I had an idea that I'd talk to Joseph about , and , and probably about middle eastern food. But in an absolutely refreshing and eye-opening 20 minutes, hospitality success was compared to a good marriage, stars in the industry were praised and the question of staff wages and the future for young chefs was very honestly discussed. That's the thing about conversations with chefs. I never know where I'm going to go, but I'm always the wiser and humbler at the end of them.
Joseph, thank you for your time. You must be very busy. You have a growing empire.
There’s a lot going on.
How is the latest jewel in the crown going, Bar Saracen?
It’s going great. We hit the ground running. It’s a modest space in that it’s a pretty little restaurant. It has been well received by the press and more importantly the public. We’re getting lots of return business and hitting the mark.
In terms of hitting the mark, is it allowing you to do things that you weren’t able to do in your other venues or is it just that Middle Eastern food is flourishing in Melbourne at the moment?
No, definitely the first part. I’ve hard trouble articulating it; they’re not better things, they’re maybe somewhat more refined or a bit outside…the formula isn’t the right word…what’s come to happen at Rumi and Moorshead is that they have a reputation, a pattern and they sit in a certain part in the market and in a certain part of the neighbourhood, which can be a bit restrictive. Whether it’s better or not, I can’t say. Having been at Saracen for a couple of weeks, and gone back to Rumi, Saracen makes me love Rumi even more. Saracen is a lot more measured and precise and somewhat thought-provoking. You come to Rumi and you just eat.
Is Rumi more home-style?
To a certain extent. Maybe home-style may be not the best way to describe it. It’s more robust.
I was reading that it wasn’t really your intention to be a chef.
Definitely not.
You started in a kitchen and a kitchen hand and then that’s what happened. What do you think it is about cooking and hospitality that really drew you in?
The team environment is great. I think too, you get constant satisfaction. There are not many jobs where you can accomplish a task over and over again and get satisfaction all day long. I agree. You see it on the faces of your diners immediately. Even as simple as cutting something better than you cut it the day before and the day before that, or doing it faster, or having a breakthrough. For all that’s said about working in hospitality, there is definitely something in that.
I remember when I was working at Est Est Est and doing 80 hours a week and my fiends would say, I don’t know how you do it and I’d say, for probably 65 of those I’m really happy and you seem miserable for your 36, so I don’t know which is worse.
I had a chat to at Ryne. He is very technique-driven. You would have been influenced by that perhaps at Est Est Est. Were you able to bring something from there into your own venues or was it a complete departure?
It wasn’t a complete departure. But let’s remember that I was at the bottom rung there and that’s not downplaying it, that’s literally where I was. I think what I learned there was less about the technique. It was such an eye-opener. I didn’t even know how to peel a tomato when I got there. The biggest thing I took from there was learning to work to a very high standard. That’s probably what helped to build Rumi and it’s about to turn 12 years old. It’s almost an institution, well I don’t know what makes something an institution but there is definitely something we do that separated it from the next place. I can only say that being able to work to such a high standard with simple food was part of the success.
I only came to Melbourne fairly recently, so when you launched Rumi, what was the climate around the style of food you were doing? Was what you were doing new?
It was definitely … well when we say new, almost nothing is new… but it was definitely something there was very little of. We did it in Brunswick where there was very little of that sort of thing and we did it at a time when there wasn’t very much happening at all. That’s part of the luck we had. The boom of restaurants that in Melbourne happened about a year after we opened.
People talk about the Chin Chin effect, but for me one of the biggest game changers in the industry was Ladro doing pizza and Italian food like no one had done it before.
I had a chat to and she is so humble about her role in things but as you say, she with the Ladro team really did launch a whole new style of dining.
Absolutely. It was written about in the New York Times. It was as edgy and as good a place as you can get. It hit the mark beautifully. It was executed so well. There have been lots of places since which have many of the elements but which once you scratch below the surface, there’s nothing there.
For you it was good timing then. You entered the scene and were able to capitalise on that.
Absolutely. If we opened Rumi now in the way we did then, I reckon it would still be Nat and I working every day and we wouldn’t be able to move on from that.
You can’t be a complete arsehole and then have a community around you. You have to be part of the community to be part of the community. You can’t just obtain community and tick that box. You have to act in a certain way for people to gravitate to you and work with you in your circle.
How do you go from opening one place, which is a risk in itself, to then opening several other places?
It’s much more impressive than it sounds, I assure you. I can’t speak for my peers in the industry but I would hope that people were honest with themselves to acknowledge that there are not many of us who know what we’re doing. We’re passionate, we have ideas and we have a crack. I can tell you that the amount of money I make from all the places combined, many people wouldn’t even acknowledge going to work for.
That really is the terrible truth, isn't it? You are working so hard and putting everything into these places. I know there is no money in it. You must be doing it for love.
Well, not entirely. But gee it’s a big part of it. For me, Rumi is the mother ship, for need of a better expression, the other projects are with other people and if they pay their way and they make a little bit for us, great, but again I have had many discussions with my, note, EX-accountant, where he said I was nuts and you don’t do anything just for the sake of it. And yeah, I don’t do it just for the love of it but we don’t do it for that much money either.
Well you’ve obviously built a community. I’ve read some of your thoughts around social media and the role it now plays in hospitality. That’s all about building community. You said you’ve had return business at Bar Saracen and Rumi has a big following, how do you build community? It’s not just social media. You have to be good.
It’s a hard one. Everyone wants to know the secret. But these things can’t always be articulated. It’s like saying what’s the key to a good friendship or marriage? There are no keys. Or there are many keys.
You can’t be a complete arsehole and then have a community around you. You have to be part of the community to be part of the community. You can’t just obtain community and tick that box. You have to act in a certain way for people to gravitate to you and work with you in your circle.
Just to go back to food and some of the flavours you’re enjoying working with at Bar Saracen, when you’re working within a cultural cuisine, is it still seasonal?
Definitely. This is the interesting thing. Sometimes I think I haven’t told my story correctly or maybe I haven’t got it out there. We’ve been cooking seasonal vegetable based dishes using a charcoal grill, share plates for 12 years. People still talk about those things as something new and certain people are champions in the industry for doing things that, well, you know Rita was serving fried cauliflower 15 years ago. Maybe she’s too modest.
Or maybe we didn’t have hashtags 15 years ago.
Maybe. These are things Rumi has been doing since the beginning. Cooking with fire. Fuck. We literally just changed our firebox last year. It was a $60 barbecue for the local Middle Eastern shop. It’s had Anthony Bourdain, Marco Pierre White, the MasterChef crew, René Redzepi. It was a box of coals. Maybe that’s where the gap is. I don’t talk about getting an old Lebanese man to make us a box that had a certain thing that made it more appealing to people.
I don’t know. Seasonal? Absolutely. You won’t find crappy tomatoes on the menu, you might find a tiny element of them somewhere on the menu but you’ll never find a dish based on tomatoes out of season.
What do we do differently at Saracen? It’s really hard to say. I guess there’s an element of finery. The portion sizes are different; they are slightly smaller at Saracen, which then helps you produce something little more refined. But that is a really hard one for me to answer.
Something really important to know about Saracen is that the big driver and the person doing the majority of the driving in the kitchen is Tom Sarafian, the head chef there. He is an absolutely beautiful cook and there is no way I could produce what is being produced at Saracen by still doing the other things I do. That’s the other thing. Let’s not kid ourselves that I am somehow in all the kitchen all the time and that I’m some amazing genius.
You’ve built a team, haven’t you?
It just doesn’t work without that great team. My job now is to keep the team happy. That’s what I do. Tom has just taken it and run with it. I just give him a few nudges in the right direction or have to pull him back sometimes and keep my eye on the overall vision but he really does a great job. I’ll say I reckon we need to change this dish or this dish is lacking something or how about mushrooms and he’s off. He’ll say, there’s a dish I’d like to do and this is how mum would do it or this is what they’re serving in Lebanon and this is what I’m thinking of doing with it and he just runs with it and does such an amazing job.
What would you say to young chefs wanting to get into the industry in this day and age?
That’s a hard one, Jo. It’s an interesting time with all this discussion about wages being paid correctly. What is correctly? Once upon a time your parents would pay for you to be an apprentice somewhere and now it is completely flipped on its head where young people are basically saying ‘it’s mine, it’s mine, and you have to give it to me and the only transaction we are going to have is money.’ We’re in a pretty interesting time for our industry because if the only transaction we have is based on money, then that’s’ all we’re going to get; transactions. Why would you take on a young person who only cares about what they earn?
We’ve made them that way. A young guy came to work for me and straight up asked his pay rate. I told him he hadn’t done anything yet, held only been there for half an hour and how about he do some work and we’ll talk about pay rate afterwards.
I don’t know what to tell young people now. I don’t know what there is in store for them. Lots of restaurants are using food that is brought in from a big kitchen somewhere else and that is what people are being forced to do to run restaurants at a viable rate. What never gets said is that we have to make good money too. It’s like it’s a dirty word that the boss should get money out of his business. Everyone talks about penalty rates on Sundays for staff but how is the boss supposed to make money? Is he supposed to put that on hold for that day?
It’s an interesting discussion and we are all jumping on bandwagons about a lot of topics at the moment, without perhaps looking at all sides and getting to the heart of the issue. There must still be enthusiastic young people who do love cooking.
Of course there are. But that’s why I don’t know what to tell them. How many places are there do you think that fillet their own fish these days? Why would you train someone to fillet fish when they cost you so much? On top of that, they cost you so much but they still don’t earn enough. The old adage of head down, arse up, is the way I have worked my whole life. I don’t know if that is applicable any more. I guess my advice would be, think longer term. By today’s standards, I was completely exploited at Est Est Est. But it gave me the credibility I had when I opened Rumi. It paid back tenfold.
If it becomes solely a financial transaction then I don’t know if I can work in this industry. It’s too much about the money. I don’t know what it will be like for young people coming into the industry now. It’s a different time with different values.
That’s a depressing note to finish on but I do think it’s an important discussion to have. Thank you for your honesty.
No worries. I have trouble being anything but.
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