Original subtitles

[silence]

This was the champagne cork that we popped

when Jake and I got engaged.

I didn't know what I was collecting them for originally.

It just felt wrong to throw them away.

I just kept it going by keeping everybody's corks

that have dined with us.

Jake asked me, "What are you going to do with the corks."

I had no idea what I was going to do with the corks.

I started just putting them in bags and those bags

ended up in closets.

It's possible Jake threw some corks away in the beginning

without me knowing.

This is what I salvaged.

It's just like a little piece of people that they're kind of

leaving behind to say or indicate that they - I was here.

They were here.

Maybe we're only open for five years.

It's like a blink of an eye.

And say, "Man, I was there when...."

♪

I've always thought I was like as good if not better than the

other people that are getting the opportunity.

The more and more people do molecular and sous-vide and all

that - I use it but it's a tool, right?

You don't overuse it.

I'm finding people don't even know how to cook.

Chefs don't know how to cook.

I just think life would be better in the culinary world if

more chefs - the chef owners cook your food -

smaller restaurants.

They could be super bougie.

Like you can have elaborate cart service and tablecloths and

all the waiters wearing bowties.

That's great.

But it should be very small, intimate.

My intention for this restaurant was to have something that

doesn't really exist.

At least I've never had.

Other restaurants - they were built to have

what I call robots working for them.

A person only has like one part of the job.

They just follow to a T a recipe.

They don't even know what it means -

just do this exactly, right?

It's an assembly line.

I don't believe in that. That's not cooking.

That's paint by numbers.

♪

Underground dining is unlicensed restaurant or event with food.

It could be in a barn.

It could be in a warehouse.

It could be in a farm field.

It could be in someone's apartment,

which I did.

Delivery. Literally it could be whatever you want as long as

people show up, it's underground dining.

People ask, "Do you have another fridge in back?"

I'm like, "No, this is it."

And we have a little drawer - little coves nestled - so like,

"Oh, this is ours."

We put something here.

I have one drawer of food.

I was born in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin.

When my parents split I was like seven, eight.

I ended up moving with my mom.

We lived in a singlewide trailer home with just plywood floor and

there's no central heating.

You all had to sleep, in the winter,

in the living room with kerosene heaters.

I was like 12, 13 and I was starting to get into cooking.

We just chopped down an old apple tree that needed to

come down and I fired up the grill and I made

a pizza right on the grill.

You're disconnected a little bit.

We didn't have cable or anything like that.

I wasn't shown on Food Network how to do it.

It's one of those things where I've always just done.

Like well, my family's hungry and I'm bored.

I'm going to see if I can cook them pizza on the grill

and obviously you can.

♪

So we've got the frozen rhubarb juice.

This is coco-butter.

As you can see it's going to harden quick

because these are frozen.

And we put it in the fridge and the liquid will thaw and it'll

have a hard shell on the outside cracked like an egg.

It surprises them every time.

They're like "What? You want me to do what?"

You want it below 250 and above 300 once the potatoes

are actually in there.

If they go below 250 they're just going to get mushy.

People love these chips, man.

This is on the soup and they ask where we buy them.

It's pretty funny because they're not Lays potato chips

but they're great potato chips.

Just give them a toss and I'll let the oil come back

up to temp then.

I go through and just pick out the ones that I don't like.

Not too many but sometimes the thinner ones

get a little darker.

It's gratifying.

When we make perfect potato chips it's gratifying.

So Escoffier, a famous French chef,

I'm going to just paraphrase here but he said the man that

puts all his heart and soul into taking care of the fellow man

deserves consideration.

That's what I need.

Just fucking try, man.

Just do your best. That's it.

That makes a chef. Really, that's all it is.

It says nothing about technique.

Before I even started Sous Rising I had some to-do lists.

By age 30 work at Schwa which I wanted to do which I did.

Build my name and ideas - that's what Sous Rising actually is.

30 in August.

By 33 I want to win James Beard.

But it's going to kind of go backwards.

And by 35 I wanted to own my own successful restaurant,

but hopefully that's much sooner.

People always say like,

"You guys never even started cooking."

Or they always look back during service and it's always clean

and they don't understand where all the food comes from.

The prep is the hard part.

Service is the easy part.

I look at it just like football - when I used to play football.

You're working out in practice and getting the shit kicked

out of you, you know.

Then game day you should be ready.

It should be easy.

I never want to practice again.

I just want to play the game.

People don't believe us but we're like,

"The beet takes 24 hours."

I think people would appreciate the beets a little more.

The technique I've found works the best is I just take -

I hold them and I shape them so they start to look

like a skateboard wheel.

There's one week when we had four dinners and I did 50 beets.

I went home on the train.

My hands were - they stain your hands pretty nice.

Sometimes all that work for nothing.

Once you get to the center of the beet,

it's garbage.

It's just rotten. It's just a bad beet.

It's - most of it's washed off but that's dried calcium.

Squish it.

There's a little nugget inside that's pretty firm.

And then when I cook it again in port wine and I reduce it down it

it cooks like [indistinct] and so when people cut it it literally

feels on your knife and looks like venison.

It has a bite to it.

♪

Down the road there's a country club.

I started doing dishes there.

I want to be - I wanted to be cooking the steaks

and cooking lobster.

I was 15.

I was like I don't want to do dishes.

I want to cook.

One time the guy who was doing the salads went out for a smoke

and an order came in.

I'm like I've been paying attention.

I was like I kind of see what he's doing.

I just literally went in and started making it.

The chef didn't yell at me.

He looked at me and he says,

"Oh, that's good. You like cooking, huh?"

He saw that I was really interested and he started to

teach me more and more.

I moved to Chicago just for Trotter's from Wisconsin.

I didn't think I was going to get a job.

I wanted to stage and I was honored that they let me

in their kitchen.

And then I didn't leave for a year and half.

I went there to stage and I stayed there

for a year and a half.

Staging is usually a working interview.

I learned how to just get it done.

It's like - it's impossible to do it.

No, it's not.

It's like, when do you want this?

I want it now.

How do you want it?

I want it perfect every single time.

You learn mental strength like you're a chef.

He trained chefs.

He didn't want any cooks there.

Chef Trotter just passed away, in the spirit of Chef Trotter -

it's like how can you even be a chef if you don't know

how to sweep?

6:35!

This is what we wake up for.

When Jake and I started Sous Rising I had a career

in advertising - media planning and buying.

Monday through Friday I'd hop the train,

go downtown.

I did my thing 9:00 to question mark

because in advertising you work crazy hours.

So I'd come home from work on Friday,

get ready and we'd have people come over at 7:00 p.m.

and we'd get going until 11:00 - whatever time at night.

And then I'd go back to work on Monday.

I'm a Type A workaholic so Jake always tells me

like you don't know how to relax.

That's probably true. I don't know how to relax. So...

♪

Hi!

Hello.

This might be the place.

Oh, you betcha. Welcome. Jake.

Hi. How do you do? Jeff.

Pleasure.

Hi. Dinah. How are you?

Hi. Welcome.

My wife Stephanie. Jake.

Welcome.

Hello Jake. I'm Chris. Nice to meet you.

Hi, Lloyd. Nice to see you. How are you doing?

My name's Michael.

I'm Stephanie.

Stephanie, nice to meet you.

You ladies are welcome to put your purses and jackets

or anything you need to relieve yourselves of on the couch.

I will take wine from any of you that want wine.

Mike, you can start water.

Welcome everybody, to Sous Rising Underground

dining experience.

My name, again, is Alexa.

I'm Jake's wife, your hostess and server for the evening.

If you have any questions about anything in front of you here on

the table they are the guys to ask.

Sous chef means under chef.

You're the second in command - that kind of thing.

You really don't get the limelight.

So Sous Rising is just having a platform to express who I am

as a chef, as a person.

I met Alexa, now my wife, and I started to kind of think.

She has a 9 to 5 job.

It's like, maybe I can change careers.

I don't know why but I was getting burned out.

Like this is crazy.

What am I working for?

It was to the point where there was nothing left for me.

I could either move or do my own thing.

But I didn't have the means to just like,

"OK, I'm ready to open up a restaurant."

I don't think I was mentally ready.

I decided to go back to school.

I talked to her and, "Go back to school."

Just stopped working altogether.

Physical therapy.

I was cooking all these really nice dinners for Alexa

and just friends.

I was like, "I think I really miss this."

I asked Alexa, "Can I invite strangers into our home

and charge them? Would you be OK with that?"

Alexa said, "Yeah, you're crazy if you think people are going to

pay money to come eat at our house."

And it was more like, "How long is this going to last?

Whatever. But we'll try it."

Yeah.

It was never supposed to be like how we're going to turn

this into a restaurant.

It was just OK, Jake needs an outlet for his food creativity

and this is what we're going to do.

I mean, in hindsight it's like,

"Oh, that was insane."

But when you're in it you're like,

"OK, we'll do this once a month."

And then it turns into, "OK, twice a month."

And it just keeps snowballing and growing.

Every time you pushed yourself it seemed like,

"Oh, we'll never be able to do this."

And then we did it and so you just kind of kept moving forward

more and more and more.

♪

Hi, you've got Alexa and Jake here.

Well, thanks. How are you?

I'm here. Can you hear me?

Sous rising was really R&D for about a year and a half and

we've been able to put together a brick and mortar restaurant.

It used to be a fast food fried chicken establishment.

Right there.

Commuting - pretty easy.

It's all going to get redone.

The yellow might stay because it's great.

No, I'm just kidding.

But an old fried chicken joint and we're going to turn it into

a fine dining destination.

We want it to feel like our home and we actually live upstairs

and we want you to feel very comfortable like

you're in our house.

♪

The hardest part is the people part - organizing people.

It's a lot of - Project management.

Yeah, it's a lot of moving parts.

That's why you have me. - That's why I have you.

November 23rd, 2013 - end of Sous Rising,

beginning of the next.

Yeah. - Yeah.

So the name is just a riff on the premise

that the soul weighs 21 grams.

So 42 Grams represents what both Jake and I bring to the space -

21 plus 21 being 42.

The first guy that I hired, Mike Noll,

is supposed to flawlessly come to the restaurant.

But then he had to move away because they had a baby

and had to move the family.

This week or everything?

It sucks.

I need to make sure it is at the level it needs to be and

sometimes it comes off very impersonal and it - it sucks.

I get it.

But I do it to myself as well.

But he got it.

You got it.

You never fucking go say,

"You know, you can go fuck yourself."

You're like, "I get it."

I understand, move on.

You fucking busted your ass.

For almost a year, fucking busted your ass.

Thank you. Thank you.

How did - PBR and a fucking champagne glass

really just did that.

Did you hear that?

A closet.

It's going back to a bedroom.

All of this is going to leave and go downstairs

and it'll be a closet again.

There will be a bed in here and a dresser and it'll be a -

just like a real home.

Like what? What?

Yeah, exactly.

Those butcher blocks are going to have to find a home.

Yeah, you're going to be like, "In the garage."

Maybe it was like the biggest con in my life -

no, just kidding - to get her to say yes to this and then also,

"Hey, why don't you work with me in the restaurant?"

I was thinking about that. You brainwashed her.

No, I didn't. She's excited, man.

Why wouldn't she be excited about that?

We're opening a restaurant January 10th and I'm still

working full time Monday through Friday.

One of the things that I brought up was my grandmother's silver

tea set and her wedding silver - like her flatware or whatever.

And so we're going to use her flatware on the Trotter course.

So it's not as fancy. It's not sterling silver.

It's nickel silver but it's got some age to it.

I've never thrown anything away so I use the backs of old menus.

I get very frustrated when I have to waste printer paper.

So this is probably $30, right?

How many of those do I have up there?

Maybe like $100 worth of paper that -

it's kind of crazy for paper.

Depends on how much it weighs. Probably $1400.

This dorsi. This is like the deckle. This is the best piece.

It's so marbled. I usually eat that.

Trim that up. Chef snack.

That - marbling. It's insane.

Like 50/50.

So this is the tricky part.

Every little gram you're taking off you're like,

"OK, it's $93 a pound, $93 a pound."

But you don't want them to eat that shit, right?

Then it's like OK, then you have -

you trim it then you have like a goofy shape.

Then do you trim it and lose all this extra,

right, to be higher end, you know,

to have a nicer shape to it?

It's like, what do you do?

I trim it because that's what I was taught.

And then I use the rest for sauce.

It's not like it goes to waste but it still hurts.

Executing it is one thing but figuring how to do 12 new things

on a menu on a 15 course menu - like I get a lot of ideas that

are really cool but if it doesn't have passion behind it,

if it doesn't mean something to me,

I'll fall out of love with it and I'll just ignore it.

It could be a relationship or a food - it's the same thing.

Grab some books.

I worked with Tom at Trotter's and he doesn't like

fork and service.

He's more of an R&D guy.

He's more of behind the scenes.

I can get some spoons but basically

there's two ways I see this.

Here's the control.

This is just regular barley.

So he's working on the fermented grains that kind of stuff

and the koji.

I allowed it to ferment at 135 sous-vide for two hours.

So basically I cooked the barley forage.

Is it gross?

It's not gross. I'm going to tell you right now. It's extremely bitter.

Why?

And I have some theories as to why it's bitter.

I stopped it after two hours. Now I have a four hour one.

You can see the four hour one - see how liquidy it is?

K.

The starches are starting to break down so much

that they're just liquid.

Out of all of this what's your favorite?

Pick one; you have to pick one.

The last one. - This one?

Yeah. - This is your favorite?

I'm not bound my classic training or culinary school

where you learn something and that's kind of how

you have to do it.

Some grains of paradise.

People ask, "How do you come up with this and that?"

The reality is it's because I'm free to do whatever I want.

Is this the good stuff?

I want to put this with fried mushrooms.

Oh, yeah. That's right. OK.

So that's going to have enough texture to make it -

This is just an idea.

Just embrace the earthiness, color of it.

So that's nice, see? I like the texture of that. - Oh, yeah.

It looks actually really interesting.

What do you think?

Not every course has to have every color

of the rainbow in it.

When you want to shatter some of these preconceptions about a

plated dish - I think most plated dishes nowadays - fine dining -

Too complicated. Too much.

It looks like a cluster fuck.

Looks like a grenade of their mise en place just went off

on the plate. That's what it looks like!

How it looks texturally - how it looks and how it plates -

that's good. Very good.

I don't know how the flavor is though.

That's the $64,000 question.

How's it taste?

A fluid gel - blood orange fluid gel - what do you think?

The only thing with making the fluid gel is the acidity.

So you might have to work with sequestering something.

Yeah, we've got sodium citrate.

I'm not scared, man. - I know.

It literally doesn't need much.

It's just like, huh, there's citrus under there.

It just needs like three pea sized dots;

would you agree? - Sure.

Just in different spots. You get different bites.

You can see you eat that, you have a little -

oh, there's blood orange under there, right?

And it has a sweetness in it that's natural.

You can tell people, "Look, there's no added sugar into this.

It's all the natural starches that have been broken down by the enzymes."

That's - you can't leave that out.

If you leave that out then there's no point in doing the

koji because that's part of the story.

This is a three Michelin star dish.

It's simple but complex.

Nobody's doing that.

♪

What did I order from you? Nothing, right?

We don't need anything this week.

Just kidding.

Check these out.

You're going to punch me.

What is this? These the blue foots from France?

They're local?

No, they're from Europe.

I was going to say - like France, right?

Yeah.

But what else did you get?

I got your chantys if you want these.

This is the most I've ever paid you.

I know.

And we don't even have service this week.

What? - It's R&D week.

Oh yeah that's all? - I just need stuff to look at.

I want these separated to the most beautiful perfect ones to

one side and the ones that are broken and not so beautiful

to another side.

The ones that are broken or whatever, yeah?

Make sure they're clean and then we're going to dry those.

We're going to put them in the dehy, OK?

We're going to turn those into a powder.

So they say chef's main thing is like,

with creativity, what's your focal point

and they say ingredients.

To me it's not about ingredients because I get like this thought

but a thought doesn't really have a picture to it.

It's really got a feeling.

Kind of like taste, you know, that kind of thing?

And so I'm trying to recreate that.

I get a visual in my head of my feeling.

So a lot of times it's very confusing so I just get stuff

and then I try things until that feeling is recreated.

And then I refine that. - That's interesting.

Is that weird? - No.

But that's how it is.

Comfort food, Thai food.

I'm trying to interpret my feelings about Thai.

I love Thai food but I hate chicken.

And I hate chicken but it's what I get

so I want something better.

What - in my head - what is it that I want?

What texture, flavor? I want sturgeon.

I want crispy chicken skin.

To me that's the best chicken in the world - the perfect sturgeon

with chicken skin - crispy chicken skin.

♪

We're playing with roasted banana.

Don't really know what we're going to do with it.

We'll see what happens.

Like this just cooked down turns almost like to a pudding or

almost like a carmel - a banana butter.

Coi. Daniel Patterson's book from San Fran -

he's a two Michelin star chef.

He said something really interesting.

A lot of restaurants even if it's interesting and intricate

they lose track of what a hell a dessert's supposed to do.

It's supposed to just be delicious.

Do we call it a butter, a pudding?

What do you think texture-wise?

What it looks like. It looks like pudding.

It's got the roast banana, tamarind ice cream.

I like to do somewhat monochromatic courses.

Mentally I think what are you going to think what those

flavors are?

And they're all going to be very different.

Like banana, luscious. This can be really tart.

Canelé - you've got your pastry obviously.

This is hazel nut which should pair well with everything here.

What do you think? How do you think this looks?

You want to eat this?

I wonder what the cold ice cream does to the texture

of the canelé.

It's going to harden it up a little more?

You're going to have to find out, fool.

It's good.

It's almost chocolatey and there's no fucking chocolate.

It's really good. I like it.

Yeah.

And I think the canelé's supposed to have texture.

You have the cake so we need - we really need texture so we

really need a crust on that canelé.

It needs to go in longer.

At least eight more minutes - eight to ten minutes.

Trying. The canelé's not right.

I'm going to make them next time.

These are like deflated and crappy.

Why?

Is that done? Not yet, right?

There should be a canelé on it?

The canelés aren't ready.

This is what you're going to eat for an idea.

OK.

Do you understand that the canelés are not ready?

OK. Stop getting frustrated. - OK.

Eat that. Just tell me how that is.

Don't - canelés don't exist here right now. OK?

That is good.

Very good.

Like I said, we've just got to get the canelés down.

So just take a bite. That's an idea, right?

All right. We've got to get better at that one.

Flour. See flavor-wise you're OK but the flour - it looks -

it's not good.

It should look more like this all around.

But we used cake flour which has less gluten so we need to use

bread flour that has more gluten thus it's going to get a

crunchier, crisper texture on the outside instead of looking

like burnt cake.

They are delicious. That guy's a nerd.

I turned up the temp a little bit.

If we needed 475 maybe we need to let it rip at 500.

That's done. Pull it out.

It's got a white ass.

Put it back in. Three more minutes.

Set it. Timer. What do you think?

It's close. They look good. It's better.

Canelé - something so simple.

It's just a custard - egg sugar - it's such a simple recipe

but it is so finicky. It needs so much attention. It needs every little step.

And I'm not kidding you - every little step along the way.

It needs to be thawed out, looked at closely,

paid attention - it's very intimate.

♪

You know, you try to make a new language, right?

We're trying to make 42 Grams language.

Even though it's similar to everybody else,

it's not.

We're trying to find our own voice,

do our own thing.

Doing something completely new is very difficult.

So you learn.

It could be anything.

That's kind of the blessing where if you can - if you just

have hope and faith and that -

like this is such a fucking nightmare.

Hopefully I - God, give me something I can take

with me forever.

Like even if this menu fails let me learn something that I can

take with me that makes sense.

That's I would love to have two because I don't think

we're a good restaurant.

I think we're world class and where we're going is worth it.

♪

I'll be very disappointed if it doesn't hit two right away.

I want to hit - start out right away at two stars.

He wants us everybody to come at it from the perspective that

he does and you just - obviously it's not going to happen.

So he just needs to get better at accepting that he can't -

people aren't always going to love 100% of everything

that he does.

And that's the whole premise of the restaurant is to support his

vision and what he wants to do.

So it doesn't have to be commercially popular. I mean, this isn't McDonalds.

No, we kind of went into it like if there's no appreciation for

what it is that he's doing then we change what we're doing.

We wouldn't do that. We would do something different.

So we've approached this as let's just see if it works.

Let's give Jake a platform.

This is what he wants to do.

So if it's not commercially viable then we would scrap the

whole thing and just do something else.

We'll do something that's more approachable for everybody, right?

Just do a hot dog stand.

Fuck.

Let's fucking go, guys.

I'm really - I'm like - I'm fucking hustling here.

I need you guys to help me.

Yes?

Let's get this put away - just somewhere - back cooler.

It's stuff I don't need.

We don't need this but we need that, yes?

This is - Matt, all this needs to be fucking washed.

My fault. I fucked up.

So before we even opened I hired somebody - it wasn't service.

It was a couple of days before so we could

start working on prep.

This is not - I - I'm not going to take the job.

I'm moving back to Kansas or whatever.

That started me with like not trusting these cooks.

Did you guys roll the beets yet?

Let's fucking move.

You guys aren't 15, dude.

You understand that, right?

You're not 15 years old. I told you one thing.

You should be able to do it, OK?

Figure it out. Move.

Hey, chef this is what I did.

Is that OK? Great.

Thanks for trying.

Let's fucking go, yes?

What are you guys going to do when it's your own restaurant?

Ask somebody else what the fuck you're going to do?

Are you going to wait?

Are you going to wait for someone else to come in and say,

"Hey, this is what you should do?" Let's go.

So I asked Tom.

I says, "Tom, are you busy? Are you working?"

He said, "No, I'm free. I've got - what do you need?"

Tom really fucking saved my ass.

I was doing like 20 hour days for I don't know how many

days in a row.

I - I didn't even know what day it was.

You're not going to become a millionaire here.

You're going to be able to survive and enjoy a good living

but learn - it's the idea that - to be honest with you,

I need help but how I thought of it - how Trotter told me too,

you actually work for other people and they

actually pay you to learn.

So they're looking at it like, "Oh, I want a career."

You don't have a career.

Just because you went to school means shit.

Talk to this guy.

Tom, going to school means shit, right?

I think they all think - it's kind of like - I think reality

TV fucked it up, number one.

Well, I can just - I need to be a celebrity chef -

that kind of bullshit.

When I was at Trotter's we got - he - this fucker -

who cares about me.

He worked for free. He - how long, a year?

One year exactly.

A year stage. He wasn't an intern or anything.

He staged for free for a year. That's dedication.

I went for kind of like a fun day.

I'd never set foot in a kitchen before so I kind of go in there

and just wash dishes for 16 hours and at the end of the day

the executive sous chef asked me to keep coming back so I kept

coming back every weekend.

I was with Jake - pretty much every day I was there.

The fact that I volunteered there was kind of good too

because it forced me to learn.

It wasn't just for money.

It forced me to appreciate the small things and learn how to be

respectful and learn how to do good prep work,

to take pride in your work even though it's doing things like

picking micro-greens.

I took the most pride in my work.

Cool. Japanese flavors, I guess.

The duck we sous-vide 57 Celsius for 20 minutes.

Then we're going to grill it.

Like, oh, duck tongue.

If you hear about it it could be scary.

That's scary.

How could you be scared of that little thing?

Duck skin crumb.

Duck jous with prickly ash baked eggplant.

It's like Szechuan peppercorn, dehydrated merengue

with long bean and umeboshi.

It's a lot going on.

I haven't plated it before.

First time plating it.

The flavors I guess I knew go together.

I guess - I don't know - a lot of times I just have ideas.

I'm positive that it'll work - like in my head.

Is that fair? I don't know.

Right. That's true.

But the ones that don't work I'll be honest with you

I'm not confident about.

Hey, girls, I'm going to be plating this, OK?

Is that just the jous or is there -

This is the jous from the duck, yeah.

First time plating it. What do you think? No?

Organic - yeah, it looks good.

It's fucking awesome.

I don't need your opinion. I'll tell you my opinion. I'll tell you your opinion.

I actually like the green plate with the red - the brownish rim.

That's what I like. Looks good. I like it.

The flavors are going to be cool I think.

Different.

It's really bizarre to open up a restaurant with this much

ambition but yet we don't have that much cooler space.

We're still waiting on some equipment.

Most of the stuff came from my house from Sous Rising

and I don't even have the staff yet.

I've got a bigger stove but that's really about it.

Don't fuck with me, Tom.

Excuse me?

Don't fuck with me.

All right.

I left work a little early today so that I could get ready

for dinner service at 6:30.

All right, ladies and gentlemen, we're going to go ahead

and get started.

So I'll extend a collective welcome to everyone to 42 grams.

My name, again, in case you caught it and forgot it, is Alexa.

I will be taken care of you guys up front this evening.

Taking care of you here in the kitchen from a food perspective,

you have Chef Jake right there.

It feels natural. It feels like Sous Rising.

I mean, you know, that level.

But it's for real now, you know.

Like Sous Rising was serious, don't get me wrong

but it was underground.

It's almost like whatever.

Now it's the big game.

It's real as in reviews and more people.

And then Alexa and I put a lot into it of our own money.

Like Sous Rising was - we invested a lot of money but it

wasn't like, all right, let's see what we've got in savings.

Shit. The pressure's on me, man.

Don't worry about it.

We've got shit to do, man.

You've got to put crispy snacks out.

Tom - soup.

Let the world fucking blow up out there.

I don't give a shit. We're doing soup, yeah?

It's really got to go.

Tom, sell the plates. Push them out. Make sure they're clean.

One second. One second.

It's spinach, OK - purple.

Please. Where's my caviar?

Where's my other caviar?

What the fuck, dude? Leave my shit alone.

God damn it.

I wish Jake was a little bit better at dealing with stress.

He just tends to yell at everybody.

Yes, go, go, go, go.

Lexa - fucking move.

Who took my oil? Don't take my oil bin.

Tom, I need you to help me start cleaning shit up.

Like just tighten everything up. You know what I'm saying?

Change delis, change things.

I do.

Mike - he knew everything.

I need Mike.

Tom? Tom? Go ahead.

Before the next pecorino -

not now, but later.

We need to do this.

Put that fuckin' thing down. No, put it down.

Later. We need to get this out.

God damn it.

Maybe I don't speak. I don't even know.

I have no fuckin' idea what I'm saying.

Yeah, I think it is in the back.

That's it.

It's going pretty well.

I mean Jake just came in and said that we finished

the first seating on time.

Even though it was stressful it was really fast and when the

second group comes in it just makes things - the tension

starts rising because you know you're on the clock.

Gin, cucumber and hibiscus.

That's the main components of it.

So I play it up with Hendrick's gin.

Hendrick's gin is one of my favorites.

And it has botanicals of cucumber and rose.

So I played off of that.

So we did rosewater sorbet, a snow,

hibiscus granita - there's a gin gelee - it looks like an

ice cube, orchids - they're in the cucumber family.

Take a little bit of everything, OK?

A little bit of the gin, a little bit of the rosewater -

but just take it all in one bite and then go ahead and get

everything else and it will be al little slushy at the end.

Drink that up, OK?

Welcome to 42 Grams.

Thank you.

When we're discussing how those other kitchens work -

not all of them but some - a lot actually - they only come with

some of the courses, believe it or not.

And the sous chefs and the chef de cuisine actually come up with

the rest of the courses.

Then there's a lot of the times the chef's not even there

because whatever - they're doing other things.

Good for them but it's like you're not putting your heart to

take care of somebody else.

Actually it's for you.

So you don't have to be in the restaurant and you can be on

book tours and whatever.

It was never intended for the guest.

Oh, this is for me.

Hey.

You little firecracker.

♪

I do it all.

Alexa does it all.

What chef preps all your food too?

Cleans your - I'm not complaining.

I'm just - I feel like they should be angry that some other

places are kind of ripping you off -

artistically ripping you off.

It's a lot of money to go to these restaurants and what if

you spent the same amount of money to go see Neil Young at

the Chicago theater and he decided to take a day off

and he put his understudy in?

His chef du cuisine, his sous chef musician?

I don't need two stars to know that I'm legit but

for other people - certain people, right?

Will be like holy shit, what's going on over there?

Thank you.

So that's why 42 Grams is what it is and that's why the name

is what it is.

Me and Alexa - that we're always going to be here -

that kind of stuff. And I'll always be cooking for you.

Alexa and I are personally taking care of you.

If you're very different I don't think people want to be around

you even if they respect your craft or what you can do.

You just don't fit into their circle.

Then you're an outsider and I guess that's why I had a

chip on my shoulder. I always busted my ass.

I always thought I was as good as anybody else but I was never

in the club, you know.

That bothered me.

Family meal is like the first meal we eat all day long.

And it's tomorrow.

So literally we eat breakfast at midnight - 12:04.

Best part of the leftover food.

But the leftover food's awesome so - we can make some fuckin' -

we need fried rice with faroe salmon long bean.

What do chefs eat?

Mayonnaise.

Mayonnaise, hot sauce.

Friday, May 2nd was my last day of work.

I gave them four weeks' notice.

This is just really heating up and I need to be here

doing stuff full time.

Doing it Jake and I without an investor and it was like we're

really putting our money where our mouth is.

At the end of the day you can't take it with you anyway.

Before we opened I put up all the Sous Rising corks

into this frame.

This is the one that we popped the night that we wrapped up

Sous Rising.

So if you haven't been here you immediately walk in from the

streets of Chicago here in uptown and it's hustling

and bustling and come in and all the sudden you're right

in our living room.

There isn't this grand lobby or hostess stand or whatever.

Alexa is right at the door greeting people and you

immediately just see the kitchen.

It's like completely open.

They sit right here at the counter and there's absolutely

nothing between them and me.

They're completely immersed before they even touch any food.

Everything's transparent.

I didn't want anything that was potentially fake.

We do have a dishwasher now. That's great.

Haywood.

Well, I didn't even hire him.

He just showed up and he wouldn't leave.

Please photoshop all smears. - Oh, my God.

And lint out.

All right. You ready?

That's pretty cool.

I like it.

Hopefully it's cover shot worthy.

Awesome, babe.

She's like - leave me alone.

I've got like 15 things happening.

She reminds me how my mom used to treat me when I was a kid.

I know that sounds weird but it's like,

"Oh, OK. Just leave me alone."

People have a weird pre-conceived notion

of being a chef.

♪

I drank too much the other night when -

yeah, laugh all you want, asshole.

Fucking - when the reader and tasting table was here I had

like three shots. I was like, fuck.

I was like - get trashed nervous before I had to

cook them awesome food.

We nailed it. I was very happy. Like nailed it.

Like, oh my - They're like, "What the fuck?"

The uni was just so good.

We're in our own imaginary world really.

We live upstairs of the restaurant.

We're in this building almost nonstop.

There's a difference between work and you're a prisoner

of your own restaurant.

Honestly the only time I wish that is when

he's having a meltdown.

And you're like, "Oh, my God. Would you keep it together?"

Oh, I was fixing it.

Going out to dinner should be fun, right?

It's an escape. It's an indulgence.

I hate to say you want to keep up the façade, right?

Because like again, being genuine and authentic is

very important so it's not like I'm going to fake it.

But it's more like I'm going to omit.

♪

The most difficult part of the setup - any young chef that I

have working with me - Alexa?

There's no other buffer.

Emory - Emory.

Why aren't they cut down?

You did not go through them?

You didn't go through onions, you didn't go through geraniums.

That's awesome.

One stage came in late.

I asked him, "Why are you late?"

He's like, "Well, cause I'm new here."

OK.

And he walked past me and he walked past me again

the other way, walked out.

He was in and out.

And then he sent an email saying,

"I didn't feel like working today because I didn't feel appreciated."

I'm like, "I'm sorry."

People. I don't know.

25.

I get questions all the time where young kids - cooks that

want to come work for free and want me to mentor them.

And that's not a good idea.

I'm not a nurturing person.

Did you soak these, man?

Did you put these in the fuckin' -

didn't do anything with them, did you?

Yeah, I can see that.

Is this how we do it at 42 Grams?

Why the fuck are we talking about this.

Can we do something else? Can we cook for some people?

Yes.

Fuck.

It's a fuckin' hard job, man.

Charlie was fuckin' - he would throw plates at you.

He would fuckin' go on the pass and grab you by your neck.

No joke.

Hell, no.

Probably two things - me is one, yeah.

There's a lot of stress.

I'm not complaining but - not making any excuses but the truth

is I was drinking a lot.

I went to AA.

It was enlightening.

It was weird, obviously.

I was scared to admit maybe I - not maybe but I'm an alcoholic

and there's nothing I can change the rest of my life.

So I'm like I can't - I'm not like everybody else.

I don't have a filter as in I'm on or off.

Go or stop.

I'm either going to do it or I don't.

So I can't drink.

I've got too much to lose, you know.

Still have Haywood.

Why not?

He loves it here.

Haywood, why are you still here?

Huh?

See, he don't care.

Why do you still work here?

OK. That's right. We're family.

You hear a lot of husband and wife teams talk about how

there's separation of church and state.

Like when you get home you don't talk about business anymore.

And I just - I don't know how people do that because usually

when we're working there's no time to talk about

all the extra superfluous stuff.

We're business pretty much all the time.

My mom has brain cancer and she's moving in

to do her hospice care with us.

There's a reality perception difference in what people think

and what really happens when people ask,

"What are your favorite restaurants?

Where do you guys like to go out to eat?"

I'm like, "We don't have time to go out to eat."

"Oh, my God. What do your friends do when you guys come over for dinner?"

I'm like, "What friends?"

"Oh my gosh, you must travel all over the world.

You must eat everywhere."

And we're like, "We don't have time to travel."

Oh, well, fuck. I fucked this up.

I remember when we had this little corner filled and it's like,

"Wow! Look at how many corks we have!"

Now, it's like, "Oh, I'm about to run out of space.

What do I do next?"

People always think that this is a river.

It's just a negative space to delineate Sous Rising

from 42 Grams. That's all.

I just wanted to keep them separate.

Jake and I knew it was going to be a lot of hard work.

We're like let's just kill it for a year

without us physically dying.

Like the first four months I worked full time

plus did this at night.

It's not as impactful to me. I didn't live this life for -

Jake, how long have you been a chef?

I've been cooking since I was 15.

Is it 15 years, 16 years? So I think it's cool. I'm excited.

It's kind of like Christmas. I'm anxious to see.

I'll be happy with, you know, if Jake gets recognized

for what he's been working so hard for.

It's pretty cool that someone can,

in their home, do an underground dining, right?

Someone with a vision.

We're going to open up a restaurant.

It's going to be amazing.

People are going to like it.

And within the first year we're going to get a Michelin star.

Yeah, it's -

Right here.

Should I get my pointer.

Yeah, I think - I think it'll go right here. Right here.

It can remind me.

I'm the realist and I could never - I would have never even

started down this journey if it wasn't for Jake wanting to.

So that's why we do make a good team.

We balance each other out.

He has this vision of how it's going to go.

And when it does not go that way,

he gets very upset.

With that aside, no stars, one star,

two, three stars - whatever comes or doesn't come,

you know, there's going to be a lot of emotion - high or low.

No matter what. I think I'm ready for it.

I'm serious, Jake.

I bet you started - calls started going out

between 6:00 and 7:00 a.m.

Then they're assholes.

They have a lot of people to call.

It's November 11th at 7:30 a.m.

We're waiting to see if we're going to get a call from

Michelin about being included in the 2015 guide.

And here is the man of the hour looking all fresh like a daisy.

It smells good in here.

Yeah, you want to help me?

What do you want first - toast?

Yeah. Check it and make it's not burned.

The chef.

The chef.

Well, there's nothing in there. - It's in the toaster.

Now we wait.

Yeah, I did.

Enough. Three or four hours.

Yeah, he came to bed about 4:00 in the morning.

We've been waiting for five hours - everybody has.

We could wait for another three.

Or they could call right now.

No updates?

No updates. I've been gone - two minutes?

Two minutes.

I keep doing stuff hoping it will trigger Murphy's Law

to have the phone call come while I'm -

You're trying to push through time and make things happen

so other things need to happen?

I'm trying to force the universe, yeah.

We're celebrating a good day.

We don't know what that is yet.

Phone call.

Christ, are you kidding me?

You've been waiting. Turn it off.

Hello, this is Jake.

Hi, Jake, I'm calling from the Michelin Guide. How are you?

Good. How are you?

Good, thanks. Where are you?

I'm at home.

Oh, you're at home. That's nice. Good for you.

So you know the new edition of the Michelin guide in Chicago

is on sale tomorrow.

And in advance of that I'm calling you with

some really good news.

Oh, yeah. What's that?

Your restaurant, 42 Grams, is being awarded two Michelin stars

in the new edition of the guide.

Hell, yeah. Thank you.

Congratulations.

Wait, so - let me make - you said two stars, right?

Two stars.

That is -

I'm glad you're on speaker. Congratulations to both of you.

Thank you. That is amazing. Thank you so much.

Enjoy. Hope you can celebrate tonight.

We're going to celebrate right now.

OK. Congratulations again.

Thank you. Two stars.

I just opened the champagne.

Let's do a toast. Cheers.

Come on. Ching, ching.

Holy shit.

You're a two star Michelin chef, babe.

Can you please toast me? You're leaving me hanging.

Cheers. Love you.

Congratulations. Drink slowly.

I've got to text Kara.

Holy fuckin' shit.

I'm just happy that somebody recognized what I thought I am.

So it does validate. I feel validated now.

♪

When we got our two Michelin stars in the first year

we popped a couple of bottles of champagne so I drew stars

on those and put those in.

So one as Jake was getting the call and I think one

later that night maybe with dinner.

It is rewarding but it's completely hard work.

We put our marriage on hold really this whole time -

for the last - put everything on hold -

ourselves, our marriage, our friends, our family.

Just running the restaurant. That's the hardest part for me.

And somewhere along the way you lose your identity.

Or your identity becomes just a restaurant.

I definitely have people that are like,

"Are you having so much fun?"

And it's almost like they're like,

"Tell me the story of how much fun you're having."

They just want to live vicariously through success

or happiness or whatever it is that they perceive from the outside.

And in a dinner party you don't want to be like Debby Downer -

be like, "Well, actually let me tell you the flip side of how

all of this has gone down."

And I think what I can't talk about in that moment is how

there's always been like the ying to the yang

in terms of personal loss.

So across our journey we've lost three parents.

I've lost both of my parents. Jake just lost his mom.

We actually lost our moms within about six weeks of each other.

Like every day there was the schedule of

what do we need to do with mom?

Oh, yeah, we also have to get the restaurant ready.

Oh, yeah, I've got to work at night.

And, oh yeah, you're supposed to be married and have a relationship.

So it's like, oh.

The only time I really dwell on it or really get -

is really hard is like the quiet times.

Like when I'm putting on my makeup and there's nothing else

to focus on and my mind is kind of clear of like a billion tasks

of what I'm going to have to do.

That's when it gets hard to kind of drown it out

or not think about it.

We were doing hospice care with me mom and I'm doing the service

at night and there are definitely moments where you

just want to scream or pull your hair out.

And you're like, "It's all a lie."

It's all just stu- like you just want to have this is -

but again there's a - that is life, right?

I mean in the beginning it's like run, run, run.

You're trying to start something,

build something amazing which we did.

But all the sudden you look back and like,

"Oh, my God. Who am I? I don't recognize myself."

The irony of it is that we put all our heart and soul in the

restaurant and we did - there's nothing left.

Oh my God.

He parked right in front of the tire.

If there's any - I was just going to say -

have him pull around because you guys are like - Holy crap.

That's OK.

Yeah, there's a puddle.

[chattering]

I'll go back for your husband.

Watch the giant puddle.

We have a flood inside. Because it's raining. It's monsoon outside.

♪

I give 42 Grams everything I have and what it gave me in return is

absolute confidence to do whatever the hell I want.

When I first started the restaurant,

yeah, I had a chip on my shoulder where I wanted

the Michelin - the two Michelin.

I wanted to get James Beard or the Jean Banchet.

And it doesn't really do anything.

It's very shallow. It's short-lived.

Now what keeps me going is the connection with people.

If I didn't do anything the rest of my life -

if you could just skip to when I'm 80 and I'm sitting on a chair

outside in the woods of Wisconsin by a campfire,

I would be very proud of what we did.

Like I said, it's not only that restaurants aren't important -

no, but our connections with people are.

I didn't know how important that was until now.

I want to feel like I did something good on this planet.

Food is just a medium.

It's really a connection of random people that want

one thing - the good times, good experience.

And that's all it is. That's all I do.

It's like the food is just my way of talking.

For us now it's about traveling and it's about living.

I think the first 2-and-a-half years it wasn't living.

It was doing.

And so now we close the restaurant a lot more.

We take longer vacations.

We now can start traveling and start doing all these things

that people think we're doing.

It's not about 42 Grams. We are 42 Grams. 42 Grams is us.

We're connected.

♪