This week on the Shift List, Jonathan Whitener — chef and co-owner of Here’s Looking At You in Los Angeles’s Koreatown. Similar to his cooking, Jonathan’s musical tastes are a reflection of his family and surrounding environment. Outlaw country from his father, ’80s metal from his brothers, and a love for Glenn Danzig that continues to this day.
Since it opened in 2016, Here’s Looking at You has appeared on almost every ‘best of’ restaurant list around LA — and that’s due to a number of factors: Co-owner Lien Ta’s laser focus on service and comforting hospitality; top-notch tiki-adjacent bar service; the evolving playlists blending old school hip-hop and post-punk; but it’s anchored by Whitener’s anything goes approach to cooking.
Whitener grew up in Huntington Beach, CA the son of a Mexican mother and a German father. Growing up near Orange County’s thriving Vietnamese and Japanese communities, he pulls all of these influences into his “SoCal tapas-style” menu with standout dishes like the shishito peppers accompanied with an tonnato sauce — the Italian answer to hummus — sprinkled with Huamei, a preserved Chinese plum. Or for another example, frogs legs seasoned like Nashville hot chicken with a salsa negra, scallion, and lime.
Whitener cut his teeth for three years as the chef de cuisine for Jon Shook and Vinny Dotolo’s restaurant Animal in Los Angeles before opening Here’s Looking At You with Lien Ta, who he met while she was serving as front-of-house manager at Animal.
Jonathan Whitener’s Shift List Buzzcocks – “What Do I Get?” Waylon Jennings – “I’m A Ramblin’ Man” Waylon Jennings – “Rainy Day Women” Danzig – “Am I A Demon” Metallica – “Ride The Lightning” Nick Waterhouse (Feat. Leon Bridges) – “Katchi” Tupac (Feat. Syke) – “All Eyes On Me”
Yes, bourbon and great music (and, in our case, bluegrass!) are all givens at Bourbon & Beyond this weekend in Louisville, Kentucky, but the culinary and libations programming might be somewhat unexpected to even the most seasoned festival goers. Do yourself a favor and make a point to consume — literally and figuratively — some of the incredible gourmet talent that makes Bourbon & Beyond truly an event that goes above… and beyond. Here are our top picks for must-see food and drink events for B&B 2019:
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 20 1:30 p.m: Jose Salazar & Matt Abdoo
Jose Salazar is a chef and restaurateur based in Cincinnati, Ohio, so it’s a quick jaunt down to Louisville to be a part of Bourbon & Beyond. Originally from Queens, he got his start in restaurants around New York City, most notably working with Chef Thomas Keller for a four-year stint at Per Se and as the Executive Sous-Chef at Bouchon Bakery when it first opened its doors in 2006.
This will be the third year in a row that Jose hosts a cooking demo at Bourbon & Beyond (we even interviewed him at last year’s festival for an episode of The Shift List), so the B&B veteran will be mixing things up by inviting the award-winning pitmaster Matt Abdoo to join him on stage. Matt’s BBQ joint Pig Beach is a staple in Gowanus, Brooklyn, so it’ll be fun to see how Chef Salazar incorporates Abdoo’s pit techniques into his demo.
4:30 p.m: Justin Sutherland & Ben Jaffe
Chef Justin Sutherland hails from St. Paul, Minnesota, where he’s the owner and executive chef of two restaurants, “Handsome Hog” and “Pearl & The Thief” – both contemporary Southern restaurants. He gained national attention by competing on last year’s season of Top Chef, which just so happened to take place in Louisville, and recently competed and won on Iron Chef America.
This will be his first appearance at Bourbon & Beyond, and he’ll be joined onstage throughout his demo by Ben Jaffe, the creative director of Preservation Hall in New Orleans, who also plays tuba and double bass with the Preservation Hall Jazz Band and will be performing a set of their own earlier in the day at noon over on the Oak Stage.
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 21 2:30 p.m.: Tiffani Thiessen
Yes – this is the same Tiffani Thiessen that spent her teenage years playing Zach Morris’s on-again/off-again high school sweetheart Kelly Kapowski on Saved By The Bell (now sans her middle name ‘Amber’). That said, over the past few years, she has remade herself as a cookbook author and host of the Cooking Channel series ‘Dinner at Tiffani’s’.
Making her debut appearance at Bourbon and Beyond, her cooking demo is sure to attract die hard SBTB fans and home cooking aficionados alike.
5:30 p.m: Kelsey Barnard Clark and Sara Bradley
Even though Chefs Kelsey Barnard Clark and Sara Bradley made their television debuts on Top Chef: Louisville, the two Southern chefs had worked and known each other around kitchens for over a decade.
Barnard Clark, an Alabama native who went on to win the competition, and Louisville hometown hero Bradley, who placed second, are taking their longtime friendship to the stage for their Saturday evening cooking demo. After watching them compete against one another for an entire season of television, it will be fun to see them working together.
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 22 12:05 p.m.: Manhattan Vs. The Old Fashioned
Sunday’s the final day of Bourbon & Beyond, so it might as well be spent in the pursuit of enjoying as much Bourbon as possible. Over at the Kentucky Gold stage, Beth Burrows, a brand ambassador for Jim Beam, and ‘master taster’ for Old Forester Jackie Zakan will be debating which classic bourbon cocktail reigns supreme. The Manhattan and Old Fashioned will face off for cocktail supremacy, although we’re pretty sure it’s just a good excuse to sample both in one sitting.
6:15 p.m: Slavery In American Whiskey
Enslaved people helped build the foundation of American whiskey, and a panel of historians and experts will be gathering to tell some of their stories. Led by renowned whiskey connoisseur Fred Minnick, the panel will include Clay Risen, a food editor for the New York Times, and Bourbon Hall of Famer Freddie Johnson.
Full Food and Bourbon Panel Lineup:
Friday, September 20
Better In The Bluegrass Stage (Culinary Demos and Presentations)
Noon: Edward Lee
1:30 p.m.: Jose Salazar & Matt Abdoo
3 p.m.: Michael Voltaggio & Adam Sobel
4:30 p.m.: Justin Sutherland & Ben Jaffe (Preservation Hall Jazz Band)
Kentucky Gold Stage (Bourbon Demos and Presentations)
11:35 a.m.: Welcome
12:40 p.m.: Beer Drinker’s Bourbon
2:05 p.m.: How Highball Can You Go?
3:50 p.m.: Whiskey Women
5:05 p.m.: Bourbon Disrupters
6:05 p.m.: What Is A Master Distiller
Saturday, September 21
Better In The Bluegrass Stage (Culinary Demos and Presentations)
1:05 p.m.: Graham Elliot
2:30 p.m.: Tiffani Thiessen
4 p.m.: Brooke Williamson
5:30 p.m.: Kelsey Barnard Clark & Sara Bradley
Kentucky Gold Stage (Bourbon Demos and Presentations)
11:25 a.m.: Bourbon Storytime
12:25 p.m.: Barrel Finish Vs. Traditional Bourbon
1:35 p.m.: Whiskey’s Dark Past
3 p.m.: The Barrel
4:45 p.m.: The Van Winkle Family
Sunday, September 22
Better In The Bluegrass Stage (Culinary Demos and Presentations)
12:45 p.m.: Ouita Michel
2:05 p.m.: Rusty Hamlin & Coy Bowles (Zac Brown Band)
3:35 p.m.: Amanda Freitag & Tierinii Jackson (Southern Avenue)
4:15 p.m.: Jamie Bissonnette
Kentucky Gold Stage (Bourbon Demos and Presentations)
The Israeli born chef co-founded Honey & Co with his wife, Sarit Packer, a cozy spot located in London’s once sleepy Fitzrovia neigborhood that serves homey Middle Eastern fair directly across the street from their amazing food shop, market, and culinary boutique Honey & Spice.
Following in the footsteps of their UK colleague and cookbook author Yotam Ottolenghi, of whom they both worked for prior to starting Honey & Co, Itamar and Sarit have released a handful of Honey & Co cookbooks over in the UK, and they just finished a whirwind tour of the US to promote the release of their Honey & Co at Home cookbook just last month. Feel free to head on over to Amazon now if you’d like to peak inside the front cover and maybe even purchase yourself a copy…
They visited cities and chefs all over the country to help promote the book, which presents their simple and delicious Middle Eastern dishes that are easy to make at home, and they stopped through Los Angeles to do a takeover of Sqrl, Jessica Koslow’s venerable breakfast and lunch spot which kind of feels like a version of Honey & Co in California.
Itamar excitedly talked to The Shift List about the role that music plays at Honey & Co last August, and we ended up recording this on two stools in a pseudo storage room in the working cellar underneath their Honey & Spice shop.
The Bluegrass Situation is proud to announce that season 2 of The Shift List is now hosted on the Osiris podcast network.
The Shift List goes inside the kitchens of leading chefs to find out what kind of music fuels their shifts in the kitchen, influences their food and touches their lives. Partnering with BGS, the leading online source for roots culture, The Shift List offers a unique perspective on music through the eyes of the culinary world’s driving forces.
Host Chris Jacobs has talked to innovative chefs from around the world about the music that plays in their kitchens during a shift, including Copenhagen’s Rosio Sanchez (NOMA, Netflix’s Ugly Delicious), Kentucky’s Edward Lee (610 Magnolia, Top Chef), and Oklahoma City’s Colin Stiringer and Jeremy Wolfe (Nonesuch, Bon Appetit’s #1 Best New Restaurant 2018).
“The Shift List is a unique look into music through the culinary world, providing an intimate and authentic view of music from some of the world’s leading chefs,” said RJ Bee, CEO of Osiris. “The launch of The Shift List, in partnership with BGS, represents our expansion into more musical and cultural genres. Look for much more roots music and culture content from BGS and Osiris.”
Season 2 will include innovative chefs sharing the music they love from places like Hawaii, San Francisco, Austin, Montreal and more. Catch up on every episode of Season 1.
Phil Bracey is not a chef, but rather the manager of P. Franco, a neighborhood wine shop, bar, and makeshift restaurant in Northeast London’s Clapton neighborhood. Along with Bright, a new restaurant that opened nearby last May, Phil was instrumental in P. Franco being named Restaurant of the Year by Eater London in 2017.
It’s important to note that ‘manager’ is a broad term, as Bracey admits that even he doesn’t know what his actual title would be. Granted, he helps to procure and looks after the wines, but more important, and less easy to recognize, is that his approach to hospitality is passionately personal.
Fed up with the pretentiousness that often accompanies drinking wine, Bracey set out to make P. Franco a welcoming space that encourages experimentation by customers, allowing them to discover natural wines in an environment that’s relaxed yet lively, a space that you can pop into for one glass and ultimately end up staying for the rest of the night.
Music is paramount to the customer experience at both P. Franco and Bright, and like a good DJ, Bracey is constantly dialing in the playlists during each night’s service, doing his best to follow the flow of the evening.
A veteran of chef Yotam Ottolenghi’s venerable Ottolenghi and Nopi restaurants, Ramael Scully opened his first restaurant, Scully, back in March 2018 with the backing and support of Ottolenghi himself.
Given that Ramael Scully was born in Malaysia to a mother of Chinese and Indian descent and an Irish-Balinese-Malay father, his palate was destined to be informed by mixed influences. Add a move to Australia as a young child, where he was ultimately raised in a multi-ethnic neighborhood, and you start to get a sense of how he eventually found his culinary voice.
Utilizing a range of ingredients from homemade spices, pickles, preserves, oils, animal fats, dairy, and sprouts, his food can only be described as his own, like the arepa stuffed with eggplant sambal and bergamot labneh. It’s neither Middle Eastern nor Colombian — it’s just Scully’s.
Itamar Srulovich is an Israeli-born chef who co-founded Honey & Co with his wife, Sarit Packer, back in 2012. Itamar is the music lover between he and Sarit, so he sat down for this interview, which includes music from Israel, Egypt, Nigeria, the UK, and the US.
A cozy spot located in London’s once sleepy Fitzrovia neigborhood that serves homey Middle Eastern fare directly across the street from their amazing food shop, market, and culinary boutique Honey & Spice, they also opened Honey & Smoke in 2016, a big and buzzy grill house serving everything from lamb kofta and chops, whole fish and slow-cooked octopus, charred cauliflower and amazing drinks.
Itamar and Sarit racked up impressive resumes before going into business together with Honey & Co, both serving as alumni of the venerable Ottolenghi restaurant and cooked together in restaurants around Tel Aviv before their time together in London.
Three restaurants and three bestselling cookbooks later, family is the through line that brings everything together at Honey & Co, and not just because Itamar and Sarit are married. It seems like Itamar knows every staff worker, diner, and shop customer intimately, exuding a warmth and friendliness that surely brings people back.
Jose Salazar is a chef and restaurateur based in Cincinnati, Ohio. Originally from Queens, New York, he got his start in restaurants around New York City, most notably working with Chef Thomas Keller for a four-year stint at Per Se and as the Executive Sous-Chef at Bouchon Bakery when it first opened its doors in 2006.
In 2008, Salazar and his wife Anne moved to Cincinnati after receiving an irresistible offer to be the Executive Chef of The historical Cincinnatian Hotel and Palace restaurant, and in December of 2013, they opened Salazar together in Cincinnati’s Over the Rhine neighborhood.
In August 2015, Jose and Ann opened Mita’s, their second restaurant together, which has earned Jose nominations for best chef in the Great Lakes from the James Beard foundation in 2016 and 2017.
We had a chance to talk to Salazar in the back corner of a press tent during a rainy Saturday morning in Louisville, Kentucky, at this year’s Bourbon and Beyond festival back in September.
André Prince Jeffries is the owner and matriarch of Prince’s Hot Chicken in Nashville, Tennessee, the original and gold standard for Nashville hot chicken.
Opened in 1945 by Thornton Prince, André inherited the restaurant and original hot chicken recipe in 1980, and has seen it grow into a culinary trend that’s caught on like wildfire in the past few years throughout the US.
Growing up in the 1940s and ’50s, young André witnessed the origins of her great uncle Thornton’s restaurant, and it turns out that music has been an important part of their success from day one. Just wait until you hear about the typical late night guests that would stop by back in the day.
Theme Song – “Wonder” by Jamie Drake
Presented by Nomad Goods. Head to hellonomad.com/bgs and use code “BGS” at checkout to receive 15% off any full priced items through the end of January.
Unexpected combinations are Trae Basore’s specialty in the kitchen. The executive chef of Pearl & Ash in Manhattan’s Bowery district presents a menu full of imaginative pairings: Deep-fried sweetbreads are made even more indulgent with the addition of crawfish mousse; sour peanuts add a pop to charred rapini; and scrambled eggs get a briny boost from a few tongues of uni. An alum of Tom Colicchio’s highly regarded Colicchio & Sons, he posts his most eye-catching preparations to Instagram.
He may plate fancy, but the Arkansas native prefers more rusticated fare when it comes to his music. After an embarrassing early dalliance with Top 40 — the first CD he ever purchased was MC Hammer’s "Addams Groove” (“Watch the video,” he advises. “It’s hilarious.”), while his inaugural concert was Michael Bolton — Basore fell hard for Southern-minded music when he discovered a treasure trove of his father’s old LPs, including classics from Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, and Lynyrd Skynyrd.
Those artists continue to be the backbone of his collection, so his Shift List playlist reflects his upbringing. “It’s the music I grew up listening to,” says Baesore. “If I go into a bar — I’m a big fan of Paddy Maguire’s Ale House on Third Avenue — these are the songs I’m looking for on the jukebox.”
At the tail end of high school and during his years attending the University of Arkansas, Basore began to get into bluegrass, folk, and jam bands. He attended a slew of Yonder Mountain, Old Crow Medicine Show, and Widespread Panic gigs. “I’d bring bongos and congas to shows to play beforehand,” says the chef, who also briefly flirted with playing the fiddle and the drums, “but I wouldn’t go on tour following anyone.”
These days, Basore only gets to listen to his favorites when he’s off the clock, though he did manage to catch Devil Makes Three playing at Terminal Five earlier this year. The chef bemoans the fact that he has given his staff free rein to choose what gets played during prep — and their tastes don’t exactly match up. “Unfortunately for me, Kanye is pretty big right now,” he says. “But as long as they’re happy, I’m happy.”
Once service starts, the restaurant’s official playlist kicks in, which highlights plenty of offbeat '80s rock from Talking Heads, David Bowie, and Paul Simon. “There’s no Whitesnake or Bon Jovi,” he assures.
Right now, when it comes to music, Basore is focused on finding a bluegrass band for his wedding, which is taking place back in his home state of Arkansas in September. “After picking the food — traditional dim sum for the cocktail hour and barbeque from Penguin Ed’s in Fayetteville — it’s really my only task,” he says. “I’d better not screw it up.”
Photos courtesy of Trae Basore
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