‘Prime Chef’ Winner Tristen Epps Desires Childcare and Healthcare in Each Kitchen

Tinfoil Swans Podcast

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On this episode

Rising up in a navy household, Tristen Epps moved round loads. However regardless of the place he occurred to be residing, Friday nights have been sacred. These have been the nights he obtained to decorate up, go to a restaurant, not order from a youngsters menu, and really feel like he was attending to know the place he was residing — for now. His entire world at house modified the day his mother taught him to scramble an egg. He was mesmerized by the alchemy — that one easy ingredient might remodel into so many issues. It is that surprise and curiosity that reworked him into the chief, visionary, and Prime Chef winner he’s right now. He joined Tinfoil Swans on the Meals & Wine Traditional in Aspen to speak about his mission to “un-colonize colonized meals,” the liberty he felt when he realized he might cook dinner in Air Jordans, why it is vital to him to have a good time oxtails with Michelin-level finesse, and his perception that cooking has energy to right historical past.

Meet our visitor

Tristen Epps is the winner of Prime Chef Season 22. He’s a graduate of Johnson & Wales and labored at acclaimed kitchens together with Marcus Samuelsson’s unique Purple Rooster restaurant in Harlem, and Purple Rooster Overtown, the place as govt chef, he earned Michelin recognition for the restaurant. On the Eden Roc Resort in South Seaside, he obtained a 2024 James Beard semifinalist nod for Greatest Chef: South for his restaurant Ocean Social by Tristen Epps. He now leads Epps & Flows Culinary and is about to open Buboy, a wood-fired Afro-Caribbean restaurant in Houston.

Meet our host

Kat Kinsman is the chief options editor at Meals & Wine, writer of Hello, Nervousness: Life With a Dangerous Case of Nerves, host of Meals & Wine’s Gold Sign Award-winning podcast Tinfoil Swans, and founding father of Cooks With Points. Beforehand, she was the senior meals & drinks editor at Further Crispy, editor-in-chief and editor at giant at Tasting Desk, and the founding editor of CNN Eatocracy. She received a 2024 IACP Award for Narrative Meals Writing With Recipes and a 2020 IACP Award for Private Essay/Memoir, and has had work included within the 2020 and 2016 editions of The Greatest American Meals Writing.

She was nominated for a James Beard Broadcast Award in 2013, received a 2011 EPPY Award for Greatest Meals Web site with 1 million distinctive month-to-month guests, and was a finalist in 2012 and 2013. She is a sought-after worldwide keynote speaker and moderator on meals tradition and psychological well being within the hospitality trade, and is the previous vice chair of the James Beard Journalism Committee.

Highlights from the episode

On his mother instructing him to make breakfast

“I assumed it was the good factor that an egg — which got here from a hen — might come out of the shell as this orb-y sort of viscous liquid and switch into scrambled eggs. It was alchemy. One thing that did not style superb uncooked however with simply warmth, turned wonderful. Then my mother mentioned, ‘You may put inexperienced onions in it, and cheese.’ These little bits of management and having the ability to be artistic actually captured me.”

On Friday evening dinners and cultural adaptation

“My household isn’t American, so I grew up in America not essentially all the time having American meals. American meals was a deal with, or one thing that I obtained at different mates’ homes. Once we began touring much more — particularly like Guam and different locations — the meals was a method of acclimating myself and assimilating myself to the delicacies, to individuals, to mates. 

Each Friday, we went out for dinner. I all the time tried one thing new. I do not suppose I ever noticed a child’s menu. It was a social train — a break from the norm. Army household, black Trinidadian mother, very structured, very, ‘Do that, try this right now.’ Fridays have been like, keep up late, you are going to dress properly, you are going to sit at a desk. What’s essentially the most awkward time in life? First grade by means of twelfth grade? For somebody like me, it is the place do I sit on the primary day of faculty on the lunch desk? 

Think about that yearly or two years, you are in one other place. You do not have the, ‘I have been mates with this particular person since kindergarten.’ That social train of getting dressed, going out and having dinner makes it simpler.”

On the hospitality he discovered working at McDonald’s

“Nothing felt cooler than when my mates got here to McDonald’s and I might be like, ‘Yo, I put an additional patty in your double cheeseburger.’ That energy to feed somebody and make somebody blissful was wonderful. And we try this ’til right now.”

On Marcus Samuelsson redefining the picture of a chef for him

“I all the time thought the chef that I wished to be (or that I must be) had that white coat and hat and black slicked-out pants and 70 acronyms going throughout their shoulder and a bunch of patches as a result of that regarded prestigious. I had simply gotten into culinary faculty and I noticed a Black chef carrying a denim coat and a shawl, making Swedish meals and African meals. I used to be mind-blown. I used to be like, at some point, I wish to be a chef like that.

The Black individuals I noticed cooking have been in a meals truck or a meals stall carrying a T-shirt and a backwards hat, and placing stuff in styrofoam containers. Not that that meals was higher or worse than every other meals, however to me that wasn’t what a chef regarded like. Marcus turned a beacon for me. He had eight James Beard Awards and I used to be working for the fellows within the tall hats — what number of James Beard awards do you guys have? None? Bizarre. 

I can put on Jordans within the kitchen. I can put on a backwards hat and I can put on a T-shirt and it would not make me much less gifted.”

On how being courageous received Prime Chef for him

“I did two dishes that have been, I do not wanna say they have been controversial, however I used to be attempting to be courageous. Durango was a dish that I fused collectively. I knew I used to be going to be in Italy. Doro wat is one thing I discovered from Marcus — East African. Rooster Marengo is from French Italian colonizers. I wished to have somewhat brash fact and say, ‘That is my delicacies. That is all of the talent. That is all of the strategies that I discovered whereas carrying that white coat, however provides the flavors of me carrying Jordans in a kitchen whereas listening to hip hop and Soca music.’ Then connect that to historical past: Italy tried to invade Ethiopia. Ethiopia is the one nation that by no means was colonized in Africa. So I am in Italy, saying, ‘Hey, you misplaced, and here is a dish to characterize that.’

The following one, Equianus was a slave in Africa who then was delivered to the Caribbean after which to Europe. I am wished to inform that story in my very own method, as a result of it is also the story of meals. I believe oxtail is the poster little one of each third-world nation. It is so costly now, however I wished one thing that was checked out as low cost however nonetheless actually scrumptious and now’s so revered and everybody needs it. The individuals who have been throwing it away to us at the moment are those who’re mountaineering the value up. This was a dish that was began in Africa, moved to the Caribbean, after which got here to North America. That was that triangle of connection that I actually wished to indicate. As soon as once more, ‘Italy, here is your dish,’ however reworked in cultures that have been colonized by you. The story was one factor. The meals is an important factor.”

On having eyes on his $250k prize

The dream is to have a restaurant that turns into sort of certainly one of its variety proper now within the United State, — tasting menu, narrative-forward diaspora delicacies, Michelin-starred. The accolades that this format of this delicacies by this sort of chef hasn’t occurred but. There’s clearly extraordinarily profitable Afro-Caribbean eating places now from Eric Adjepong, Kwame Onwuachi, Marcus. As soon as that’s realized, possibly open one other enterprise for my household that I can go down and honor my dad, my mother, either side of these households. 

After that, I wish to do stuff for hospitality. I wish to create extra childcare, extra healthcare entry — selfishly, all of the issues which have affected me as a chef and as a boss. Like, I can not take that shift as a result of I haven’t got childcare. I can not turn out to be a boss as a result of I’ve to look at my child. I am all in regards to the 12 or 14 hour shifts, however I am additionally all about, ‘Your child is sick, take the following 4 days off.’ I wish to create extra meals entry to underserved neighborhoods and never simply, ‘Let me provide you with extra canned items.’ I wish to be like, ‘Here is contemporary stuff which you could develop.’ Not everybody can hit Entire Meals.

In regards to the podcast

Meals & Wine has led the dialog round meals, drinks, and hospitality in America and all over the world since 1978. Tinfoil Swans continues that legacy with a brand new collection of intimate, informative, stunning, and uplifting interviews with the most important names within the culinary trade and past, sharing never-before-heard tales in regards to the successes, struggles, and fork-in-the-road moments that made these personalities who they’re right now.

This season, you will hear from icons and innovators like Roy Choi, Byron Gomez, Vikas Khanna, Romy Gill, Matthew Lillard, Ana and Lydia Castro, Laurie Woolever, Karen Akunowicz, Hawa Hassan, Dr. Arielle Johnson, Dr. Jessica B. Harris, Wylie Dufresne, Samin Nosrat, Curtis Stone, Tristen Epps, Padma Lakshmi, Ayesha Curry, Regina King, Antoni Porowski, Run the Jewels, Chris Shepherd, and different particular company going deep with host Kat Kinsman on their formative experiences; the dishes and meals that made them; their joys, doubts and goals; and what’s on the menu sooner or later. Tune in for a feast that’ll feed your mind and soul — and loads of knowledge and quotable morsels to savor.

New episodes drop each Tuesday. Hear and comply with on: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you pay attention.

These interview excerpts have been edited for readability.

Editor’s Notice: The transcript for obtain doesn’t undergo our normal editorial course of and will comprise inaccuracies and grammatical errors.