Exploring Mexico's Rich Flavors with Chef Sarah Thompson of Casa Playa

This week, we're venturing into the vibrant world of Mexican cuisine with executive chef Sarah Thompson of Casa Playa at Wynn Las Vegas. At Casa Playa, she presents a vibrant and creative menu featuring bright, California and Baja produce and seafood, woven together with a robust masa program–drawing upon her culinary expertise refined at New York City’s lauded Cosme. Chef Thompson graduated from the Culinary Institute of America, and amassed experience at some of New York City’s most noteworthy restaurants including Marea and Alder.

As a hyper-regional coastal Mexican restaurant, the menu’s emphasis lies in locally selected seafood. Thompson sources nearly all of her fish from the Pacific coast, and similarly, she works with purveyors that source fresh, seasonal produce from 50 of the best farms across southwest Nevada, California, and Arizona–also receiving bi-weekly deliveries from the famed Santa Monica Farmers Market. Corn, chiles, and agave serve as the backbone of the Casa Playa menu and are sourced directly from small producers in Mexico via Masienda. Most notably, Chef Thompson’s masa program is incredibly layered and distinctive with six distinct corn varieties imported from Oaxaca and nixtamalized in house.

Topics Discussed:
Early Culinary Influences
Transitioning to New York's Culinary Scene
Diversity in Culinary Experiences
The Masa Program at Casa Playa
Navigating the Vegas Culinary Landscape
Collaborative vs. Solo Work
Embracing Diversity in Cuisine

SARAH THOMPSON
Sarah Thompson and Casa Playa -Wynn on Instagram
Check out the menus at Casa Playa
Podcast episode: How to Make and Use Masa with Masienda Founder Jorge Gaviria

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Transcript

Chris Spear: 0:00

Imagine diving into the culinary scene of New York City straight out of culinary school, working under the guidance of some of the best chefs in the world, including Enrique Olvera and Daniela Soto Inez at cosmi. And then making the leap into the glitz and glamour of Las Vegas. Today we're venturing into the vibrant world of Mexican cuisine with Executive Chef Sarah Thompson of Casa Playa at Wynn Las Vegas. Sarah's journey is not just about cooking. It's about cultural immersion, creativity, and breaking boundaries. Stay tuned as we unravel the secrets behind her innovative Masa program, her transition to an executive chef role, and how she brings the essence of coastal Mexico to the heart of Vegas. This episode is a culinary adventure you won't want to miss. This is Chris spear. And you're listening to Chefs Without Restaurants. The show where I usually speak with culinary entrepreneurs and people working in the food and beverage industry outside of a traditional restaurant setting. I have 31 years of working in kitchens, but not restaurants and currently operate a personal chef business throwing dinner parties in the Washington DC area. So as I said, today's guest is Chef Sarah Thompson. And unlike most of my guests, she actually works in a restaurant. She's the executive chef at Casa playa, which is in the Wynn Hotel in Las Vegas. But because I love Mexican food and cooking masa and everything in that realm, I really wanted to talk to Sarah. After graduating from the Culinary Institute of America, Sarah promptly moved to New York City where she worked at murraya followed by Alder under Chef Wiley do Frane before ending up at cosmi. It was there that she truly fell in love with Mexican cooking and is continued down that path. We talked about the Masa program at Casa Playa navigating the Vegas culinary landscape and embracing diversity in cuisine. We also touch on collaborative versus solo work. By listening to my voice, you might be able to tell that I'm a little hoarse. I've been getting over a mild illness here. So I'm going to keep this intro really short today. I enjoy talking to Sarah. And if you're interested in Mexican food and cooking like I am, I think you'll enjoy this conversation. And if you're looking to take a deeper dive, as I mentioned in the podcast, I had masih and the founder Jorge Gaviria on the podcast last year. For your convenience, I've linked that episode in the show notes. I hope that everyone out there has a safe and happy holiday. I'm still undecided as to when the next episode will drop, but it will be out shortly. Also, I'm in the early stages of starting another podcast. This will be in addition to the Chefs Without Restaurants podcast. It'll be open to people from all industries, but focusing mostly on the creative process and collaboration. If this piques your attention, let me know. I'd love to talk with you. As always, you can reach out to me directly on Instagram and threads at Chefs Without Restaurants or by email at chefs without restaurants@gmail.com Thanks so much and have a great week. Hey, Sarah, how's it going? Thanks so much for coming on the show. I'm happy to have you here today. Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure being on the podcast. As many of my listeners know I love Mexican food and cooking something that you're doing now. So we're definitely going to talk about that. I'd like to start the show talking a little bit about where you came from and growing up as it relates to food because it's obviously important to where you are now. You grew up in Boston. Is that right? The suburbs? Yeah. Whereabouts if you don't mind. This town called Shrewsbury. But if you don't live in the small state of Massachusetts, you probably have never heard of that time. So I'm just bringing up because I'm from Marlborough actually. And I live there in a way. Okay, so you do know she was very we used to play you in sports? Yes, most definitely. We did okay in soccer and that was about it. That was the the sport that we had going on and Walbro it's crazy small world. So growing up, were you someone who is interested in food did you cook at home? Did your parents take you out to restaurants? What was your relationship with food growing up? I always knew I wanted to be a chef. I loved cooking. I loved shape.

Sarah Thompson: 5:00

Sharing food with people I loved, you know, I would always like we would, I would play a lot of sports. And I would always like want to throw all the pasta parties make everyone a bunch of food and like, make a whole experience of everything. And food was always really important. My family too, we sat down and at home cooked meals almost every day, every night of the week, it was super important for my favorite my parents and my family. And I feel like that was such a huge part of like how I fell in love with food. And now that I'm in the restaurant industry, my parents have fully embraced it. And you know, they love coming out here and going out to eat, they love going to New York and traveling around and trying all of these things, but they also they cook so much at home, my dad has like a smoker and loves bringing people together in the same way that I do with food to share like this experience and you know, share, you know, a table with all of us. It's really great. I'm really grateful for all of that. I have a similar upbringing. And you know, it wasn't always fancy. I grew up in the 80s and 90s. But my mom stayed home with me until I was in sixth grade. And that meant we had a meal on the table every night, you know, and we sat down and I went grocery shopping with her and got a love of cooking. And I only applied to one college and I want to go Johnson and Wales, obviously it's close to Marlborough, in Providence there and I that was the only school I applied to and I had no backup plan was like I'm going here. I'm going for culinary. And that's it. And that's how that went. I was in the same boat. I was CIA. And my parents were like, just apply to one other school. And I did and I'm like, this is a joke. I know, I don't want to go to the school. I'm going to culinary school. I'm going to be a chef. This is the only thing I want to do. But you know, you never looked back. Right? And you got out of school and jumped right into the New York food scene. Is that right? Yeah, I didn't even wait 24 hours. I had my one mission in mind. And I was just like, I want to be in New York. I want to work for some of the best chefs out there. And you know, that's what I did. I just dove right in. My parents were begging me like, just take a weekend come home, like see the family. And I'm like, No, I need to move to New York immediately. Do you think you would have lost traction if you had gone home? And like kind of mulled it over for a couple of weeks or so do you think there's a potential? Maybe you wouldn't have gone to New York? No, no, there's not a chance that I wasn't going to be in New York. That was the only place I wanted to be? Where did you start working? I started working at Maria. And at the time it got to Michelin stars, which was a really incredible experience. And then from there, I started working for why they do Frane Alder and became a sous chef. And then from there started working at cosmi. So it it feels like what a really short timeline. But at the same time it was over the course of quite a few years. But I absolutely loved my experience in New York and I want to change it for the world. Have you ever did you work in New York at all? I've never worked in New York, I worked in Massachusetts. And then I jumped over to Seattle, my wife also went to Johnson Wales and we moved from Massachusetts to Seattle and then bounced to the Philadelphia area. But I love the star chefs conference. I don't know if you've ever been to that in New York City and I gone previous to the year you know, it stopped during COVID I think the last 10 years I've gone up to New York City. So at least once a year, I would go up and eat my way through and I've eaten at all three of those restaurants and maybe both Maria and Alder in the same year. If my memory serves, but it gets a little fuzzy. Yeah, at all, at a certain point, it all blurs together and it's all just you know, one one experience. But you know, I'm also unique. You know, I remember eating it all the while he's he's such an interesting guy, and I don't know him well, but I remember eating there. I had something that in my mind tasted like a Big Mac. And then after dinner, I went in the kitchen and met him and talked to him and I mentioned this to him and he looked at me deadpan and said, like, Are you stoned? And? And like, he's like, Am I really crazy? Or is he just kind of fucking with me? You know, it's like really funny because you never knew like every encounter I've had with him I think I think he was smart enough to know what he was doing and that it was reminiscent of that but it wasn't necessarily obvious but maybe that was something in my head I still don't know to this day. I mean, he does like fast food but yeah, we like a lot of the things that we did there were you know, plays on dishes we had a on our brunch menu, a dish called fillet, no fish, and it was it looked like a filet of fish sandwich. But it was actually scrambled eggs that we sent in gelatin and then fried and like the same type of tempura that they use and then we made cheese like we set some sorry some like Thai chili sauce with gelatin and put that over as the cheese. It was just like a really fun type dish and it was just like a really like the kind of like the way he was putting together the dish was just like really playful and fun but also completely unique. I really enjoyed working for him. He's such a talented chef. So Maria, Italian Alder kind of new experimental American. I don't even know what you call it and then cosmi Mexican very different restaurants. How did you select

Chris Spear: 10:00

where you wanted to work?

Sarah Thompson: 10:02

I knew I wanted to work at Maria. When I was in school I had eaten there. And I loved it. And I was able to connect with the chef and get a job. And then from there, I just had interest in learning about the style of food that Wiley was making. So of course, I just pursued that and it happened to kind of perfectly time with him opening another restaurant, which was great. And then unfortunately, that restaurant was closing. And then I just literally happened upon Kai's May, one of the pastry sous chefs that was at cosmi was a culinary school, when I went to culinary school with her came in and were like, Hey, we're looking for another sous chef or opening for more days. And I knew nothing, I wasn't seeking out Mexican food, I just, you know, needed a job. She was like, Oh, I'll check it out. And I absolutely fell in love. I mean, you're a culinary professional. And, you know, once you get to like a certain point in your career, you just you start to learn like less and less like there are less like there are, there's always so much to learn. But your knowledge, just as you know, you know about more ingredients, you've had more experiences, like you have the resources to, you know, experience a lot more things. But when I went to cosmetic, everything was new, the ingredients, the masa, the flavor profile of the food, how they put everything together, and I was blown away. And for those, the time I was there, I was learning every day, I was learning about new techniques, or just learning about different regions of Mexico, why all of these ingredients are important where we're getting them from, and it blew me away. And because it was such a unique restaurant to New York at the time, it was one of the first like really fine dining Mexican restaurants in New York. Now there's quite a few more. I was working with a lot of really inspired like minded people who also shared my same passion. And we were able to learn and grow together in such an amazing way.

Chris Spear: 11:59

I actually was there opening night, and I was the first table sat in the main dining room there, which is kind of cool. And I joke about the first person to actually put that corn husk Marang on Instagram, which became like a sensation. Yeah, you know, I was really excited about that. I was in town for the starships conference I actually saw Enrique was on the main stage that night, about an hour and a half before they opened and I saw him I talked to him, I got a picture with him. He signed a book and I'm like, I have a 530 reservation at your restaurant or like, are you going to be off the stage? And there's like, Yeah, I'm gonna make it quick and bounced across town. And um, yeah, that was the first time I ate there. And then I ate there was probably three years ago. Great meals, great food. Had you ever had any of that kind of Mexican food? Like, fine dining? Are you no different than say what Americanized Mexican is? Have you had any experiences with that prior to going there?

Sarah Thompson: 12:50

I had no experience. And I think this kind of what has shaped me here today is like I kind of dove in. And I dove in really, really hard to like the style of Mexican cuisine. And obviously, there's casual and more fine dining, and like how you put it all together. But like, I didn't have anything to change my perspective on what you know, Mexican food could be otherwise I just knew this style of Mexican food was and from there, it is so expansive, and there's so many different regions and so many things that you can learn. So I feel like that definitely helped shape what we're doing here, like Castle playa, which is really fun. So

Chris Spear: 13:32

now you're in Vegas. So what was the alert for you? You know, let's jump ahead. You moved coasts you Well, I mean, Vegas isn't on the coast. But I mean, you were an east coaster. And then you all the way out to Vegas, a very different city than New York, why leave New York,

Sarah Thompson: 13:46

I actually moved out here to open this restaurant called ilio, which was a restaurant from Daniella. So doing as an Enrique Olvera. And super excited is in the same space that we are in now. But we were supposed to open March 17 2020. And that was the day the world shut down. So we were ramping up doing all of these things. And it just it didn't open and then we like open but it was like not a really good time for restaurants to open. Like there's a lot of restrictions and you know, a lot of things that we weren't really able to accomplish because we're so limited and what we're allowed to do. And also it was really hard to promote a new restaurant when you know, so many things were going on in the world that had nothing to do with the restaurant industry. Or there's a lot going on with the restaurant industry. But you know, there's a huge pandemic in the world. So it just never took off. And then they decided not to reopen the restaurant and they asked me to stay on and open Casa playa, and we put together a new menu, we redesigned the space. And it's absolutely beautiful and it's really fun, really creative, really playful, and I'm really, you know excited about being here.

Chris Spear: 15:00

What a weird time I can't imagine starting a restaurant in that period at all and trying to figure that out. So I guess for you, what was the plan? Were you going to be the head chef there? Once it really got off the ground? Was that the plan going into it?

Sarah Thompson: 15:16

Yeah, I was a chef de cuisine. And, you know, a lot of the creative direction was from Daniella and Enrique. But I was the chef here kind of implementing, you know, their standards and the cuisine. But now Casa Playa is I was promoted to the executive chef role. So it's just me and my team here, which has been really fun. So

Chris Spear: 15:39

what is that like making the leap from being a number two? Number three, to being ultimately the Executive Chef, the person who's the decision maker, the person building a team? What challenges maybe did you go through? And I guess more if looking back on it, where you are now, do you have any advice for anyone who's maybe stepping into an executive chef role for the first time,

Sarah Thompson: 16:04

my advice would be, even though it's absolutely terrifying, once you make that step, it's one of the most rewarding experiences of your life really being able to, you know, build a team and see people grow, and, you know, teach all of these young culinary professionals, all of the things that people have taken the time to teach you. And just seeing the growth, seeing people excited about the food that you're producing. And all of that is incredibly rewarding. And to be honest, when I took that, I felt very prepared to take that next step, I had been working in restaurants, and continued to grow. And I was I was ready to be in charge and ready to, you know, be creative and have the menu of the mind. But it's still terrifying, because when everyone you know, when something is going on here, all eyes are on you. And then you know, eventually all of that kind of settles, and it just becomes more natural, and time and an experience. But, you know, it has been incredibly rewarding. And it's really amazing to see, like I said, like the growth of this restaurant and the growth of my peers and my cooks, which is really amazing. Just one of my favorite parts about being a chef is just fostering a good work environment with a good team, and seeing how much they can learn and grow and push themselves is really rewarding. So talking

Chris Spear: 17:31

about where you're at, there's so many restaurants in Vegas, who is coming to your restaurant and what sets you apart, like, do you have an idea of who you're like, is there a typical customer there and what they're looking for?

Sarah Thompson: 17:44

We have so classify as the winner. So we have two types of customers, we have, you know, the win clientele. And then we have a lot of we're right next to encore Beach Club, we'll get a good amount of people who are interested in like a nightlife type scene a lot more of a younger crowd. So we'll see a lot of you know, when guests a little bit earlier in the night and transitions into a little bit of a younger, more playful, you know, crowd and the later parts of the night we have a DJ, we have live music, which is really fun. And in Vegas, there's so many restaurants that is for sure. But one of the things that makes Cass apply there's only a few Mexican restaurants on the Strip. I think there's three soon to be four with Fountain Blue opening, but there's not there's not a lot of Mexican food out there. Or at least at this level on the strip out there in Vegas. And we are very different from the other Mexican restaurants here we have like a hobby of yours toca Madeira, which is definitely more of a steakhouse style. And then we're a coastal Mexican restaurant, huge focus on seafood. But what sets us apart is definitely our Masa program. So we next analyze all of our corn in house we're flying in all this beautiful heirloom corn from Wahaca. We use between six and nine different varietals depending on the time of the year and what season it is. And we mill it all in house and every single masa piece that comes out of our kitchen is made in house. Our tortillas are tomatoes. You know, all of that is made with heirloom corn. And it's a huge endeavor, like some days we'll go through 150 kilos of masa, which is an insane amount of masa is for like, you know, when we do brunch and dinner, all of those ham, fresh tortillas, and all of the production that goes into it, but no one else is taking that leap and you know, putting something like that out there, here in Vegas. So that definitely sets us apart from the other restaurants.

Chris Spear: 19:39

Now, that was something you were doing cosmetic correct. It is.

Sarah Thompson: 19:43

And that was one of the things that really, like I felt very passionate about taking here and you know, having that be a part of this restaurant as well. It's super unique, and for me coming into Mexican cuisine In the tortilla is really what set apart cosmi from other Mexican restaurants I'd had before, I had never had a tortilla like that before in my life. And it really just, it changed my perspective on a lot of things. And it was funny because working at cosmi, we made corn every day. So for like, two and a half, three years, just making corn every day and we came out here. And when we're opening ilio, we're doing we had a master program as well and we could not get the masa to work we're like this is crazy. Like this recipe is like this, the same rate is not right is like the ratio of cow the corn is like what's going on. And the water out here is so different than the water in New York, we had to change the amount of cow that we added to the water for it to be able to break down and mill, we had to add this huge filtration system to the backup to our all of the kettles that we use to cook the corn to make sure the water was super purified and super clean. Because if we just use the regular tap water, which is also very filtered, like we're in a huge hotel, it just wasn't working, we had to put this huge thing together in order to get our corn to, you know, next analyze and, you know, get processed properly, which was really insane to think about. But it also makes sense because if you're, you know, think about New York, bagels versus bagels anywhere else is like it's all about the water. I

Chris Spear: 21:22

had Jorge from Maaseiah on the podcast last year when his book came out. So we did a deep dive into masa and all things corn. He

Sarah Thompson: 21:30

is amazing. So we actually get all of our corn from us yanda i They're such an amazing company. I really, like I stand by all of the things that they're doing and trying to accomplish as a company and I'm so happy how much they've expanded and how many people like they they introduced heirloom corn to the US in a way that it was not here before. And Cosmo is actually their first customer. The

Chris Spear: 21:55

fact that I can go into whole foods now. I'm not next analyzing my own corn. Jorge thinks I should maybe try that sometime. It's an experiment but you know, I love that I can just go at least get there masa harina at Whole Foods now. I mean, for years I've been ordering it on the internet, which is a huge step up from buying my Seca. You know, your giant,

Sarah Thompson: 22:14

huge fan there. And Jorge is also just such a such a lovely human, like him and his whole team. They're so great.

Chris Spear: 22:21

He is I'm so glad you know, the book seems to be doing well. And it's one of my favorite books to jump into when I'm looking for some inspiration. Talk talking about inspiration. Are there items that you keep on all the time and if so, what's like something that's your favorite.

Sarah Thompson: 22:36

One of the things that I am a huge fan of is our malaise, we have quite a few varieties of malaise that well, some like some of them will rotate on and off. But I have been a huge fan of our is my attacking mushroom. And there's not a lot of local farms in Vegas. I know that's really shocking. But we're able to get mushrooms locally, there's this really amazing company called Desert Moon mushrooms. And it's five minutes away from here in Las Vegas, like right off of the strip. And they're making some of the best mushrooms I have ever had in my life. I didn't know that this place existed and they just showed up to the restaurant one day with like this giant box of samples of mushrooms. And like when someone comes to you and gives you this product that is so good. And like they're grown next door, I was like I need to figure out a way to put this on my menu. So we've made this whole dish with a white mold a or some charred cabbage, some truffles on top. But white mold is really fun because it's it's not one of the seven traditional Malays of a haka.

Chris Spear: 23:38

I've never even heard of a white, Malay. No, it's

Sarah Thompson: 23:41

not, I actually is not one of the Malays that people read about because like I said, it's not one of the seven Malays of a haka that you might, you know, experience when you travel there that people talk about. But, you know, Malay is so you know, personal and unique. And there's so many variations of it. And it's, um, you know, it's kind of really magical when you think about how diverse like there's chilies are and the way you know, you're able to use those ingredients. But it's I haven't seen a lot of white Malays either. But so it was really fun to put together and do all of that research on it, because there's just not a lot of information, but it is super unique and really, really fun.

Chris Spear: 24:19

How much time have you spent in Mexico exploring the regions and cuisine? Recently,

Sarah Thompson: 24:25

I haven't been able to travel as much work has been, you know, busy. But in life as for the past probably seven to 10 years. I've gone to Mexico, three to five times a year spending between you know, a week to up to two, three months there at a time just traveling to different areas and learning as much as I can and experiencing as much as I can about the cuisine, the culture trying, you know, different mezcal, and tequila as you know, going to different regions and seeing how unique and diverse each state is. I I absolutely fell in love with, you know, what I really enjoyed traveling down there is a really fun country, and all very unique.

Chris Spear: 25:10

I've only been a couple times I can't imagine spending like a month or even a couple, I would love that to just be able to go and explore the cuisine of Mexico in many different regions. I want to spend more time into loom that was someplace that I really loved when we were down there on vacation, and I didn't get to eat out as much as I would have liked to

Sarah Thompson: 25:30

there was beautiful right on the beach. When were you there

Chris Spear: 25:35

was before I had kids, so 2010 Maybe. So it's been a while and my wife saying that, like that's the place we have to go back.

Sarah Thompson: 25:44

I went What was it probably a little bit more than a year ago, maybe even closer to two years now. And I Arca which 10 out of 10 would recommend was really, really fun. But there's so many things that have popped up there. And I keep hearing about more things popping up. So I'm sure it's changed quite a bit. But you know, all for the better.

Chris Spear: 26:03

So one of the questions I have is, you know, you're clearly not of Mexican descent. Has there been any comments are pushback that you know, you have a non Mexican running a Mexican restaurant? Or is that not been an issue?

Sarah Thompson: 26:19

It hasn't been an issue. You know, I think it's really interesting that you bring that up, because, you know, for the longest times chef would travel throughout Europe, go to, you know, Denmark, go to Paris, go to Italy, and learn about French cuisine, and or, you know, go to Japan and learn about Japanese cuisine, and, you know, then they would come back to the US. And that was what their craft was, and they might not be French, or not be Danish or not be Japanese, but they were executing and learning about that type of cuisine and that type of culture. And when I was, you know, learning about food, like I was training under two of the best Mexican chefs in the world, you know, Daniela and Enrique are incredibly talented and intelligent, incredibly passionate and great teachers. And I was able to learn so much. So with all of that training, and all of the experiences I had, through my travels, and through working with them, and their restaurants, you know, I was able to learn a lot about cuisine, this type of cuisine, and, you know, I keep learning, I have a lot of people from all over the world and my kitchen. And we have an open dialogue in this kitchen about, you know, different types of food from different parts of the world, different regions, and, you know, people love bringing their perspective or their techniques to the table and they aren't afraid to, you know, show, showcase what they know. And, you know, I learned from everyone every day, it's really great. That's

Chris Spear: 27:50

clearly not my opinion, you know, and I grew up, Rick Bayless was someone who I admired greatly when I was younger. And, you know, I felt like he had a great reverence for Mexican food and cooking and did so much for it. And I still today hear people talking about how, you know, he shouldn't be cooking Mexican food, or we, you know, we hold him up on a pedestal when there are other chefs. And I think it's kind of ridiculous. And I was just wondering if, you know, if he's still catching heat, if that had been something that you had heard about, you know, and it's funny, because you go in any Italian kitchen or French kitchen or anywhere in the US, and you probably have a lot of Mexican people cooking that food, don't you? Yeah,

Sarah Thompson: 28:31

I mean, my kids like it also, like, you know, the culinary world is incredibly diverse. There's so many people that know so many different things. And, you know, there's also influence from all of these different cultures and a lot of this food like you'll see a lot of, you know, Thai or like that style of influence and Mexican food, you'll see Korean influence and other types of food and all of that is what makes you know, the food are really unique, like you're using the ingredients that you have around you, but you can take inspiration from different styles of cuisine and you know, different regions of the world. And that's what kind of, you know, helps us all be creative and grow. And you know, there will always be people who have things to say, but you know, if I'm really proud of how, you know our This restaurant is represents Mexican cuisine, and we're able to really accomplish a lot here, which is great.

Chris Spear: 29:22

Now, looking at the Masa program, did you bring in people who knew how to do that already? Because I imagine it's not something a lot of people who are already versed in what was the training program like with that did people come in already knowing or some of them how to mill corn and next analyze it and all of that. The tortilla

Sarah Thompson: 29:42

team that I have in place right now all in life has had experience with masa but none of them prior to working here have had experience doing it on this scale. We have a huge bill in the kitchen like an insane mill. It's because we're milling like I said Sometimes up to 150 kilos of muscle a day. So a lot of them have had experience with masa like they understand, you know what the end result should be what the product is, but the training was less so of how how to make masa, the training was more so how to use the equipment and how to, you know, keep up with our style of production. But all of them have had experience and as fun because I have a lot of, you know, younger cooks coming up who are like, oh, I want to be a chef, I want to be a chef who have never made tortillas before. And my tortilla cooks, you know, are very picky and choosey about who they want to teach how to make tortillas. Because, you know, they just like it's a really fun dynamic because everyone wants to learn how to make tortillas, especially when you're, you know, they're so unique. And like you can't find you can't buy these tortillas at a store. Like you know, you've experienced fresh and externalized corn, it's um, it's unlike anything else. But it was. It's really funny watching them because sometimes people will go over and like we'll ask them to teach them and they'll just not show them. And I'm like, Come on, guys. Like, it's okay, we can see everyone needs to know how to make tortillas. But generally, a lot of like, that's one of the things I always tell people. It was like, in order to view the tortilla station in this restaurant is the hardest station it was like we sometimes will press for 4000 or 5000 tortillas a night and two people are doing that. You're making, you know, five of these dishes and 10 of these dishes. It was like this a lot more work. And then I have them do it for an hour and they're like, oh my god, this is so hard. I'm like I know it's insane, but it's all worth it in the end.

Chris Spear: 31:36

Do you have a bigger press or is it a standard hand press?

Sarah Thompson: 31:40

We have the same we actually get all of ours from Messina the Dona Rosa press. I've got

Chris Spear: 31:45

one of those. They're the first generation white ones. I think I saw Do you have a pink one like a hot pink?

Sarah Thompson: 31:50

Yeah, we so Okay, so my tortilla team, we kind of went through a Barbie thing in our kitchen. The Barbie hit us hard. And my tortilla cooks already like Barbie and when it came out a few of them came in with like pink eyeshadow and like a pink t shirt because they're all gonna go see Barbie, so I had to get them a Barbie tortilla rice. Amazing. Yeah, I mean, it was perfect. And they love it. I mean, I love it. I think it's great. But we actually have a few different sizes because we'll make various sized Posadas like we do a pretty big Tostada for our tuna char char, we make a mess jet days, you know like the long case idea. So we actually use a big lie Yuda tortilla press for that, which are insanely heavy, they're almost 60 pounds, but you need that weight to get the even the evenness for such as it's 30 or machetes or 13 inches long. So you need to have it all evenly distributed. But just for service, the one that you have at home is what we use to do our tortillas. I

Chris Spear: 32:50

do Taco parties in people's homes as a private chef. And I also like to cook mine on a baking steel. So between the baking steel and that press, that adds a significant amount of weight, just like carrying into someone's home in and out and then that baking still takes like an hour to cool off before I can even handle it and throw it in my bin to take it with me. And I tell everyone like date. People who love Mexican food should be doing this at home, if they're not next, symbolizing at least buy some quality bags and masa harina it's again, it's like water, and that and maybe some salt and the dough comes together in no time, you know, five minutes and you can be making tortillas like ASAP and it's so much better than any tortilla you're buying anywhere. And

Sarah Thompson: 33:32

there's so much information out there now as well about how to make tortillas and what to look for how to hydrate them properly, how to press them, you know, all of like, like little techniques and tricks. So I mean, I feel like for a while people were really intimidated around the idea of making tortillas. But like it has, in the past five years that has shifted so much. And it's so amazing to see.

Chris Spear: 33:58

How do you balance tradition with innovation in your dishes.

Sarah Thompson: 34:03

A lot of it is experience. Like I like to bring the experiences that I've had in life to You know, the cuisine that I'm making. And like, obviously, the the root of all of our food needs to be Mexican. But one thing I always tell people is Mexican cuisine is hyper regional. When you're in Wahaca, you're not going to see food from the Yucatan you're not going to see food from you know and Sanada and like when you're in like meta, you're not going to see food from you know, the South or like other areas, I guess all like you're using the ingredients that you have in front of you. So we try to use all of that philosophy here. So obviously we don't have a lot of local farms here, but we try to get as much produce as possible from we work with a company that gets goes to 48 different farms in California, Arizona and Nevada, and we'll get some of the best produce so we'll get big farm deliveries twice a week. We get almost all of our fish from the Pacific coast, we get a lot of our fish now from Hawaii and our shellfish. Obviously, there's a few things like we're, you know, a casino, so we get Maine lobster and stuff like that. But we try to get as much of our shellfish from the west coast as possible, and you know, source ingredients from this part of the world. But the backbone, and you know, what keeps us, you know, grounded in Mexican cuisine is, we are still bringing in all of our chilies, all of our corn, our beans, and our guys are guys, we bring in like the pinga. The agave leaves for our barbacoa. But Agave is mostly in the sense of tequilas, and mezcals, all of that is imported from Mexico. And that's kind of the base of a lot of our dishes. And that's what kind of brings it all together and ties it back to Mexican cuisine, using

Chris Spear: 35:52

the traditional ingredients and techniques as the backbone of the food you're doing there.

Sarah Thompson: 35:58

Exactly. I feel like we're, we just celebrated our two year anniversary. And I feel like we're really in the best momentum This restaurant has ever been. And it's great. And it's all because we put so much time and effort into those, that first year of training and, you know, working with the team in such a hands on way.

Chris Spear: 36:19

Well, that's great. I hope to make it out there someday.

Sarah Thompson: 36:22

Please, please, and let me know when you do. I'm really, really proud of what we're doing out. You're

Chris Spear: 36:27

being in the kitchen. It's collaborative, by its nature, obviously, because there's people there, but do you prefer to work in a team or alone? Like if you had a

Sarah Thompson: 36:35

choice? Team 100%?

Chris Spear: 36:39

Have you always been like that, like, when I was coming up through school, like I always love to do projects by myself and hated when I had to work with other people.

Sarah Thompson: 36:46

I yeah, I've always been that way. Like, there are things I like doing on my own. Like, there are some like, you know, the initial part of the creative process for me, always, you know, for me, I always like to kind of do alone. And once I kind of figured out what the momentum of the dish is like, then I'll be like, bringing in more people. But when it comes to working in a kitchen and working in a space, I love working with people, I you know, I love showing people I love having people around me like I always played sports growing up. And, you know, I think that kind of translated into all of this, you know, we're all a team, we're all working for the same cause.

Chris Spear: 37:23

It's quite a shock when you go in, like, where I was, you know, working with a team of over 100 to being a personal chef, where I literally had no one I'm working with on a daily basis, it is kind of weird.

Sarah Thompson: 37:34

Do you do prefer the way you have it now? You

Chris Spear: 37:37

know, I actually Chefs Without Restaurants started as a community before it was a podcast solely for me to be able to talk to talk with network with other chefs, because I did miss having some of that there's a lot that, you know, I enjoy about working by myself. But you know, they say to, you know, to go was it to go fast go solo or to go far go with a team or something like that, you know, I do slowly have to bring more people into my orbit to, I think, to continue to grow my businesses.

Sarah Thompson: 38:07

I mean, that makes sense. A lot of what we do is, you know, connections, and you know, what we, who we know and all of that. It's also how we learn and grow. Yeah,

Chris Spear: 38:18

Chefs Without Restaurants is interesting, because it's a network of quite often solopreneurs. You know, we have over 1000 members kind of across the world. And we're all people are personal chefs and caterers and have food trucks and stuff like that. So I've wanted to build a community so we don't necessarily always feel like we're working by ourselves. I love that. Well, thanks so much for coming on the show. I'm so glad we got to talk today. Yeah,

Sarah Thompson: 38:40

thank you so much for having me. If you ever come to Vegas, please please let me know. Well,

Chris Spear: 38:45

I've been checking out the social media both yours personally and of the restaurant the food looks amazing. Again, this is like my favorite stuff. I I hope to get down to poodle someday I've never made it down there. Enrique is someone whose food I love. Which is why cause may was like the closest thing I could do at the time. But um, you know, anyone who's trained under him, I'm sure makes some delicious food. So now it's on the list for me to make it out there as well.

Sarah Thompson: 39:12

Amazing. Well, I look forward to meeting you in person soon.

Chris Spear: 39:15

Well, as always, this has been Chris with the Chefs Without Restaurants podcast. Thanks so much for listening and have a great week. You're still here, the podcast is over. If you are indeed still here. Thanks for taking the time to listen to the show. I'd love to direct you to one place and that's chefs without restaurants.org. From there, you'll be able to join our email newsletter. Get connected in our free Facebook group and join our personal chef catering and food truck database so I can help get you more job leads. And you'll also find a link to our sponsor page where you'll find products and services I love. You pay nothing additional to use these links, but I may get a small commission which helps keep the Chefs Without Restaurants podcast and organization running. You might even get a discount for using some of these links. As always, you can reach out to me on Instagram At Chefs Without Restaurants or send me an email at chefs without restaurants@gmail.com Thanks so much