Chef Ashish Alfred Of The Alfred Restaurant Group: 5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Became a Chef
An Interview With Martita Mestey
Don’t cook to be like some other famous chef. Let Bobby Flay be Bobby Flay. Let others be themselves. Be your own self, not a knock off of someone else.
As part of our series about the lessons from influential ‘TasteMakers’, I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Chef Ashish Alfred of the Alfred Restaurant Group.
Master Chef and Restaurateur, Ashish Alfred is THE rising star in the Maryland — Washington, DC area food scene, earning acclaim and rave reviews at his restaurants including three Duck Duck Goose locations, The Anchor Bar and Osteria Pirata.
Chef Al was classically trained at the French Culinary Institute in Manhattan and honed his skills in some of Manhattan’s best kitchens, including DBGB, Daniel and Lupa. Grounded by his classical French discipline, he takes bold risks while delivering contemporary dining concepts that are rooted in soulful cooking.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Our readers would love to ‘get to know’ you a bit. Can you share with our readers a story about what inspired you to become a restauranteur or chef?
I love the instant gratification. How many jobs are there where, when you do something to the best of your abilities, you find out right away if your effort paid off? You get immediate feedback when someone tastes a dish you made. Did they grin or grimace? Also, there’s an immediate human bond established when you offer someone a meal or your favorite creation. Cooking is personal. I’m not trying to fill a belly, I’m trying to give someone an amazing experience.
On the business side, I like the discipline it takes and the physicality of it. I’m an active person always on the move, and running a restaurant keeps me firing on all cylinders. It’s also the kind of business where there is not a lot of gray area — there’s a right way to do things and many wrong ways to do things. There is a right way to break down a fish and there is a right way to blanch a vegetable.
I knew I wanted to be a chef the first time I cooked for my mother. You should have seen the look on her face. I’m not going to tell you what that look was…lol. But it served as a spark.
Do you have a specific type of food that you focus on? What was it that first drew you to cooking that type of food? Can you share a story about that with us?
My sweet spot is French cooking, but I also love the fusion of French with other traditions, especially my native Indian culture. For example, at my Good Ducking Burger ghost kitchen, we infuse our dishes with French, Indian, and Latino influences. I’m all about flavor, but I also love experimenting with and honoring the taste traditions of other cultures.
Can you share the funniest or most interesting story that has happened to you since you became a chef? What was the lesson or take away you took out of that story?
It’s not funny at all, in fact it was one of the most painful moments of my life. I was struggling with drug addiction earlier in my career. I had a restaurant that was failing, mainly due to some of my bad choices. And I was riding with my mother in her car one day when she suddenly pulled over to the curb, stopped, and told me to get out. She couldn’t take it anymore. She told me to get help or lose her from my life. That was a turning point for me. I got help. But it was incredibly difficult.
The lesson? Look, only about 10% of people with substance use disorders ever get treatment. I’m in no position to preach or judge others. My own takeaway now is, never give up. That’s cliche but true. Giving up isn’t the same as failing. As I recently told an auditorium full of high school students at my alma mater when I spoke during their graduation ceremony, I’ve failed multiple times — as a son, as a business owner, as a person. In fact, a good chef has to fail over and over again before getting a sauce or a dish just right. But you get back up. You keep going.
Can you tell us a story about the hard times that you faced when you first started your journey? How did you overcome this obstacle?
Well, two things, I guess. In connection with what I just shared above, I actually did lose that first restaurant I opened. It was devastating. But it was also a learning experience. It’s hard enough to run a business and pursue success when you’re sober. It’s damn near impossible when you’re not. Sooner or later, something will fall apart. It took me a while to start a new business. But it was the only path that made sense for me. Failure is only defeat if you give up. I didn’t give up.
As for my journey as a chef, like I told those high school students, for years I burned myself on the stove and nicked my fingers with knives learning how to cook. It was all those scars on my hands that convinced my mother that maybe her son had what it took to succeed as a chef. She saw that small injuries wouldn’t stop me. Pain wouldn’t stop me.
I didn’t want to just be a cook. I wanted to be a master chef. I wanted to reach the pinnacle of this field. To do that, I learned — the hard way — that I would have to fail more often than the next guy. The more I failed, and the more I learned from each failure, the better I would be. That’s not just for me, that’s for anyone who wants to improve. If I’ve failed 1,500 times and the other guy’s only failed 500, I’m going to be the better chef, because I will have learned that much more and practiced that much more. And you never stop. That’s how you overcome: By coming back to it again and again every day.
In your experience, what is the key to creating a dish that customers are crazy about?
Be willing to experiment and break barriers. Upend the conventional. Or, just slightly tweak it. You know, the difference between a tried-and-true dish and a really memorable one can be just one little change, one little touch, a slight variation on the norm.
Cooking is a lot like music. You can hear a song and go, “Oh, that was nice.” And then you can hear someone else do that same song, and you’re blown away. What did they do differently? You can hear “happy birthday” sung every year of your life. But what if your favorite singer or band showed up and did their own rendition on your birthday? Wow. That’s what I strive for in my cooking.
Personally, what is the ‘perfect meal for you’?
Don’t laugh, but despite all my experimentation and the pride I take in the artistry of cooking, sometimes I just want comfort food — like meatloaf, mashed potatoes and gravy.
Where does your inspiration for creating come from? Is there something that you turn to for a daily creativity boost?
You know, sometimes I just like to play. I like to pick up a kitchen tool — like maybe a whisk — and have fun with it. I mean, who doesn’t like a good whisk? Am I weird? You beat a little oil into those egg yolks and, voila, you get mayonnaise. You whip some heavy cream together with some sugar and you have whipped cream. It’s like that old Bobby McFerrin song, “Don’t Worry Be Happy.” I show up and play. (Good music sometimes helps.)
Are you working on any new or exciting projects now? What impact do you think this will have?
Yes, I’m writing a book! It will be my first — and it’s not a recipe book or cookbook. It’s titled “Just The Tips,” and it’s for anyone who’s ever eaten in a restaurant, drank at a bar, ordered coffee from a cafe or has wondered what really goes on behind the scenes. It will give restaurant workers a better understanding of why what they do matters — that it’s not just about paying their rent, but creating something more transcendent than a meal.
Just The Tips will also give patrons a deeper respect for the world of restaurants that most of us take for granted. In it, I’m striving to illuminate food industry culture, even for people who think they already know what goes on behind the scenes. There’s so much more going on than just waiters or waitresses serving food, or bartenders and baristas preparing drinks. I hope that after reading Just The Tips, people come into restaurants with fresh eyes, more patience, a lot of curiosity — and hopefully more compassion.
What advice would you give to other chefs or restaurateurs to thrive and avoid burnout?
As any working chef or restaurateur knows, you devote a lot of hours, without always making a lot of money. And unlike those reality TV shows, there’s usually not a lot of glory involved. So, you’ve just got to love the work — because the work will be your life.
I think you have to know your own big “why.” Why are you even doing this? Is it to see the smiles on the faces of happy customers? Is it because cooking is just in your blood and you wouldn’t be happy doing anything else? Because, honestly, if you can see yourself happy doing something else, DO THAT instead. You will burn out if you try to force-fit yourself into this career.
You have to get comfortable with the uncomfortable feeling of working under pressure, of knowing you’ve got a lot of customers out there who are hungry and impatient and eager to get what they ordered. If you get energized by having — literally — multiple irons in the fire, by juggling a whole bunch of menu orders all at once (plus a couple special orders not on the menu), then you might just be in your happy place.
But despite thriving on the fast pace, the often overwhelming workload, and feeling charged when you please people with your creations, you still have to remember to take care of yourself. Hell, even a machine needs maintenance. And you are a human being, not a cooking machine. So, find good habits that keep you healthy.
I say “good habits,” because I’ve tried a lot of the “bad” ones and they made my life and other’s lives terrible. Alcoholism and drug addiction and dysfunction are very common occupational hazards in this business. Let’s just say I’ve learned from my mistakes, and I hope you choose healthy ways to cope with the pressures. You and your loved ones will be happier.
Thank you for all that. Now we are ready for the main question of the interview. What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me When I First Started as a Chef” and why? Please share a story or an example for each.
- You will fail early and often. Keep at it.
- You can never create a dish everyone will like. You’re lucky if you create something one person likes. (If that one person is a customer, good, you’ll get paid.)
- Don’t cook to be like some other famous chef. Let Bobby Flay be Bobby Flay. Let others be themselves. Be your own self, not a knock off of someone else.
- It’s not all about me. When you’re running a restaurant, you’re running a business. You have to think like a manager. That means setting other people up for success. It means facilitating their job so they can, by extension, deliver for your customers. Think and act like a coach, not like a drill sergeant.
- My own story, for better or worse, will shape how people see my restaurants. My cooking might keep them coming back. But I need to connect with them on some level for them to want to take a chance on me in the first place.
What’s the one dish people have to try if they visit your establishment?
You can’t come to Duck Duck Goose and not have the duck! We change it seasonally, but every iteration is well thought out and beautifully presented.
You are a person of enormous influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.
A big lesson I’ve learned in restaurants, which has served me throughout my working life, is to always be hospitable. No matter what you have going on, if you show the world the best side of yourself and embrace chaos with a hospitable spirit, you’ll get a better result for yourself and those you come into contact with.
Radical hospitality is actually part of some spiritual traditions — treating strangers and outcasts and reviled individuals with kindness and as part of the human family. So, restaurants and chefs and everyone in the food industry really is part of a movement that taps into those traditions to bring our best selves to an often hurting world.
Thank you so much for these insights. This was very inspirational!
Chef Ashish Alfred Of The Alfred Restaurant Group: 5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Became… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.