the same company I've been working with for about 10 years."
— Philip Franklin Lee [57:12]

Culinary Creativity and Dessert Innovation (58:32 - 66:38)

Margarita showcases her innovative approach to desserts, highlighting unique creations like the tonka bean custard with yuzu and passion fruit granita. Their desserts not only surprise patrons with unconventional flavors but also demonstrate their commitment to crafting memorable dining experiences.

Notable Quote:
"We make a basil and mint semifredo with orange mint and Thai basil, then a black currant granita with passion fruit..."
— Margarita Callous Lee [26:31]

Balancing Business and Creativity (31:15 - 36:34)

Philip candidly discusses the challenges of balancing the creative demands of being a chef with the necessities of running a business. After several partnerships that didn’t align with their vision, Philip and Margarita ultimately took full ownership, allowing them to maintain control over both the culinary and operational aspects of their restaurants.

Notable Quote:
"You can't survive as a starving artist. So if you're making art that you think is incredible, but you can't sell it, you will eventually die of starvation."
— Philip Franklin Lee [35:05]

Michelin Stars Experience (49:35 - 55:09)

A significant highlight of the episode is Philip and Margarita receiving their first Michelin stars. Despite a series of setbacks, including the Michelin Guide’s temporary withdrawal from California during the pandemic, their perseverance paid off. Philip recounts the emotional moment of being awarded Michelin stars virtually, marking a milestone in their culinary journey.

Notable Quote:
"They say, congratulations, Chef, you've been awarded a Michelin star. And I said, which restaurant? And she said, both of them."
— Philip Franklin Lee [53:27]

Team-First Approach and Wellness (45:03 - 48:51)

Central to their success is their unwavering commitment to their team. Philip and Margarita prioritize their staff’s well-being by offering comprehensive benefits, including 401k plans with matching, maternity and paternity leave, and robust compensation packages. This approach fosters a loyal and motivated workforce, essential for maintaining high standards across their numerous establishments.

Notable Quote:
"Our real partners were the guys and the girls working their ass off every day."
— Philip Franklin Lee [48:51]

Favorite Restaurants (63:50 - 64:52)

When asked about their favorite restaurants globally, Philip names Central in Peru, while Margarita praises Sushi Sakura in Kyoto, Japan. These establishments inspire them with their exceptional culinary craftsmanship and unique dining experiences.

Notable Quote:
"My favorite restaurant is probably Central in Peru."
— Philip Franklin Lee [63:50]

Conclusion

Philip and Margarita Lee’s story is a testament to resilience, innovation, and the relentless pursuit of excellence. Their commitment to quality, from sourcing the finest ingredients to crafting unique dishes, sets them apart in the culinary world. By prioritizing their team and maintaining a balance between business and creativity, they have built a successful and respected restaurant empire that continues to thrive and inspire.

Final Thoughts from Mari Llewellyn:
"You're both so talented, so creative, and I'm so glad we met. So thank you so much."
— Mari Llewellyn [66:27]

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Connect with Philip & Margarita Lee:

• Instagram: @PhilipFranklinLee | @margariticalisley
• Restaurants: Sushi by Scratch Restaurants
• Website: SushiByScratch.com

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This summary provides an overview of the key discussions and insights shared by Philip Franklin Lee and Margarita Callous Lee during their interview on the Pursuit of Wellness podcast. For a more detailed experience, listeners are encouraged to tune into the full episode.

Transcript

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Anyone who has success is no different than anyone who doesn't have success in their actual abilities as a human to function on earth. The only major difference is that when faced with a cliff jump, some people don't jump.

[Mari Llewellyn]

This is the Pursuit of Wellness podcast and I'm your host, Mari Llewellyn. What is up, guys? Welcome back to the Pursuit of Wellness podcast. Today we have a very exciting episode. We're talking to you two chefs. They're actually married. They are business partners and professional chefs. Philip Franklin Lee and Margarita Callous Lee started Scratch Restaurants to bring an immersive and entertaining tasting counter approach to the hospitality industry. They are a husband and wife duo, both in their 30s. They own sushi by Scratch restaurants, Pasta Bar Austin and La Wolf and Wheat and Not a Damn Chance Burger. They are super prevalent here in Austin. I have been to the Sushi by Scratch restaurants twice now and have had such an amazing experience. It is unlike anything I've ever seen before. And today we're going to hear from both of them of how they got into cooking, what they think about with their ingredients, how they approach cooking in general. We're also going to hear about how their restaurants really took off when Joe Rogan became a huge fan of them here in Austin. Get ready for us to just fully launch into the conversation. They are such a unique, interesting duo and I learned so much from them. So without further ado, let's hop in and talk about food. You went on Joe Rogan and he's a fan of your restaurant, so give me the full rundown.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

I went on his podcast, like, maybe a year and a half into to knowing him. Pandemic happens. We have five restaurants in California pre pandemic. We're killing it. It's going great. Pandemic happens. Shut everything down. Lay everybody off, reopen in. I think it was may. Back indoors. Then they shut down indoors. You move outdoors and then you can go back. We were in California, so then you can go back indoors. Then you had to go back outdoors. Then come December, they made it illegal in the state of California to serve indoors or outdoors.

[Mari Llewellyn]

I feel like I remember that. So you guys were probably like, what the fuck?

[Margarita Callous Lee]

Well, also, like, we didn't want to let everyone, you know it was in December, right before Christmas. It's like, we're not. How are we gonna fire anyone? Like, we don't want to.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

People need money.

[Margarita Callous Lee]

Yeah. So.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

And so we basically said. We went around the room and we said, who is willing to reload now? Some people are like, I want to go home, you know, pandemic. I'm afraid there's nothing wrong with that. I felt, and Margarita felt like we had an obligation to our family. Her dad works for the company, my sister works for the company, My brother works for the company. My other brother works for the company, my other sister works for the company. So it truly is a mom and pop shop. But so we get to the, you know, and we go, look who. You don't have to work, it's okay. But who's willing to work? We will find a state that's willing to have us. Enough hands go up. And we all got on a plane and we all came to Austin and it was very difficult to get the word out because all the local media was not willing to promote any restaurants. They just, they didn't. The media didn't think restaurants should be allowed to be open, even though Texas said you could. And they especially, like, I got emails back like, we're not talking about restaurants and you're not from here, so we're definitely not talking about you.

[Mari Llewellyn]

Oh, I get it.

[Margarita Callous Lee]

Yeah. But on the other hand, honestly, the first couple weeks that we were here, I mean, all the, all the chefs, every, everybody just welcomed us in such a beautiful way. And Fermin from Swear, I've never experienced that. That's.

[Mari Llewellyn]

I had, I moved here six months ago. I've never felt more welcome somewhere, honestly.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

And so, so that's the thing. The media didn't want to tell anyone that we were here, but everyone who was here was so incredibly welcoming. So what we ended up doing is we have in, In California, in LA, we've, we've been around since 2013, was when we opened our first restaurant. And we have, we've been a cult classic. Never been on the. I mean, since Jonathan Gold passed Rest in Peace, we've never been back on like the hundred best restaurants in la. Michelin stars sold out every night. We're nowhere near the top hundred. For some reason. We've never been media darlings, so to speak, but we have a strong following. So we reached out to. Our mailing list at the time was like 100,000 people in LA. And we said, hey, everyone, as you know, we can't work. We're going to go to Austin. If you have any friends, please tell them to come check us out, support us. And Joe's wife got that email forwarded to her from one of her friends in LA who was one of our, you know, one of our regulars. And so it does turn out that the very first reservation Ever made for the sushi bar ATX Pop up was made by his wife. And so it's for like the third week we're open. We're only supposed to be here for five weeks. The first couple of days we had like, no one show up. We did like three people, zero people, five people. Place only sat six people. And we were only doing, I think two, maybe three seatings a night. So 18 people a day was max by the end of the. By the beginning of the second week. No, no. By the beginning of the third week, we had sold out the rest of our tenure. Just word of mouth.

[Mari Llewellyn]

Was it. Okay. So I was listening to him, and it wasn't your episode, and this was years ago, but he brought up the name of the restaurant and I was like, oh, okay, we're moving to Austin. Like, I'm gonna go there. Do you think that, like, played a role in it? Like, him just saying the name of it on the show?

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Yes. Anytime Joe plugs you on the podcast is pretty big.

[Mari Llewellyn]

You're sold out.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

A Saturday night. I want to say it was like January 13th or 14th, whatever. The first, second Saturday in January was 2021. He comes in. I know him from Fear Factor. I didn't. I. I had never watched podcasts. I didn't know. I. I did not know he was the biggest person.

[Margarita Callous Lee]

I had no idea what a podcast was because we've been working non stop for, like, head down for 20 years.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Yeah, 20 years, head down. Didn't care about anything else. He comes in with his wife. His wife had made the reservations. He's not looking to be seen. He's not. He's not a. That kind of public, you know, person. He wants to go have a good time, be on a date with his wife. He wants to go home. So he's come, sits, sits down. The way it is at the restaurant, as you know, is you're sitting arm's length from me.

[Mari Llewellyn]

Yeah.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Right. And so. And this is. I'm wearing a mask back then. I've got gloves on. This is. This is mid pandemic.

[Margarita Callous Lee]

That was. Yeah.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

And the thick of it, for sure.

[Mari Llewellyn]

Yeah.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

He's there, hat down low, you know, just really there on a date with his wife. But as he starts eating and I can see his expressions, which. He has some pretty good expressions.

[Mari Llewellyn]

Yeah.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

And I. And he's drinking some sake and he starts to engage in conversation with me, you know, where. Who's the chef here? I am. Where's the Japanese dude? I'm not Japanese. How did you get into sushi. So we start, you know, a conversation, and towards the end of it, he said, this really is the best sushi I've ever had in my life. How do I eat this again? And I said, well, we're here for two more weeks. I'd already told him the whole story, why we're here, everything. We're here for two more weeks. Unfortunately, we're sold out. But if you want, I can put you on the wait list, and I'll make sure you get in if anyone cancels. But otherwise, You've lived in LA for 20 years. Next time you come back, we got restaurants there. He's like, you shouldn't do that. You should close those restaurants and move here. And I'm like, yeah, sure, but I can't do that. I have responsibilities. I have five restaurants. I can't. Can't do that. And he goes, well, if you're not. If you. If you. If you won't move here, you should at least extend another month. Come on, Philip. You know, there's no way. California says three weeks. You know, it's going to be three months minimum. And I'm like, yeah, you probably. Probably not wrong. And he's like, I'll tell you what. If you just agree to this right now, right now. He said, agree to stay another month. Don't think about it. Just agree. And if you agree, I'll guarantee you're sold out. Oh.

[Mari Llewellyn]

Because he knew what he was gonna do.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

And I said, well, what do you mean? He goes, look, I'll post about it, and any seats that don't sell, I'll pay for.

[Mari Llewellyn]

You're like, I don't even know who you are.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

I mean, I know the name. I know. I know who he is. I mean, but I did. I didn't know about the podcast. And that's. You know, I knew about ufc. I wasn't a huge UFC fan, but I've seen it. I know Joe Rogan from ufc. I know him from Fear Factor, but I didn't know the podcast, and that's the biggest platform, right? So he.

[Mari Llewellyn]

The biggest podcast in the world.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Yeah. Yeah. I might have been a little bit more nervous had I had. I know.

[Mari Llewellyn]

You're like, go back to L. A.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Like, hey, I'll give you a call if there's an opening. You know, you're on the waitlist. And so he takes a picture of me. He says, go. He said, pull out your phone. Open it up. The reservations now. I go, I can't. I got. I still. Still got three more Courses. So I go, look, at midnight tonight, I'll open up for the month of February. How about that? Here's the website, Here's a thing. Here's the Instagram handles. So at midnight, I open up a website on a random Saturday night. Nobody. There's no traffic to the website because his website didn't exist. He posts, he goes on, makes himself four reservations for the month of February, and then he posts about it. Of course, he makes himself reservations first, then he posts about it. And within four minutes, February is sold out. This is a random. This is at 12:30 in the morning on a Saturday night, February, sold out. And when we wake up in the morning, there's 25,000 people on the waitlist.

[Margarita Callous Lee]

Yeah. And that's definitely when our lives changed completely. Wow.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Marguerite likes to remind me that that's when we became overnight Successes at year 11.

[Mari Llewellyn]

Yeah, I mean, I'm sure people do assume. Assume that because now when you go to your restaurant, I mean, I was there recently for the grand opening of the downtown location. Some of the people you had there were. I mean, do you know Joshua Weissman?

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Yeah, of course.

[Mari Llewellyn]

Obsessed with him. I saw some amazing people there. Yeah, Everyone knows of you guys now. It's like. I mean, it was. It's an amazing culinary experience. I think I said to you when I was there, I've never experienced anything like this. It's so. It's like kind of educational. Like, I'm watching you make the rice, I'm watching you make the dessert. I'm watching. I'm hearing about the fish and where it came from. So it really is fantastic. And I'm not surprised that he's such a big fan because it truly. It truly is amazing.

[Margarita Callous Lee]

Thank you.

[Mari Llewellyn]

I thought he was just like shouting it out because he loved it.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Well, then he continued to. We were so incredibly moved. We've had other celebrities post about us before and never have we had that type of turnout. We'll get someone with 40 million followers. They'll post about it. We'll get eight new reservations.

[Mari Llewellyn]

Right.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

We'll get. Someone with, you know, 90 million followers will post. We'll get 100 new reservations. He posts. We get 25,000 reservations in Matter of minutes.

[Mari Llewellyn]

Because he doesn't talk about just anything.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

And I feel like he doesn't put out there what he doesn't really, really believe in. And so. But we were so moved, not just by the fact that Joe did that for us, which, I mean, he knew what he was doing. And we'll be forever grateful. There's a Christmas present under the tree every year that says Joe on it. He got it two nights ago at the Christmas party, but haven't missed a birthday since. What we were so moved by is that Austin showed up for us in our darkest hour. When California said, you're not welcome here, you're not allowed to work here, Austin said, we want to see, we want to come check you guys out. So we made it. We made a public statement maybe like a month in that, like, thank you guys. And we will not. We will now be extending this until every one of you gets into the restaurant. Because we're not interested in hitting and running. Even when California says we can reopen, we'll go reopen those restaurants. But we're not shutting this down because we want to provide you with the thing that you now want. And so literally we just kept. Every month, we just announce another month, announce another month. And I think like what, three months.

[Margarita Callous Lee]

Later, we, we just ended up living here.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

It was literally a day that we're sitting there, I think we were at dinner and I go, I think we live in Austin.

[Mari Llewellyn]

Yeah, pretty sure we're staying. Yeah.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Think we live in Austin now. We should probably tell the irs, you know, right now.

[Mari Llewellyn]

Yeah, that's the first thing you gotta do. Register your driver's license. You gotta do the whole thing.

[Margarita Callous Lee]

Yeah.

[Mari Llewellyn]

I mean, I agree with you guys. I think Austin is full of amazing people. I think people here love food. There's some great food here. I have a business in California as well. It's not a great place to run a business. I feel like it's a lot more welcoming here. It's a lot easier here. So. Yeah, I'm glad you guys came. And now you have how many restaurants in Austin? In Austin, including the bakery, pasta bar, four NADC's.

[Margarita Callous Lee]

Yeah.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Two sushi's a six. One pasta is seven.

[Margarita Callous Lee]

Wolf and Wolf and wheat is eight. Yeah.

[Mari Llewellyn]

And not a damn chance is in that list.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Yeah, there's four of those.

[Mari Llewellyn]

I haven't been there yet. Isn't that crazy? And I love burgers. So I need to go.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

You need to go.

[Mari Llewellyn]

I'm like, I just heard it's wagyu and beef tallow.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Yeah. Yeah. So we, we work with a local ranch that does 100 full blooded wagyu. So they're actually the amount of meat, beef we're going through now, they're basically harvesting whole animals specifically just for us. And so it's not like we're getting some factory or commodity. It's like we go through like they're harvesting, grinding, sending to us fresh.

[Mari Llewellyn]

It's gotta be called Not a Damn Chance Ranch. Not in my accent, but in your accent.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

I wish. I'm trying to talk them into some sort of vertical integration. Yeah, the beef is fantastic. And then we do the fries in the tallow from the same beef. And we just do in the same way that, like, her desserts are like, perfectly built and the sushi is like, you know, we spend time like just this amount of lemon, just this amount of breadcrumbs. Just the burger is the exact same way. And so Neen Williams, who's our partner in nadc, he and I spent almost two years perfecting this burger. And it's just. It's a. It's a sub genre. It's a specific style of burger. But for the sub genre. Well, actually, as Joe says, there's not a they don't get better. They get different. You know, at this point, it's. It is. It. There isn't a. There's not a way to make it better. You can make it different.

[Mari Llewellyn]

It's perfection.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

It's very good.

[Mari Llewellyn]

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[Margarita Callous Lee]

I think I wanted to do food from the moment I was born. I feel like my family, I grew up in Latvia. Not everybody knows where that is. It's in the Baltics. It's between Lithuania and Estonia. Yeah, I just, like, my earliest memories are running around my great grandmother's farm. She had, like, chickens, cows. She grew sugar snap peas. And literally, I was just, like, hiding in the bushes, like, eating all the peas, and she was like, oh, my God, like, don't eat all of them. Just, like, save some for us, too. But I feel like that's where it started.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

That's the reason. I think she has the best palate of anyone I've ever met, because she grew up picking berries and eating peas in the woods. Eating real food, not at McDonald's. You know, we all grew up with McDonald's, and so our palates are very different than someone whose palate grew up foraging for things in the woods.

[Mari Llewellyn]

Totally. You don't have that fake, like, artificial palette.

[Margarita Callous Lee]

Yeah, right. Yeah. But I feel like. So when I moved to America, that definitely changed quite a bit, because some of the food that was the only food that we could afford, like pizza and things like that, and. And then eventually kind of coming out of that, I, in middle school, was just reading cookbooks and just like you were, which is so funny. We're very aligned and just making little treats for my friends. And I was very much focused on more of the baking side. I made, like, Rice Krispies treats. I made, like, you know, biscotti. I don't know. It was very random.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Although the day I decided I was going to marry her, which was that. Which was the first night I spent the night at her house, she made me the most. The most perfect eggs Florentine for breakfast. Better than any I'd ever had in my life. And that's what I knew.

[Mari Llewellyn]

That's what I knew.

[Margarita Callous Lee]

Yeah.

[Mari Llewellyn]

My wife. I mean, that's a tough dish to make for my. I mean, from my perspective.

[Margarita Callous Lee]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Mari Llewellyn]

And then so baking specifically, I mean, that's. Would you say that's, like, super different to cooking because it's such a science?

[Margarita Callous Lee]

I think that the way that I cook, because I learn to cook as a savory chef, I feel like I don't really. I mean, the principles, like, certain principles, of course, like, you have to implement them, but I feel like with just my mindset when it comes to building flavors and building dishes is very different from just the standard. Like, you know, this is the way that we make a chocolate cake. And the average.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

The average. There was a reason that 90% of restaurants have the same or similar desserts, and that's because pastry chefs, unlike savory chefs, are always classically trained. Because you can't go and wing pastries. You have to go and you learn. And this is how you make a creme anglaise. This is how you, you know, you make a sponge cake. This is how. But Margarita didn't do that. She just innately is able to somehow do it. And that's why her desserts aren't like everybody else's desserts.

[Mari Llewellyn]

Yeah. You have these unique ingredients and flavors. I was looking at your. Yeah, Wolf and wheat.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Right.

[Mari Llewellyn]

The bakery in Austin, you have, like, matcha flavor, matcha powder and beautiful flavors.

[Margarita Callous Lee]

Yeah. I love to. I think a lot of. When I kind of when I taste things, that's when it inspires what it's going to be. And I mean, and that's just how. Yeah, that's how I create things. Like, I'm like, oh, wow. Roasted buckwheat tea. Yeah, that makes sense. Like, that would be an incredible finish because, you know, in certain cultures, roasted buckwheat tea is what you eat or what you drink at the end of the meal. So. So, yeah, so that's kind of, you know, like I'm. I. It's like when I eat something or try something, it's basically like it's just popcorn just popping all over in my brain. And that's when I'm like, oh, yeah, that and that and that and that. And yeah.

[Mari Llewellyn]

So because you didn't train under someone necessarily, you almost have the freedom in your mind to kind of get creative and go to places that maybe someone who was traditionally or classically trained wouldn't.

[Margarita Callous Lee]

I feel that way. Yeah, for sure. I'm very grateful because Philip was the one that told me not to go to culinary school. So.

[Mari Llewellyn]

Did you, guy?

[Philip Franklin Lee]

I did for a few months, but then I dropped out.

[Mari Llewellyn]

No way. So you didn't train under anyone either?

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Well, I did. I trained for about nine years under several fantastic, real chefs. And so I. I had started working. My. My godmother owned a catering company, and so I'm a high school dropout. I was drummer in a punk band and was. That's what I dropped out of high school to do is just go live on the road and in between. But I was obsessed with food and obsessed with cooking, and so I. I was sick of working at Jamba Juice and, And. And Baskin Robbins. And so I go on tour, come back, have a little meaningless job. And so I wanted to. I wanted to cook. And so went to my godmother and asked if I could work for her. She introduced me to her chef, her chef interviewed me, had me make family meal as my interview, and then said, I can offer you a job as a dishwasher. So I started as a dishwasher, and I was 18, and I spent several years just working my way up from dishwasher. Go on tour, come back, prep cook. Go on tour, come back, line cook. Go on tour, come back, line cook. Maybe I should start taking this seriously. Maybe I. And then I quit all my bands and enrolled in culinary school and quickly learned that it was just a complete. Complete, in my opinion, a complete sham. It wasn't. It was not worth $100, let alone $50,000. And so I dropped out of culinary school, and I worked in over the next nine years or so, I worked in several one, two, three Michelin star kitchens. And that's where I learned how to cook. And I think it was at year nine or so that we opened. Back in 2013, we opened our first restaurant as chef owners. But it was 2010, maybe 11, that Margarita became my pastry chef officially for the first time. And the way that she did, I really like this story. I got hired as the executive chef of the restaurant, and they didn't have a pastry chef, so I was going to be doing all the dessert menu. And at this point, Margarita is a fantastic. Like, she can. Everything she touches is unbelievably delicious, but it wasn't what she was doing full time professionally. And so I write a menu for desserts, and she laughs at it.

[Margarita Callous Lee]

Okay. Not necessarily laughing. I was just like, all right, well, that's cool. She didn't.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

She didn't think it was very good.

[Mari Llewellyn]

Okay.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

And so I said, well, if you think you can do it better, you should do it. And so she did.

[Margarita Callous Lee]

I was like, you're on.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

And so she wrote a new menu and she made all the desserts. And I said, you now, you don't have a choice. Now you work here.

[Mari Llewellyn]

You got the job.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Yeah. The way that I cook is very improvisational and intuitive. And so just by osmosis, she's incredibly intuitive and improvisational, but somehow able to just make, like, the best things.

[Mari Llewellyn]

So, Margarita, tell us about the dessert experience that you have curated.

[Margarita Callous Lee]

We. So we have about four different desserts on the menu at Pasta Bar, Pasta Bar, Louisiana. So we start with. We do the same sourdough in LA as we do in Austin. So we do Okinawa brown sugar caramel with sobacha ice cream. We have crunchy puffed rice. I make tonka bean, like, almost like a little marshmallow tableside. What we do, we take like a hot binchatan coal and torch the marshmallow, like, right in front of you. So it's like almost like a little like Japanese sundae. In Pasta Bar Austin, I do a caviar ice cream sandwich. So I make like a smoked banana ice cream with a brown butter brioche cookie. And then we finish that with golden, etc. Caviar. And we do. We have like a little jewelry box where we have little chocolate bon bons, little just little minardis for you to just like, snack on, have a couple drinks, relax. And.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

And what I think is really cool about, like, so people. People think it's called Pasta Bar, so they think it's an Italian restaurant. And in a way it is, but it's. But it's not Italian, just like our sushi by scratch restaurants. Not a Japanese restaurant, it's a sushi restaurant. Pasta bar is a pasta restaurant. Now, obviously, we're using Italian techniques and we're using Italian approach. The one thing that has always struck me about Italian cuisine very similar to Japanese in this way, is that Italian cuisine is incredibly regional, meaning you only really use the ingredients and the sensibilities of your region. So once again, the idea is like, we're not going to import everything. We're going to use the sensibilities in the region and treat Los Angeles or Austin as the region of. Of Italy. So, like, you know, she's talking about very Japanese signed dessert in perhaps one of the most Japanese populated cities. Los Angeles is incredibly Japanese inspired. And a lot of the food when you're growing up in the, you know, late 80s, early 90s is Japanese. And so if you. If you're making Italian food in la, it almost by default is supposed to have some Japanese influence on it, because that's the sensibilities. And then you talk about Austin, and in Austin, oak using oaks, you know, smoking things with oak.

[Margarita Callous Lee]

Smoking things with oak. I also go to the incredible urban farm called House Bar Farms. So they grow. They have like, fresh eggs. They grow unbelievably beautiful herbs. That's where I get my fig leaves from. I use fig leaves religiously. It's like literally my favorite ingredient, fig leaves. And right now I just put a dessert on menu at Pasta Bar here in Austin based on all the beautiful mint and basil that they have in the garden. So we make a basil and mint semifredo, but like orange mint, which is like a. Like such a beautiful variety of mint. And then we do Thai basil, just regular Italian basil infuse that. And then I make a black currant granita with a little bit of passion fruit. So you get like a little crunch because, you know, you kind of the way that I build dishes, you want to get like a little crunch, a little cold, a little creamy. And. And then we. Yeah, so we finish it with also the local basil blossoms. And so, yeah, that's like a little. Almost like a palate cleanser.

[Mari Llewellyn]

So now that you guys, I think you have 15 restaurants total, or is that higher now?

[Philip Franklin Lee]

24 as of this.

[Mari Llewellyn]

2020. Okay, 24. And then it's become this giant business. All your. Your family's involved. I can't even imagine the admin of having this many restaurants how do you keep your passion and creativity for the actual craft that you got into this for?

[Margarita Callous Lee]

Well, it has a. I feel like it has a lot to do with, like, my mental state, how, you know, what my surroundings are. Like, where am I placing myself, how am I taking care of myself? Because, you know, it's very. It's very easy to get caught up and, like, overly stressed, overly stimulated. You know, we. We also have a two and a half year old, so, you know, you get pulled in so many different directions. So I feel like when I'm the most clear and, like, have that inspiration, like, I'm not drinking, and I, like, barely drink. I drink wine. You know, like, that's my big outing. Like, when I'm not drinking, I'm eating incredibly healthy. So at home, I actually make, like, oxtail bone broth with, like, ginger and onion. And literally, that's what we eat all day or all day, all week. I'm like, like, a big stock. That's what we. That's what our daughter eats. Healthy state of mind, healthy food. And, yeah, just like that. That's what makes me clear. And that's when I'm like, oh, yeah. Oh, my God. And then, like, I feel unstoppable when I'm just, like, in that perfect, like, clear state.

[Mari Llewellyn]

I think wellness is such a huge part of that and creating a balance where you can still pour into the things you want to do. Because I feel like it's so easy to get lost in the. In the noise of it all when you have a business and you forget why you love it and why you started it. I mean, even, you know, with our company here at Bloom, like, Greg and I, we work together, too. My husband's the CEO, and it was a lot. For many years. It was all we talked about. It was all we did. And we're finally at a point where we can have some time, you know, to focus on other things. But it takes a long time to get there. How do you, Philip, focus on your love for cooking at the same time?

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Well, I mean, I definitely could go the same sort of wellness route with the answer, but I think she speaks a little bit for the both of us. So, I mean, I think that we were actually talking. We were at dinner with our friends last night, and we were talking about this very thing. And it is. A buddy of ours asked, how do you. He's like, I know there's business people and there's chefs, and very rarely are they the same person. There's usually a chef who's Creative and a business person who, you know, who is running the business. And not just for chef, that could be for any artist has usually someone who monetize the artist while the artist can focus on art. But through just trial and error and living just through some, some huge life lessons. I mean, Margaret and I own 100% of our restaurants, so Neen Williams owns 50% of any of NAC. But her and I don't have any business partners and we don't have any investors. And so I have been forced over the last 13 years to be able to wear both hats simultaneously. And for a few years I found it incredibly difficult because when we started, we started our first restaurant in a coffee shop. We moved it to our one bedroom apartment. We moved it from the one bedroom apartment to an actual restaurant space where there was a guy who approached us and said, I own a restaurant space. He if you want to go 50, 50, you can move your restaurant from your apartment into, into the. And this was, this was on Restaurant Row, La Cienega. You know, in Los Angeles. I shared, I shared a tandem parking spot with Nobu Masuhisa. You know, I mean, this is like the best location you can have a restaurant in la. And so, you know, he was going to run the business and I was going to be the chef and she was going to be the pastry chef. And we just learned quickly through if you're not okay losing, then you just never lose is kind of the idea. But we went through a lot with him specifically. A lot of the money disappeared. He disappeared. I was 25, so I didn't realize that I had personally guaranteed everything in the, in the business yet I had no ownership because all the paperwork I had filled out had never been turned in to add me to all the accounts. There was a long time where it was like very difficult. I had to take. I was forced to take over the business side. And as soon as you are dealing with the business side and you're realizing the money and the. It's. It's very difficult to even want to be creative.

[Mari Llewellyn]

Yeah.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Because now you start looking at your, you were looking at your cooks like they're in your band and they're your brothers. And now you're looking at your cooks like they're gonna put you out of business.

[Mari Llewellyn]

Yeah.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Their salaries and now everything's a number. And when you're looking, when you're viewing the world in numbers, it's very difficult to be creative. And so I went through a couple of years of like not being able to really Be creative or do it for the right reasons. But that was well over a decade ago. So at this point now I'm able to really focus on the business and focus on the art. And what I've learned when I taught myself was you can't survive as a starving artist, right? So if you're making art that you think is incredible, but you can't sell it, you will eventually die of starvation. So figure out how to make art that people not only are willing to buy, but want to get in line to buy and make sure that that art is still as important to you as the art that you were starving making. Right? So I was able to find a symbiotic relationship between feeling very integral about selling the art while also being really inspired to make the art for the purpose of selling it.

[Mari Llewellyn]

That's a tough line to balance. And I feel lucky in my relationship with my husband because he really is the business guy. He looks at the numbers. I couldn't care less. Truly. I cannot look at numbers. I don't want to talk about numbers. I want to be here. I want to be having conversations. I want to be talking about branding and labels and creativity. My brain doesn't think that way. So I relate in so many ways. And I feel like anytime, you know, at the beginning of our business, I was super duper involved, and it made it difficult for me to keep creating at the same time. Because when your brain is being split a million directions, it's like, how do you show up and give your most creative self when you're, like, stressed behind the scenes?

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Well, you. I mean, you're not. No one's good at anything until they practice it a lot.

[Margarita Callous Lee]

And I think that's what you were talking about earlier, too. It's like building up the thick skin. That's what I feel like now. It's, you know, after so many years of, like, having to deal with very, very, very difficult, like, just excruciating circumstances, I think, like, now, like, certain stresses, you know, we can kind of, okay, like, let's work through it, but also be present at what we're doing, like, what's in front of us.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

I had no idea that I was ever going to be the business side as well. But it just, you know, you. You learn. You learn a new thing, and you just. If as long as you don't give up and go home, you'll eventually get good at it and you'll eventually learn how to enjoy it.

[Mari Llewellyn]

And I guess it's almost a blessing.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

In a way that it's a hundred percent a blessing.

[Mari Llewellyn]

That guy screwed you. Because now you guys are 100% owners. Clearly it's working for you. It's become a family business. And if anything, you have more control and everything is like the way that you want it. And clearly it's working.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

And we've went through. Through three or four different iterations of having partners before. So we didn't. We didn't get. We. We started as 100% back in 2013. We sold 50% to go to. To. To open up in that space. And then that went. Went under. We then reopened the restaurant because we owned the rights to the name. We then reopened the restaurants with a new 50% partner who then years later, sold half of his shares to someone else, who. Who then eventually bought him out fully, who then eventually sold half of his shares to someone else, who then, you know. And then eventually we actually, a year after we became permanent with sushi bar atx, we, a private equity firm, bought that restaurant from us, and we were able to turn around and buy out all of our partners in all of our California restaurants. So we went from being 50%, 100% to 50% of now five restaurants to 100% of four restaurants. And so at the time, we had sushi Bar La, Sushi bar Monacito, which had a Michelin Was. Has a Michelin had. And has a Michelin star. And then we had another location in Los Angeles as well for sushi. We had pasta bar, which had a Michelin star. And so the idea was these guys were going to buy this location in Austin. Here's the playbook. They're allowed to run it, allowed to do whatever they want. And we would run sushi bar la, the second sushi bar in Los Angeles. And sushi bar Montecito, they would run this one. And then very quickly, we learned that we were going to need to distance ourselves. We didn't want people dining. They had the right to change everything, and they had the right to use everything. And we didn't want people to dine there and think that was a representation of our restaurants. That became pretty clear pretty quickly to us, and it was disappointing. But what we ended up doing is we then changed the name of all of our sushi bars to sushi by scratch restaurants. Scratch restaurants is our group. So it was always sushi bar, a scratch restaurants concept, Pasta bar, a scratch restaurants concept. Now it's sushi by scratch restaurants.

[Mari Llewellyn]

Where does buy scratch come from? Like, why did you want to go with that name?

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Our first restaurant was called Scratch Bar. And the reason was there was really two things that we knew we were going to do before we named the restaurant. We were only going to have seating at the bar, and we were going to only serve what we make from scratch. So if we wanted to have prosciutto, I would have to buy a pig, and I would have to break it down myself, and I would have to cure it, and I'd have to wait two and a half years. And that's what we did. That's when we had proscribed on the menu. If I wanted Parmesan on the menu, I had to start with milk, and I had to wait nine months before I could serve Parmesan. I'm very. I have, like, a weird thing about being literal. Like, I have a weird. Like, I have trouble understanding things because I'm so incredibly literal. And so I looked up the definition of what a restaurant is. And the definition of a restaurant is a place where people pay money to sit on premise to eat food that was made on premise. And so, quite literally, that means that if I buy someone else's cream cheese and I buy someone else's bagels, and I buy someone else's cured salmon, and I make it for you at my place, and you pay for it, that's not a restaurant. That's a delicatessen by definition. Not my definition. And there's nothing wrong with restaurants that don't make everything from scratch. It's not. It's not. That's just. That's what I get off on. That's what we get off on, is if we're gonna do it, we're gonna do it a thousand percent.

[Mari Llewellyn]

I feel like it also really. I mean, obviously we talk about wellness a lot on this show, and I feel like it really ties. I mean, it's, like, good ingredients. It's good food. Like, you guys really care about where it's coming from. You care about the quality of it. Have you always been like that, or is this something? Like, is it tied into the way you live your life, too?

[Margarita Callous Lee]

Definitely.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

For me, yeah, she always has. I mean, I didn't know. I mean, I've been cooking with Canola Oil for 20 years. I've been cooking with the things that you cook with now. I never got into all, like, the. Like, I never got into using all, like, the different chemicals, and I. I don't like xanthan gum, and I don't like all. It's funny that, like, a lot of fine dining shares a lot of ingredients with, like, manufactured candy.

[Mari Llewellyn]

Like the foam and stuff?

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Yeah.

[Mari Llewellyn]

Oh, what's foam made of?

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Well, that's soy lecithin. So that's not really what's found in candy. That's more found in health food. So I do use soy lecithin. I was less about doing it because it was chemically. I was more about doing it because I didn't want to have a magic powder that turned it into something I wanted to figure out. How do you create that yourself?

[Margarita Callous Lee]

Yeah.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

So I worked in a lot of restaurants where I learned how to use those applications properly and then decided that in my restaurant I was not going to use any of them, but I was still going to try to make cuisine at the same level. I've always just been a thing about. I like natural.

[Mari Llewellyn]

Yeah.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

I don't like, I don't like heavy sauces. I don't like. I've never been someone who like has like crazy spice blends and my chicken doesn't taste like curry. I like chicken to taste like chicken. I like cauliflower to taste like cauliflower. But I want it to be the deepest, most unctuous, most delicious cauliflower you ever had in your life. And there's certain techniques you can do to make your cauliflower. You can turn the volume up to 20.

[Mari Llewellyn]

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[Margarita Callous Lee]

I mean, I feel like now there's a lot more awareness about.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

There's a sea change in the industry all around, but.

[Margarita Callous Lee]

Yeah.

[Mari Llewellyn]

Do they drink a lot?

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Yeah.

[Mari Llewellyn]

Really? Like, drinking's a big part of, like, hospitality in general.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Yeah, drinking is a big part. Drugs are a big part. I mean, we were lucky enough to not be involved with any of the drug part. Drinking part. Yes, for sure.

[Mari Llewellyn]

Why are chefs like. I feel like that's the reputation.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

It's not. So I don't think it's a symptom or a byproduct of working in the kitchen. I think that the type of person who wants to work 18 hours in the heat, oftentimes burning and cutting themselves, is the same person who likes other extreme type of things.

[Mari Llewellyn]

Yeah.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

So it's just like, it's not like to be a rock star, you have to drink and do drugs. No, it's. It's the same person who wants to live in a van with a group of friends and drive around the country eight months out of the year is the same type of person who wants to party.

[Mari Llewellyn]

Yeah. You got to be a little unhinged.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Yes. So that, that's, that's really where it, where it. Where it stems from. But there is a big sea change.

[Margarita Callous Lee]

I mean, since we started, we. We've had a rule, just no drinking.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Not since we started. We used to have. We used to drink at the restaurant.

[Margarita Callous Lee]

When we really started, and we encouraged.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Everyone to drink at the restaurant. We had a restaurant called the Silver Bow. Part of the experience was after dinner was over, I'd pull out this silver platter of all of these different cognacs and aged this and whiskeys and beer and everything. And we would say, y'all don't have to go home. Y'all don't have to stay here. But if you would like, we would love to have a drink with you. Now, this restaurant was in a hotel, so people were getting trashed. But, you know, luckily there was never. No one ever got hurt. But as we started having more and more restaurants, we started having, like, instances where I'd come in the next day, the kitchen was still dirty and the team was passed out. They had not gone home, they had not finished cleaning. Now we have a hardcore zero tolerance. You do not drink at the restaurant unless it's offered to you by me. And that's usually like on an opening night or something like that, but not normally.

[Margarita Callous Lee]

No.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

We'll take, we'll all go out afterwards and we'll get fucked up if you want, but not at the restaurant. Because on two separate occasions, I have had to fire head chefs for fist fighting each other in front of guests.

[Mari Llewellyn]

Oh, my God.

[Margarita Callous Lee]

Yeah, I know.

[Mari Llewellyn]

And I'm sure you have so many stories like that. Like, I feel like hospitality.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

If you had to guess the common denominator, it's. It's alcohol.

[Margarita Callous Lee]

Yeah. But we also, I mean, for us, it's so important to take care of our team. And, you know, now, after regaining 100 ownership of our company, we, you know, we have paternity leave, maternity leave. We have special resources for anything you need.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Everyone in the company has a 401k with a 5% match. Everyone's got benefits.

[Mari Llewellyn]

Yeah, I feel like I haven't heard of that before. That's amazing.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

And we've never really. I mean, I guess we are telling people right now, but we never. We've been doing it for years and we don't do it. We're doing it for three years. Exactly. Because as soon the, the day we bought out our partners is the day that we, we just, we just decided everything that the 50, if we started getting their 50% of the, of the profits, I didn't ever want to touch that money. Because the second you touch that money, I would have. I would not want to give it away. So I decided that, you know what? Who's been my real partners this whole time? My real partners were the guys and the girls working their ass off every day. So that 50% that we just got back is going to go to compensation packages.

[Mari Llewellyn]

I think that's smart.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

You know, I've always had this philosophy that I wouldn't buy, you know, a Mercedes until my staff was driving BMWs, and I wouldn't drive a Porsche until my staff was driving Mercedes, and I won't buy a Ferrari until my staff is driving Porsches. You know, they've got to have it before I get to have it. And. And I. And a discrepancy of me with a private jet and them with the Pinto isn't possible. I don't like that.

[Mari Llewellyn]

Yeah, I think that's really respectable to take care of. Your team should come first 100%, because that. That's going to keep. Keep you growing at the end of the day. Right. And get you where you need to go. So Michelin stars. I know you guys have a couple floating around. What is the process of getting a Michelin star? Like, what box is.

[Margarita Callous Lee]

Yeah, what do you mean?

[Mari Llewellyn]

It's a secret.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

That's 100% a secret, and God damn it, it's an annoying secret.

[Mari Llewellyn]

So you're just, like, throwing things at the wall, seeing.

[Margarita Callous Lee]

No.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Okay, so, all right, so what does it take to get a star? I have a pretty good idea how. What is the process of getting one? Don't know.

[Mari Llewellyn]

What does it take?

[Philip Franklin Lee]

There is. It's not formulaic, but there is a level. And I spent all of my formative years in one, two, three Michelin star kitchens. And it is a holistic approach. When you say to another cook, well, 10 years ago, not so much anymore. I want this kitchen organized like a Michelin star kitchen. That means something. That means that when you're going to label something, you use scissors to cut the tape. Everything is written legibly. Everything is in, see through matching containers. Everything is. You could eat off the floor in the kitchen, right? There was a. There was a mean. And typically, if you're. If you were doing that, you also cared about what was going on the plate. And at that level, that whole holistic approach usually garnered you a Michelin star. I mean, the way that it works is you. You try to be the best and you put your fucking head down. And every day you remind yourself and you remind your team that every single guest who Comes in tonight is a Michelin inspector, and every single guest is a vip. And every single guest is going to get the best thing we're capable of giving, no matter what, every time. And if you do that for enough years and they hear about you and pay attention, they'll come in. You won't ever know. I promise you, you won't ever know. And you will. It used to be that you would get a phone call. It was a famous phone call the day before the Michelin guide would come out. Everybody's waiting by their phones to see if they would get a phone call to say congratulations. And so in 2019, we did not get Michelin stars, but we were invited to the Michelin gala, and we were awarded Michelin plates for two of our restaurants. A plate is a recommendation. It goes plates, then bib gourmands, then one star, two star, three star. In 2020, we get an email saying, can we have Philip's phone number? A week and a half later, Michelin announces that they have been bullied out of doing a Michelin guide this year in California. They're doing in other places, but California has called them insensitive because there's a pandemic.

[Mari Llewellyn]

What?

[Philip Franklin Lee]

So they cancel the. Yeah, a lot of awards ceremonies so much, it's fucking ridiculous.

[Mari Llewellyn]

It's crazy.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

But then 2021 rolls around, and they reach out and they say, we're doing a virtual one this year, and we would like to come and interview you and Margarita and Lennon. Lennon is. Is my brother. Blood brother, who was the head chef at Montecito at the time. We want to interview the three of you and Chef Nate, who was the head chef at Pasta Bar in LA at the time. Want to interview the four of you to talk to you guys about what it's been like to run restaurants during the pandemic. And I said, I'm in Austin. I can come back. I'll fly back. Tell me when. They said, no, no, no, don't zoom in. It's not a big deal. You're not getting a star. Just we're. Just. Don't get your hopes up. So. Okay, I'll zoom in. So Margarita happened to be in town. So Margarita, Lennon, and Nate are all at the restaurant. They're all standing next to each other, and they put a little bar stool with me on a laptop. So they're filming us, right? And I'm a laptop, and they're asking us questions. What was it like? How did you. What did you learn? You know, what was the hardest thing? And Then they. They say, and we have one last question for you. There's somebody on the phone who wants to ask you a question. And so I was like, that's weird.

[Margarita Callous Lee]

Yeah.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

So someone on the phone has a question, and so they hold up the phone. I can't hear what's being said because there's pandemonium now. And one of the producers comes and says, congratulations, Chef, you've been awarded a Michelin star. And I said, which restaurant? And she said, both of them. And I just broke down and started crying. I'm sitting at my house in Austin, and my wife and my brother and Chef Nate, who I should be hugging and crying with them, and I alone. And they're all together. And I mean, it was. It was amazing.

[Mari Llewellyn]

Yeah, it was.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

It was. They didn't even use the footage of me crying. Can you imagine that?

[Mari Llewellyn]

I cried for no reason.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

I gave them absolute, solid gold. Now. I'm kidding. Like, I gave you everything I had, but no idea. No idea why we got the stars. No idea why. At that point, we had four restaurants. And to be honest, and I've told this to them, to the Michelin guy before, I said, we're honored, but we're so surprised. We had two restaurants we thought were shoe ins, and you gave the stars. The two restaurants we didn't think were ready. They're brand new. We didn't think they're ready.

[Mari Llewellyn]

What are the two that you thought were going to get them?

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Scratch Bar and the Original Sushi. So both of those had gotten plates the year prior to two years prior. And. And both those were in existence the year they asked for my phone number. And now there's two new restaurants that both get stars, and these ones don't get anything.

[Mari Llewellyn]

So Pasta Bar got one. What was the other one?

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Sushi. Sushi. Montecito.

[Mari Llewellyn]

You know, you hear all these, like, things from the movies and stuff where you drop the fork on the floor and then all of a sudden someone's there, or you. You recognize the Michelin person because they have a certain shirt on. So that's. None of that's true.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Well, I. I don't want to say it's not true, but. Well, first of all, we don't have forks at our restaurant, so it'd be hard to do.

[Margarita Callous Lee]

Pasta Bar does have forks.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

That's true.

[Margarita Callous Lee]

We use utensils, at least in one of our restaurants.

[Mari Llewellyn]

Is it sourdough pasta?

[Margarita Callous Lee]

No, no, we.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

She makes a sourdough.

[Margarita Callous Lee]

Sourdough.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

The pasta is not made from sourdough.

[Mari Llewellyn]

Got it. Okay. So, yeah, I heard you have 58 year old sourdough starter.

[Margarita Callous Lee]

I do.

[Mari Llewellyn]

At your house?

[Margarita Callous Lee]

I have one in my freezer as backup in case anything happens to my baby. But yeah, we actually got it when we. When we first started, like when we first.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Our first pop up opening day of scratch bar in 2012. Yeah, 12 or 13 opening day. Gentleman walks in and says, welcome to the neighborhood. I read all about it. I have a reservation tonight. I'm very excited. I heard you guys are making everything from scratch. He said, my grandmother left me her starter when she passed. It's from Italy. It's like 45 years old, something like that. And it's just been in my freezer for years. I don't know what to do with it. I read about it and I felt inspired to gift this to you guys. Margarita has been now nursing that back to health. It took probably about six or seven years to really get good.

[Margarita Callous Lee]

And also.

[Mari Llewellyn]

Six or seven years.

[Margarita Callous Lee]

Well, it took me eight years to actually create, like finalize the recipe for the sourdough. Literally.

[Mari Llewellyn]

Like, did he give it to you in that, in the powder form, in the dry form?

[Margarita Callous Lee]

No, he literally gave you a jar.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

We call it Mandeli cup. It's like the big plastic quart container.

[Mari Llewellyn]

Okay. I can't even keep mine alive for a week. Mine goes moldy all the time. I don't know what I'm doing wrong.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Talk to her.

[Margarita Callous Lee]

Yeah, yeah.

[Mari Llewellyn]

You have a 58 year old. Sad. I read that and I was like, I have to ask her some questions because I can't even keep it alive a week.

[Margarita Callous Lee]

Okay, well, we'll definitely. How often do you feed it? We feed it five days a week.

[Mari Llewellyn]

Do you bring it with you when you travel?

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Now we have restaurants and we have staff.

[Mari Llewellyn]

In terms of ingredient sourcing, like when I was at the restaurant, you were talking about sourcing fish from Japan, and there's things from all over the place. How do you do that?

[Philip Franklin Lee]

So I work with a broker who has a spot at the Toyosu Fish Market. And that's the same company I've been working with for about 10 years. And so at this point, well, for many years now, any of my chefs in any restaurant pick up the phone and you call. Usually we text and we say, this is what we want. They already know the quality level. They already know what I'm looking for. And if something's not available at the market, they'll say, I don't have this snapper, but I have this snapper. And so all the Fish from Japan arrives Tuesdays and Thursdays to, to LAX via JL Japan Airlines. And so. And then from LAX it goes to the rest of the country.

[Mari Llewellyn]

Okay. How much is a whole tuna?

[Philip Franklin Lee]

This last week I bought a 90 pound quarter of tuna and that was $4,000.

[Mari Llewellyn]

90 pounds for $4,000.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Okay.

[Mari Llewellyn]

I knew it was crazy.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

3,500 somewhere about that. About about 40 bucks a pound, 35 bucks a pound.

[Mari Llewellyn]

Okay. Have you guys ever been to that fish market?

[Margarita Callous Lee]

Yeah.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Yeah.

[Mari Llewellyn]

Oh my God.

[Margarita Callous Lee]

We saw the auction. So we went to Japan last year for about what, we were there for a month and a half, two months.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

I was there for a month and a half. I think you were there for a.

[Margarita Callous Lee]

Month and a. Yeah. And yeah, we woke up at like 4 in the morning. Jet lag the shit.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Like which, which by the way, this is what everyone who's going to go to Japan and wants to the fish market. You will naturally wake up at 4am your first couple of days there. Oh, so just, so go in the beginning.

[Mari Llewellyn]

Yeah, yeah.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Don't, don't adjust. And then start waking up at 4am I smart go like, like land.

[Mari Llewellyn]

Yeah.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

And then go the next morning because you wake up at 4am Right.

[Mari Llewellyn]

Okay. And is it craziness? People just yelling?

[Margarita Callous Lee]

There's a lot of yelling.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

You can't buy anything at the, at the auction. It's a, it's an auction for, for that's being. All the fish is being sold to the, the fish mongers are getting it at that point.

[Margarita Callous Lee]

But it's such a, like, it's such a cool experience. Just like watching all of that.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

And where you stand now, you're behind a glass wall and they have, they have microphones in, on the floor and then speakers in there so you can hear but they control the volume. Yeah.

[Mari Llewellyn]

Did you guys get a ton of inspiration when you were there?

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Yeah.

[Mari Llewellyn]

For desserts and stuff too?

[Margarita Callous Lee]

Oh yeah. Oh yeah.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

The, the way that I'm doing toro now, I've been aging my, I've been dry aging my akami, the red tuna, the lean part for probably eight years now. But I, but I always serve toro fresh. I never wanted aged toro. And when we were in Japan, we were invited to take over a really famous little seven seat sushi bar. And I was able to for the first time make my sushi in Tokyo for pretty much a completely non English speaking clientele. I show up to start prepping a couple days early and the chef goes, okay, I got you this, I got you this, I got you this. He goes, Seven seats. I'm doing two seatings on two nights, so forth. So 28 people. He's like, I'm not gonna buy you a whole side of tuna. He's like, but I've been aging this one for you for two weeks. And I was like, in my mind, I'm like, no. But the second my knife goes into that, that tuna, I almost got goosebumps. Just the way that it felt. I've been cutting tuna for 15 years, but the way that the knife entered in the level of tackiness of the oil, I was like, this is special. I took a. Then I took a bite of it and went, oh, my goodness.

[Margarita Callous Lee]

Incredible.

[Mari Llewellyn]

I mean, that tackiness was definitely there. Like, I've never had aged toro before. It was really cool. You guys have a lot of unique flavors, I feel like. And a lot of things I've never had. The dessert was incredible. Remind me what the dessert was called again.

[Margarita Callous Lee]

So it was a tonka bean custard with yuzu and passion fruit granita. And then I do fresh passion fruit seeds, and then we finish it with shiso blossoms and Thai basil leaves.

[Mari Llewellyn]

It was insane. Everyone was, like, looking at each other. What was that? It was wild.

[Margarita Callous Lee]

Thank you.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

It sucks because every restaurant we've ever had, I usually get, like, 15, 16 tries for best dish. And then the first dessert gets served.

[Margarita Callous Lee]

Well, I gotta make every time good.

[Mari Llewellyn]

Every time she was her moment.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Every time people are freaking out about dinner, and then we get to dessert and they go, I don't even remember what I had for dinner.

[Mari Llewellyn]

No, every moment was special. I actually brought my friend Taylor with me because she loves food. She actually is an aspiring chef, and I. When we heard about the grand opening, I was like, I gotta bring Taylor. She's gonna love it. And she was obsessed. She had such a good time. You must have reg dealers all the time, right?

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Yeah. We've probably got about two dozen people who've clocked over 100 visits.

[Mari Llewellyn]

Wow.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

We have people who fly to every single. I know if we open a new restaurant that within week one.

[Mari Llewellyn]

Yeah.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

I'm gonna have these five couples are going to have traveled to this city solely for the opening. You said Josh was in the room.

[Mari Llewellyn]

Josh was after me when I was leaving. I saw him.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Got it. Got it. Okay.

[Mari Llewellyn]

I'm such a big fan of his YouTube channel.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Yeah, he's awesome.

[Mari Llewellyn]

Yeah, he's a funny guy.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

He actually just did our podcast with us.

[Mari Llewellyn]

No way. Okay, wait. Podcast is called Not a Damn Chance.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Not a Damn Chance.

[Mari Llewellyn]

Love it.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Yeah. And the idea is that we're just really sitting down with people who are at the top of their field. What we really want to know about is the mindset. And not the mindset on how do I work hard? How do you deal with. With debilitating circumstances? How did I pull myself together and say, you world, there's not a damn chance that you're going to take me out. I'm going to win? That mindset is what Nina and my whole thing is about. And so our. We want to sit down with people and ask, like, learn about those moments. Because I feel like all. Anyone who has successful is no different than anyone who doesn't have success in their actual abilities as a human to function on earth. The only major difference is that when faced with a cliff jump, some people don't jump. And of the people who jump and they break every bone in their body, some people then jump again. And it's those people who are at the top, top, top.

[Mari Llewellyn]

I so agree with you on that, by the way. I mean, my whole career is based on the worst moment of my life. You know, I lost 90 pounds, and I. I went through so much in 2017, and it got me here. Like, if I didn't go through that and continue pushing and say, I'm going to turn this around, I wouldn't be here right now. So I love that concept. I think that's amazing. Okay, I have to ask before we go, what are your favorite restaurants in the world outside of your own world?

[Philip Franklin Lee]

My favorite restaurant is probably Central in Peru.

[Mari Llewellyn]

Margarita, what's your favorite restaurant?

[Margarita Callous Lee]

I think it has to be Sushi Sakura in Kyoto. Last year we went there.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

That's up there.

[Margarita Callous Lee]

That is very much up there. It was. Honestly, that was the most magical sushi experience I've ever had. It's unbelievably beautiful. The counter where you sit, so they have a beautiful garden. They have a beautiful huge window.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Imagine you're sitting here and that this whole wall right here is. Is their backyard. And it's glass. The most beautiful. Like. Yeah, Zen. Like. Like manicured to a T with little streams and fountains and things. And unreal. And it's beautifully lit. And the chef. You know how I make the sushi? And I put it in front of you.

[Mari Llewellyn]

Yeah.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

He makes a sushi and then he puts his hand out and you. You reach over and take it out of his hand.

[Margarita Callous Lee]

So it was a husband. The husband and wife.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

And was it their son who.

[Margarita Callous Lee]

Yeah, and their son was in the kitchen. And it was just.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Just One dude.

[Margarita Callous Lee]

Yeah.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

But, you know, now we're bonding and. And, like, bonding is such a big part of why restaurants are. Can be so great and really what we want to try to offer in our restaurants. Many times guests, by the. By the time they. They leave or by the time they leave their second time, they're coming behind the counter, they're getting a hug from. From the team. Like, it's. It really is supposed to be like that every night at the restaurant when. Anytime anyone's like, I'm going to Japan, I'm like, my favorite sushi restaurant in Japan is in Kyoto.

[Mari Llewellyn]

Yeah.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

Called Sushi Sakura.

[Mari Llewellyn]

Totally. No, those are the best meals. When you have that insane memory and you're connecting with people in different countries, I think that's amazing. Guys, thank you so much. This was incredible. We've never had chefs or restaurant owners on the show, so it was such an honor to sit with you. Can you just tell everyone where they can find you? Your restaurants? Anything they should know, you can follow.

[Philip Franklin Lee]

At Philip Franklin Lee or at margariticalisley. Both of us link to all of our restaurants, but also it's at Sushi by Scratch restaurants. We are not involved with Sushi Bar at Pasta Bar la, at Pasta Bar Austin, at NADC Burger, at Wolf and Wheat. But if you really want to find us, come to our restaurant.

[Mari Llewellyn]

I will put a link in the description box of this episode. If you guys want to go book with any of these restaurants. It, as I said, truly a magical culinary experience unlike anything I've ever done. You guys are amazing. You're both so talented, so creative, and I'm so glad we met. So thank you so much.

[Margarita Callous Lee]

Thank you. Thank you.

[Mari Llewellyn]

The content of this show is for educational and informational purposes only. It is not a substitute for individual medical and mental health advice and does not constitute a provider patient relationship. As always, talk to your doctor or health team.