An Interview With Martita Mestey
Don’t be afraid to work for free. Staging is a tradition in classical kitchens. I worked for several months in NYC staging before I decided to move there. Just as an actor would move to Los Angeles, chefs move to New York, and I had to make sure it was right for me.
As a part of this series, I had the pleasure of interviewing Lauren Gockley.
As a classically trained chocolatier and cannabis-infused product visionary, Lauren Gockley taps into her rich background in Michelin-starred restaurants and European patissiere to craft infused confections renowned for their artistry, consistency of experience and unparalleled fine ingredients.
Lauren co-founded Coda Signature in 2015 and currently serves as its Chief Innovation Officer. In this role, she is responsible for driving product development and refinement, establishing best manufacturing practices, managing supply chain dynamics and maintaining strict quality standards across all product lines. With a focus on collaboration and growth, Lauren imparts her extensive knowledge of culinary chemistry and flavor profiles to Coda Signature’s production team, and together they create edibles and topicals that have won dozens of awards for quality and taste. Her desire to elevate the cannabis experience for both connoisseurs and newcomers is evident in her ongoing development of focused effects through careful cannabinoid analysis.
Named one of Dessert Professional’s Top 10 Chocolatiers in North America, Lauren completed her culinary training at l’École du Grand Chocolat in Tain-l’Hermitage, France, home of the legendary Valrhona Chocolate Company. After gaining industry experience in Parisian pastry shops she went on to work at Jean-Georges Vongerichten’s restaurant Bank, in Houston, Texas, and Thomas Keller’s Michelin 3-star restaurant Per Se in New York, before co-founding Coda Signature.
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?
Baking in general is something I was drawn to as a young person. I appreciated the directions, the measurements, the demand for accuracy — all of that really helped me understand that there is a right and wrong way to do things. With baking, if the directions are followed, there is a solution to any challenge that you face, and I found that to be very gratifying. It put me in control in a lot of ways. As I got more confidence, I not only saw that there was a huge opportunity in pastry but, at its core, it was an opportunity to work in a medium in which I could connect with people and offer joy and happiness, bringing about a memory. I have always been very drawn to chocolate as an ingredient because it epitomizes the sciences and it also brings so much joy to people. I often joke that chocolate is my love language, it’s such a great medium to connect with others.
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?
When it came to cooking, it was an opportunity to spend time with my grandmother, who is a caterer. It was such a great time to be in her kitchen, to learn from her. She was a Depression-era baby and really taught me a respect for ingredients; they’re not to be wasted. She taught me the phrase ‘always scrape the bowl.’ Her love and passion for cooking was contagious.
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?
In all honesty, it was the transition from being a pastry chef to becoming a cannabis pastry chef. I caught a lot of people, including myself, off guard by how quickly it became a driving force in my life. I was living in New York and struggling to find my way. I was introduced to the idea of cannabis being in chocolate and a lightbulb went off in my head. I thought, I can absolutely do this. It took only eight months for me to completely transition my life and to move from New York City to Trinidad, Colorado, where cannabis is legal and where Coda Signature was started. I purchased my first-ever car for just $3500. We drove to pick it up and 80 miles from the dealership, the check engine light came on and the entire exhaust system fell to the ground. My partner and co-founder Brian is very handy and refuses to take anything in to be serviced, so we ended up fixing it on the streets of Brooklyn before packing it up and heading out to our new lives in Colorado.
I am not an avid cannabis consumer, but Brian is an advocate. He opened my eyes that cannabis is not the story we were told when we were younger. All of those misconceptions are quite contrary to the experiences I’ve had with consumers in the organization and in the industry as a whole.
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?
The great thing about perspective is that there is great value to hard times — once they’re over. I moved to New York as a very green young professional and was very lucky to start my first job at Per Se as a pastry chef. It’s a very intense environment with very dedicated chefs. One important lesson came early in my time there: Own your mistakes and work quickly to rectify them.
Before every evening service begins at Per Se, a menu gets printed for the various departments to check to confirm that yes, this is what we’re serving tonight. Every night is different because it’s a tasting menu. One afternoon, I was the person in charge to sign off and before service started, I checked the list thoroughly and could see no errors, so I signed off. Then the first ticket came in and my heart dropped. I had made a mistake. There was nothing I could do but walk across the pass where the chef de cuisine was. He was a very foreboding gentleman, the sort of man you wouldn’t want to disappoint. The waitstaff had to stop taking orders, we had to discard the previous menus and reprint new ones and begin the evening again. It was very humbling, but I learned that when you make a mistake, the most important thing is that you own it and fix it right away.
That is that lesson that I’ve taken with me everywhere I’ve gone since then and, when starting Coda, it was one of the biggest things I wanted to instill in our team. Everyone is going to make a mistake but learning how to fix it and own it is what matters. You’re wasting everyone’s time if you’re not immediately seeking a solution — and in cannabis, mistakes are magnified. From Day 1, we instill in our team that mistakes happen but if we’re not able to own them and respond to them, the only people we’re hurting is ourselves.
In your experience, what is the key to creating a dish that customers are crazy about?
I often think about what a powerful role food plays in our lives, in our memories and relationships. I often find the most success in thinking about a moment in time. Our Coffee and Donuts confection is a great example with two significant moments attached to it. I remember as a kid going and getting doughnuts with my dad. The smell of the cinnamon and sugar cake donuts coming out of the oven, the cakiness of the donut and crunch of the sugar, was heaven to me. My dad says the coffee wasn’t great but that the donut made that very mediocre coffee elevated. It was a special treat when I got to spend that time with my dad. In my professional life, Coffee and Donuts was a signature dish at Per Se and the French Laundry and we made it every night. It was part of my growth as a professional. It immediately paints a picture in people’s minds and the brain plays a huge role in our expectation for taste. If I can transport someone the way Coffee and Donuts does for me, I will consider it a success. Sweet isn’t just one thing; it’s multiple combinations we put together to be sweet.
Personally, what is the ‘perfect meal for you’?
I am a lover of cheese and a lover of oysters, all paired together with a Manhattan.
Where does your inspiration for creating come from? Is there something that you turn to for a daily creativity boost?
I am constantly looking for ways to be inspired, be it something that’s visually beautiful or a unique ingredient I come across at the market. I’m constantly looking to push people’s comfort level when it comes to cuisine — thinking about something unconventional and seeing if I can turn it into a confection. Can I turn bagels and cream cheese into a chocolate bar? I’m deconstructing something and then putting it back together again. What is it about a food, a pie, bacon — what is that our brains react to when it comes to that food? We have a Maple and Pecan chocolate bar that I didn’t want to literally have bacon in, but rather, trick our brains into thinking of bacon, so I worked with smoked sea salt, pecans and maple flavors to create something that approximates bacon, to really play with the salty and sweet combination.
Are you working on any new or exciting projects now? What impact do you think this will have?
Not quite new, but we’re reintroducing our truffles to the market this winter. This is where Coda Signature started, so it’s really significant to bring this back to the market, particularly during a challenging time in the world and the Colorado cannabis market. We’re hoping to bring some joy this season.
In addition to the truffles, we’re working on our Four Pillars of Innovation, which include
Flavor, as with the ‘bacon’ flavor of the Maple and Bacon bar
Microdose, which allows our customers to curate their experience without too much THC
Minor Cannabinoids, which are outside the THC impact and offer so many different effects that are fun to play with
Fast-Acting, which is a really exciting new ability that eliminates the waiting time
What advice would you give to other chefs or restaurateurs to thrive and avoid burnout?
I feel a bit of a hypocrite in answering, but it’s hard to avoid burnout when you’re driven by something that you’re passionate about. That’s a risk that you take when you give your heart and soul to something: you risk it flipping in the opposite direction and becoming something you resent. I wish I could say that I’ve figured out how to strike that balance, but I think it is key to not have your professional life be your sole identity. Don’t lock your self-worth in your career. It’s really hard to tell someone who is dedicated to their passion to work less, but you must find ways to define yourself outside of your career. Coda is like my child and to not have my identity locked up in this is continually proving to be a challenge. Remembering to prioritize relationships is probably the №1 most important thing you can do. Continue to have an identity outside of your work.
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.
- Before you decide that culinary school — which can be tremendously expensive — is for you, spend at least one year working in a kitchen to understand the demand on your time and your body. It will also help you realize that the culture that’s arisen in the last 20 years in which chefs become celebrities is one in a million. I was blessed to spend time learning from chefs in France, in some of the best restaurants in NYC with some of the best chefs, and that was one of the most world-class experiences you can get. You won’t get that in a classroom setting.
- Don’t be afraid to work for free. Staging is a tradition in classical kitchens. I worked for several months in NYC staging before I decided to move there. Just as an actor would move to Los Angeles, chefs move to New York, and I had to make sure it was right for me.
- As a woman in a kitchen, your passion can be mistaken as emotional, but it is not a weakness. Wear it as a suit of armor — and that goes beyond kitchens. Don’t let someone tell you you’re being emotional when what you’re actually being is passionate.
- The team is the real heroes. It is their responsibility to execute the chef’s vision every day the same way repeatedly and they often hold the most positions. Show gratitude for your team. My Dad was the general director for both the Houston and the San Francisco operas and he always said that the most valuable thing you have is your gratitude. That has carried me so far with everyone I’ve worked with at any level of an operation. Gratitude is the key.
- Remember that this is supposed to be fun.
What’s the one dish people have to try if they visit your establishment?
One of my favorite Coda products is my Cream and Crumble White Chocolate Bar. People tend to put their hands out and say, no — I don’t like white chocolate. It wasn’t considered sophisticated; it was too sweet. But when we started in Colorado, we looked at the data and discovered that Coloradans have a bit of a sweet tooth. I often think of white chocolate as being like tofu, it’s sort of meh but will absorb flavor like a sponge. Our Cream and Crumble is our take on a lemon cheesecake: it has lemon, white chocolate, and a spice crumble streusel. When I convince someone to try it, I typically see their faces light up with surprise and then bliss. It’s that gift that I am so blessed to be able to give. It is so fun to contradict someone’s expectations and surprise them.
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.
It is having a focus around sustainability and food and if the message could get across that sustainability is not about going without; it’s about finding ways to keep all the things we love while making a handful of small changes in our lives that allows it to last longer. We have a great relationship with our chocolate supplier, for example, and I love their approach to the farmers who grow their cacao beans: They’re here to continue the legacy of cacao farming. They’re looking to continue the legacy of the communities that have been there long before us and will be there in the future. That’s building sustainable growth and sustainable access to incredible resources. Little steps and relationships that are mutually beneficial . . . it’s not black and white. If we as cannabis manufacturers and chefs can continue to perpetuate that story by the choices that we make as businesspeople, that’s a huge step forward. It only takes one chef to take that step and have it make a difference.
This was very meaningful, thank you so much, and we wish you only continued success.
Lauren Gockley Of Coda Signature: 5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Became a Chef was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.