#137

Josh sits down with Jenn Saesue and Chat Suansilphong, co-founders of 55 Hospitality, recorded at Bangkok Supper Club. Chat learned to cook in his father's restaurant in Thailand before the CIA and Colicchio & Sons. Jenn opened her first restaurant at 22 and watched it fail. The two met managing a Thai restaurant group in Hell's Kitchen, then built Fish Cheeks, Bangkok Supper Club, Fish Cheeks Williamsburg, and the allergen-free Bub's Bakery. The thread through all of it: do fewer things, do them with intention, and trust people to run them.

Jenn and Chat explain why Fish Cheeks opened with under twenty items and no pad thai, even after friends asked if they were stupid (pad thai, Chat notes, was pushed by the Thai government and is something most Thai people eat once a year). They get into refusing to dial down the spice, why sourcing is the only real moat once recipes leak, and why the stigma against machines in a kitchen is both shortsighted and bad for keeping good cooks. The back half turns to Bub's Bakery, born from her husband's intolerances and a seventeen dollar chocolate truffle at the green market, built with Chef Melissa Weller (Per Se, Bouchon, Sadelle's) on one rule: taste good first, allergen-free second.