I get to hang with one of my favorite
legendary chefs. (Hip hop music) - [Gary] You ask questions, and I answer them. This is The #AskGaryVee Show. - Hey everybody,
this is Gary Vay-ner-chuk and this is episode 211
of The #AskGaryVee Show.
I'm very excited to be here at
Red Rooster in Harlem with his wonderful, wonderful human being
that I've known for a long time from afar growing up in the
wine business watching the food culture world. Recently we've been able to
spend some time together. I really personally
enjoyed that. - Thank you.
- I think we have a
lot of similarities. - I learn every time
I hang out with you. There's always something
but it's never the stuff that I thought. It's not like we
discuss wine,-- - Yes.
- We talk about
all the other stuff. - Life. Life.
- Life. Exactly.
- Why don't you tell the few
that don't know who you are who you are my friend? - Yeah, my name is
chef Marcus Samuelsson. I have a restaurant
here in Harlem and it's called Red Rooster. I've really been able to
discover the world and discover myself through food,
hard work but also through the restaurant industry. And I'm still just as curious and love this industry because essentially it's about people,
neighborhoods and communities.
And this restaurant, Red
Rooster, has the best upload to all that.
- That's great. And so why don't you give,
'cause I know this a little bit, why don't you give everybody,
you're going to be humble but I. Want that and then India
we'll get into the questions. Give a little bit of your not
like from the beginning but from the beginning of
your restaurant career.
- Sure.
- Paint me a picture. What's your first job in
a restaurant industry? - My first job was, like
most chefs, a dishwasher. Or actually, making
meatballs with my grandmother-- - Okay.
- And that's a great start. - Yep.
- Right? Playing Top Chef at home
before there was even a Top Chef because my sisters.
- Yep. How old are
you at this point? - That's six, seven and they're
like nine and 14, so I lost. - Yep. - But the idea of
making shit matters.
- Yes. - Making what we came from--
- Yes. - Making herring, pickling. You know, our big thing of
pickling and most Swedes have a whole summer house and a
basement where they preserve food was because we were
afraid of the Russians.
- I get it. - We were convinced that the
Russians would come so we had to store food. - Just in case,
or when they come. - This is like that's really
where the making art comes from.
On the dad's
everyone's was a fisherman. I had to really from both sides. Big aspirations, big dreams,
got scholarships to go to Switzerland, France work
in some of the toughest environments ever.
Loved it. But really the breaking point
for me was after France I went to Japan.
Changed everything.
- Because? - Japanese food at
that point wasn't-- - What year is it? - I want to say '90, '91. - Okay. - It wasn't even on the
world map outside Japan, right? - Right, sushi culture even in
New York or SF was nonexistent. - Nonexistent.
And for me to stand there and
just learn from these guys. And didn't understand what they
were doing great knowing that they got it and I don't in order-- - That excited you? - Oh my God. I had to be really listen and
just learn and learn and it changed my perspective on food. It really did.
- For somebody, for some of
the novices for people that are here, what would you say
in a sentence changed? - Well, first of all, raw food. - Right. - And then in France we had to
cook with heavy creams and sauce which I liked. Was great.
- Sure.
- Precision. - Type, right? - Yeah, the commitment
to their tradition. Not look at outside. - Right.
France isn't
the gold standard. - No. It's about us here. - Yep.
This how we roll.
- Yes. And umami which I didn't know
was umami at the point but that flavor point between
miso, sweet, salty so it taught me a lot. But, again like being black
in Europe at that time with ambition not just to
work in a restaurant-- - But to be the guy. - But to own the restaurant.
A French chef told me he
was very clear to me he said, "Listen, I'm going to
give you some advice. "Get out. Get to the States. "I know you want
to own a business.
- It's not happening here.
- "It's not happening here." And you could look at that two
ways like he was very rude, he wasn't.
- He's trying to help. - He's trying to cut through
and it was a game changer to me since I came
to the States. - It's interesting,
we talk about this. Just a little side note,
we'll get back to the show.
It's literally how I think about
my business shows and content, it doesn't taste so good
when I'm like you're lazy. - Yeah.
- But I'm just trying to help. - Yeah.
- And it really helped you. - How does that work
with the millennials? - Millennials are just
like every other generation.
There's unlimited lazy
people at 50 and 60. - Yeah. - I think the millennials
have a bad rap. I think it's old man and
old women talk on them.
- That's good.
- I really do. - That's refreshing. I think there's tons of
millennials that are hustlers. - Yeah.
- I do think they've lived
in a great era but I think Gen X did too. I mean I think every generation
that gets away from generations that fought in wars is
softer because they can't even understand the
alternative of all the luxuries. When you're complaining about
not being able to afford an iPhone versus your grandfather
running on a beach and getting shot in the face and dying. That's a very big difference.
- We see it athletes if
you compared Muhammad Ali's generation since it's just
so in front of us versus the generation now. - Athletes 30,
40, 50 years ago had to work during
the off-season. - Yeah, yeah.
- You know, of course. - Yeah, you're right.
- India.
- [India] The first question-- - Let's get into the show. - The show.
- Yes, the show. - First one from Jared.
- Jared. - [Voiceover] Jared asks,
"As digital is evolving, "what could TV chefs be doing to
keep their audience engaged "with the community?" - I like that.
Marcus, this is a
good opportunity. - Yeah. - You know, as digital evolves,
TV chefs how do you evolve? This is, you've watched this
being in the food industry. Right now I'm saying oh my god
I'm taking selfies every day, when did entrepreneurs
become rock stars? You probably seven
to 10 years ago looked at all of your homies.
You guys used to, you had to be
sitting around, I know how you guys roll because
sommeliers do the same thing. Four o'clock in the morning,
spot of, wherever you are and you're sitting there and you're
saying, when the hell did we become this is what
happened a decade ago? - So I think it's progression
that came from two or three different ways. Right?
- Right. - First of Julian
Jacques, Papan.
- 100%. Those two set the table. - But then Emril really
became a part of pop culture. - Pop culture.
Absolutely. - And then Bobby really
took it there, right? I don't think the word
TV chef, gonna leave. It's really about media. Whatever you watch it on that's
essentially what's going to matter, right? So the screen for us was also
about figuring out sometimes we do long form, sometimes
we do 50 second video.
- Sure. - I'm sure in five years a 50
second video is going to be 5 seconds. - Or I'll be honest with
you, what were producing. We're going 20, 30 minutes.
I'm basically producing a
reality show, a documentary on two to three time a week basis. Good content is good content. - Peoples got to find content. - Does it come natural to you? I feel like when I look at
you from afar you're such an operator, you're
such a chef operator.
You're running businesses how
about the media side of things has it come natural or has that
been that something you know it's important but it
doesn't come that natural? - I'll tell you it's a
couple things for me. Being an adopted kid to Sweden
we were constantly stared at. Not necessarily in a bad way but
we we're always in the center. - Right.
- I look at it
almost the same thing. It's like okay. You have something to
say, don't cry about it. You want people to come to space
and make it sticky you got to communicate that.
And you got to communicate
that hard if you're gonna cut the clutter.
- Yes. - This is a cluttered space
and we either want to have customers or don't.
- Yes. - We want it,
we asked for this, engage. - Yes.
Got it. Very good. I'll jump in real quick. I would say new platforms always
offer the best opportunities, this is good
advice for everybody.
Right now he and I'm saying this
out loud for him and his team because I want him to, he should
very much look at Musically and if he cooks behind music on
Musically he could be the DJ Khaled of Musically and
it could change his life. I'm being dead serious. - Can we pick that? Why is this? What's going on?
- I feel. What's going on, what's going
on I'll tell you what's going on I'll save you time.
They know that you say no to a
lot of things because you're busy and this and that nature and
them coming to you with Musically, I'm on their side. - Not okay. - I'm 100% on their side but
Marcus I'm being dead serious if you were to make a commitment
for 30 days to make three videos a day of cooking behind music on Musically I am convinced-- - Done. Done.
- I'm a strange character.
- Absolutely. - I'm gonna check in 17
days and blow up your spot. - Yes. - I'm gonna use this clip and
then it's going to be fuck you Marcus as the video.
So you have to understand-- - Stand in line for that though. So for everybody I'm starting to
articulate this, DRock, this is going to go somewhere. I've been saying it but
I've never said it direct. Beachfront property.
The first people that bought at
Malibu, the first that bought in the Hamptons, the first
people that bought in Manhattan. The first people
that bought in Dumbo. When you buy up the real estate
that becomes the market first, you get a better deal. DJ Khaled, if you
tried to execute now Snapchat it's noisier.
Ashton on Twitter it would
have changed his career. Musically, whatever else you
want to take a look at every time there's something new or a
new way to do things for example we are crushing video
on Facebook right now. We're committed to it, I'm
hiring more people because right now it's important
to Facebook which means it's getting more reach.
- Yeah. - I'm very focused on it either
new platforms that are emerging and Snapchat is still that.
Still.
- Gary, I have to ask you--
- Please. - You live in many worlds.
- Yes. - You're an immigrant.
- Yes. - You're an entrepreneur.
- Yes.
- You're in young media and new
media but you also have a lot of friends that are you know much
older than you but also almost like mentors but they
do business with you. How do they respond to your
sort of cutthroat success? - My thing his worked for me
progressively because at first, I basically have started from
out of my mind and completely an idiot to he's been right
for so long he's probably. It's unbelievable how
70-year-old tycoons and other people that are
winning now come and look at me when I say anything. I feel like another five or
seven years, I'm like, "Okay listen here's what you do.
"Go naked, cartwheel
and make it a Gif," and I said gif, not jif, "and make it on SmoogaSmooga.Com
that's one day old," and I feel like very established
people will be like, "Alright." - Alright I'll do it. - So what's happening and I'm
sure you I felt the same in your career with food, as you build
reputation and you know the good thing about reputation and
you've been the beneficiary of this as well.
It's earned. - Yeah. It is.
- People don't
want to listen to me. As a matter of fact a lot of
people that listen to me and give me respect
doing it begrudgingly. - Yeah. - Because I do it with a
different kind of vibe than they want it.
- Oh definitely.
- You know? - It's very
direct and very smart. - I think what's happening is--
- Honestly, I feel I save time when I listen to you. Honestly because
you're very direct. - I understand.
- No.
It's not really
thought about how correct. - Time is something I value
a lot so that makes sense. Makes me feel good. India.
- [Voiceover] Stamp and Coins
asks, "What's the biggest change "tech is bringing to the
restaurant industry?" - Connectivity to the, the
biggest change with tech to the restaurant is connectivity
with the consumer. So the editor used to the
guard maybe with a couple of newspapers, a
couple of magazines. Listen, that consumer out there
that's connected to that is now the most important person. - This happened in
the wine business.
It was Wine Spectator, it
was Robert Parker, period. New York Times for you and
maybe a couple of other things. - Gary V wasn't up there?
- Not yet. I started a process
and then it was technology.
I rode the wave, it wasn't me. It was me understanding
what YouTube and Twitter was going to be. Instagram, do you
know Andre Mack? - Yeah.
- Andre's my boy. I remember those
conversations early on.
- He's right here in Harlem.
- That's right. I was like Andre this was
happening he's doing a nice job. I'm watching him on
the 'Gram right now. I just knew that
that was coming.
And I don't know what's going
on in the restaurant world. I feel it's probably similar
to what's going on in the wine world. A big Wine Spectator and a big
Wine Advocate score are still really matters. I'm sure the same way a New
York Times review matters.
But now, there
are taste makers-- - But the world is not
either/or it's both. Right?
- That's right. Where there used
to be one option. Absolutely.
- [India] I mean all my friends
and I look at Foursquare and look at Pinterest of food
when we get restaurants. - Yeah.
- Yeah. Sure. - Tristin is a
good friend of mine.
One of the guys from Foursquare. - [India] There you go. - Tristan Walker?
- Yep. - He's the best.
- He is.
- I love that dude.
- He's a good guy. And talk about
breaking the mold. - I was an investor in Gowalla
which was a competitor to Foursquare and I remember being
on call with a bunch of the investors and people on the
team, I'm like, "This guy, "Tristan Walker's a problem." - He would respect that
as the highest compliment. - It's meant as a
highest compliment.
I've been an enormous fan
of his for a long time. - And you know his get up, you
should have him on the show. His get up is amazing.
- Bevel? - From Queens.
- He's the best. - Ivy League schools.
The hustle.
- Best. Best. - [India] From Daniel.
- Daniel. - [Voiceover] Daniel asks,
"Best way for a culinary virgin to
step up to the plate?" - What's the best way for a
complete culinary virgin-- - [India] to step
up to the plate? - To step up to the plate? - Well, I mean.
- Yeah, I get it.
- I mean really first of all get
a friend that you really love, adore, admire and cook with you. Once you do it by yourself and
you don't know anything about food it's hard
for so many things. Arugula better than this
lettuce and it's a lot. Right? So if you cook with somebody
that you and you're going to have fun with, same time drink
some wine and stick to it for 30 days on the 17th day I'm
going to call you if you're not sticking with it.
- Yes.
My man. - Marcus can I ask you I'm
going to go side question. A little question from from me. One of the things that I've
enjoyed in the food scene obviously living in New York has
been amazing for this is when a new thing pops up.
- Yeah.
- And when I mean a new thing,
I actually mean an ingredient for spice or a thing.
- Yeah. - Is there any vegetable or
fruit or spice that's emerging right now in the scene? I'm fascinated by that. - So first of all, there's very
little things in the food scene that are new.
- I know that. - Because really--
- Is a new interpretations? - What happened, go back to the
French scenario, when we brought so much your just Europe and
France and eventually Italy-- - There was still a
lot of opportunity.
- What we look at now as new is
very often from not even Japan anymore, maybe Korea but also
now a little bit from Peru is definitely a strong emerging. - Peru?
- Peru. - And what do they got going on? - You think about extension of
the sushi culture is obviously tiraditos, ceviche
and those stuff. - Yes.
- So we hear still don't know
much about and then the last thing that's going to
come even more is Africa. So when I brought the oldest
spice plant in the world to America, berbere,
which is an old spice man. Ethiopia looked at me
like that's not new. We've had it forever.
Or if you think about argan
oil that comes from Morocco. Argan oil is
mostly used in makeup. It's all over.
- Yes. Yes.
- But cooking-wise it's a
pretty new oil here in the West to cook with. Southern Mediterranean have been
cooking with it for 2000 years. - What about meats from Africa? Will that, do you
think 20, 30, 50 years? - Well the cuts might change.
- The cuts. - Because meat's a pretty
traditional but then the cuts that we're using might change
and also that is old school.
Right?
- Well of course. When the chef's
talking about-- - Something's old
school somewhere always. - Exactly. But we haven't maybe
focused on that country before.
That's right.
I love that. Alright, India.
- Next one-- - CJ? Listen, - I'm excited. - Can we just have a little bit
of corn bread with tomato jam. We have guests.
- Jordan, I'm not eating.
- We have guests. - Let's do it. - Jerk chicken
let's have cornbread. - Wait, hold on.
Alright. Let's do it. - [Voiceover] Bartosz asks,
"Where do you see the coffee "industry going in terms of
gastronomy in coffee shops?" - That's a good question. The coffee industry.
- The coffee industry, first of
all, it's started from Ethiopia and places like that in that
region but now I think you have 80 countries producing coffee
so that's like it's very, very very global right now, right? So I still think we're just here
in terms of intense beans and intense of the coffee culture--
- Reminds me of the wine business in the '90s. - Exactly, so the mixing I think
we'll see more coffee and wine bars together where you have
coffee in the cocktail the way you see fresh juices
going in with cocktails now. That will happen. - You know what's
so interesting? I've been thinking of the
concept of a bar that is just 24/7 because and it goes from coffee to juices to tea to wine to post-game.
Really I think there is a really
interesting model from a place that's open 5:30 AM
to four in the morning in New York that is very hard-core structured
around 4 to 6 different. - Sure.
- Afternoon tea. - Mhmmm. Coffee, juices,
afternoon tea, wine.
- But all of the same, what
we're talking about here is they have intense flavors, right? Because that coffee and and that
juice is based on intensity. - Yes. - Espresso with fresh juice
mixed with let's say ginger and orange. People today want
intense flavors.
They want smaller shots of
something but really intense. So that can be done. - Wet bar something. It's just like liquid.
- Oh we're thinking names now. - I just want to open it.
I may. India? - [India] Last one from Tommy.
- Tommy. - [Voiceover] Tommy asks,
"Any suggestions on how to "use social media promote a
quality imported olive oil?" - Wow.
Social media why wouldn't you
utilize it for any product? Right.
- Yes. - First of all olive
oil, people love olive oil already, so you want to
tell a little bit terroir where it's from and then also how it
is used best case scenario but also may be a surprise. Olive oil as an ice cream.
- Which I love. - Olive oil as a cake.
Something that is just a
little bit off center. I think social media would
be perfect platform so you can cut through. - I have a very
good answer to this. I believe really.
I feel excited about this
influencers, influences, influencers, ask, ask, ask. I would go to Instagram search hashtags
olive oil but then cheeses and breads and cakes and
ice creams and I would literally for 11 hours a day, this is your
business you have an imported olive oil, what are you doing? What are you doing 7 PM,
8 PM, 9 PM, 10 PM, 11 PM, 12? What are you doing? You're doing a lot of
bullshit a lot of times. I would allocate six,
seven hours a day and I would literally you search hashtags
and you find somebody's account it's a sous chef in a Kansas
City restaurant that has 813 the followers but the Gmail
account's there and say look I'm importing amazing olive oil. I'd like to send you a bottle.
I'd like to post a picture
of it on Instagram if you have it and then you wait. That person
replies and goes sure. They've never had anybody reach
out to them and give them olive oil for free and they're pumped. Or they write back, yeah
but I'm an influencer.
I get $400 a photo
and you're like that's not for 800 followers. But it's just literally,
literally I actually believe that if you have a product like
an olive oil or any product that influencer marketing on
Instagram right now and then and then unbelievably dirty get dirt
under your fingernails grinding one by one, Gmail, Gmail, Gmail,
click and account find their Gmail, Gmail, Gmail
eight, nine, ten hours a day. - I love that. You should come up every fucking day up here we
should talk about this.
- Done. - I have so many things now that these poor bastards
to deal with. - Dead. They're dead.
- I love this.
- But the big part of this guys,
the big part of this is to ask. - Can you take this camera away
and just direct the conversation right here.
- No way. (Laughter) Nuh-uh it's easy
to pass on them. You're the bottleneck.
- Of course.
- You're the bottleneck. - 30 Days.
- 30 Days. - Yes.
- You know, ask. So many of you are
just not asking.
The fear of rejection or the
laziness of the execution is stopping people from winning.
- #Laziness. I think that is
very, very strong word. - It is one of those
two things, Marcus. I'm telling you right now if you
actually have a product and you actually spend 10 hours a day
and I love when people are like, "10 hours a day?" I was running a very large wine
retail business and when Twitter came out, I went
pot committed, all-in and I was spending 10 hours a day.
I built my entire brand
from from that ecosystem. It wasn't mainstream media. It was winning an award
and having the entire press. - Don't belittle my award.
Whoa! - I'm not belittling.
- I saw that.
- I'm not belittling. He's caught it.
He's right. (Laughter) But I've never had. - No, I get it.
I get it.
- I'm happy for you.
That was fun to watch. And I'm happy for everybody. But it's unbelievable
what 10 hours a day of asking 850 chefs a day on Instagram. 109 Chefs will take a
photo with your olive oil, 39 moms that have
a lot of other moms that give a crap
will take a photo with your olive oil and it's
just the work and the asking.
- I love that. Smart. - And it's free. - Are you building a Trump U?
- No.
- A GaryVee U? - I don't want to get
into fights with any judges. - But this is good. This is actually a
really good education. - Free.
- Yeah.
- For life.
- I love that. That's good. - Question of the day, Marcus,
you get to ask the question of the day. You get to ask them
any question you want.
There's a lot of entrepreneurs,
a lot of business people. It's also probably a crowd
that is probably that mainstream foodie. You can go anywhere on this. Anything you want.
- I want to ask you. - Don't ask me, ask them. Hundreds of answers on
Facebook and YouTube. - We went from Twitter,
Instagram to Snapchat, what's the next platform that will have
the same cut through over the next 3 to 5 years? - Answer him, my friends.
You keep asking questions,
we'll keep answering them. What do you think? I think Musically is the
first thing that's got a chance. And I don't think I
can ever answer it. - Yeah.
- Because you have to react to
it instead of predicting it. It's too hard to predict. Someone's building right now. You just don't know.
- Where are these guys from? - You know, it's so funny. They could be anywhere. There could be two girls
right now in Kansas City they'll probably end up in San Francisco
'cause that's where the VCs and the tech talent is but
you know Snapchat's in LA. - Yeah.
- Pinterest started in
Pennsylvania, moved to San Francisco. Facebook started in Boston.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah. - Move to San Francisco.
So, I'm not sure. - [Woman] Have you told him? - [Gary] Have you
guys looked at it? - [Woman] Yeah.
- [Gary] Cool.
And honestly spend one hour
Googling Musically read all the articles, get it down.
- [Woman] Got it. - [Gary] And then reach out to
mainstream media like whatever contacts you have.
- Yeah. - They're dying to
write an article about it. - Okay.
- So I could already see the
headline "Is Marcus the DJ Khaled of Musically?" And that alone
almost starts it being at. - Okay. Thank you so much. - You're welcome.
What's up guys? Hope you enjoyed the show. Please do I get to
link it up anywhere? Is it in here or
is it down below? Is it in print or in my video? - [Staphon] It'll be down
there to your left. - It's here down to my left? Right here, there's a
button for them to subscribe to my YouTube video? Yeah it's that
little buggy thing. That's right guys, click this.
That's right, use that..
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