Chef's PSA Podcast

Chef Josh Sutcliff is the Corporate Executive Chef and Partner at 55 Seventy, a private members club for wine lovers with locations in Dallas and Houston. A Le Cordon Bleu graduate, CultureMap Dallas Rising Star Chef of the Year, and Zagat 30 Under 30 honoree, his career includes chef de cuisine at FT33, executive chef at Mirador, and stints at The Joule and Knox Bistro.
He started washing dishes at 13. Federal agents had just arrested his father. His family was living in a camper. The kitchen gave him stability when nothing else did, and the chaotic, pirate-energy environment he found there never stopped feeling like home.
Why consistency and station setup reveal more about a cook than talent ever will
How to map a chef career by starting at the end goal and working backward, not forward
What the shift from chef to business thinker actually requires when you are scaling new openings
André Natera and Josh Sutcliff cover the sports mindset that shaped his approach to kitchen teams, what makes young cooks succeed or stall, his systems for onboarding and standardized recipes, and the long game of reputation and networking in a small industry. The episode closes with the transition from day-to-day cooking to corporate executive chef and what that demands from a leader.

Guest
Josh Sutcliff on Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/jsutcliff/
Links
Subscribe on Substack → https://chefspsa.substack.com/
Lead Like a Chef App https://studio.com/apps/andre/leadlikeachef
Shop Chef's PSA Merch → https://shop.chefspsa.com/
Visit Chef's PSA Website → https://chefspsa.com/

Chef David Bull is Austin's first Iron Chef America competitor, Food and Wine Best New Chef 2003, two-time James Beard Foundation nominee, and Regional Vice President of Food and Beverage at LaCorsha Hospitality Group. He led the Driskill Grill to three consecutive Austin American-Statesman number one restaurant awards, competed on Iron Chef America in 2006 as the first Austin chef to do so, and has since overseen 16 restaurant and hotel openings with LaCorsha across Texas, most of them historic renovations. He is also co-founder of the Mineral Wellness Center, a faith-based nonprofit in Mineral Wells dedicated to reducing mental health stigma and providing counseling and community resources.
This episode covers the full arc: Austin's first celebrity chef, 16 properties, and the decision to walk away from all of it for something bigger.
Why management agreements protect standards across multiple properties in ways licensing never can
The lease clauses, CAM charges, and pro forma details that quietly sink most restaurant deals before they open
Why mental health stigma in professional kitchens is a leadership and retention crisis, not a personal weakness
André Natera and David Bull go deep on the Iron Chef America experience, the operational realities of scaling a hospitality group, the trust required in a business partner before any contract is signed, evolving kitchen culture and mentorship across every staffing level, and Bull's personal decision to step back from fine dining and co-found the Mineral Wellness Center. The episode closes with a preview of his upcoming Restored and Delivered concept in Mineral Wells.
This episode is sponsored by Rational USA. Learn more at https://rationalusa.com
Guest
David Bull on Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/chefdavidbull/
Chef's PSA
Subscribe on Substack → https://chefspsa.substack.com/
Shop Chef's PSA Merch → https://shop.chefspsa.com/
Visit Chef's PSA Website → https://chefspsa.com/

Brandon Harpster is the National Corporate Chef for Training and Events at RATIONAL USA. He trains chefs across the country, runs RATIONAL's culinary academies, and develops cooking programs that translate connected kitchen technology into repeatable, scalable results for working operators.
This episode starts with a brunch disaster. A steamship round failed overnight at a country club, no monitoring, no alert, no way to intervene. Harpster uses that story to frame the entire case for connected cooking, and then spends the next hour proving it.
How the iCombi Pro handles delta-T roasting, built-in resting, and consistent brunch egg production at volume
How the iVario Pro runs overnight stock for better clarity and yield with no one in the building
How a 15-minute risotto program that requires only three stirs is a repeatable kitchen system, not a shortcut
André Natera and Brandon Harpster cover the iCombi Pro, iVario Pro, and iHexagon across real kitchen scenarios including Peking duck skin development, brisket hybrid smoking workflows, zone heating, sous-vide-style cooking, and pasta-in-sauce preset functions. They also discuss what RATIONAL's corporate chef network actually does, how the training academies work, and what a field role in this industry looks like for chefs who want to move off the line.

RATIONAL
RATIONAL USA Linktree → https://linktr.ee/rational_usa
RATIONAL USA Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/rational_usa/
Chef Brandon's Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/brandon.harpster/
RATIONAL ChefLine → https://www.rational-online.com/en_us/customercare/contact-us/chefline/ | 866-306-2433

Chef's PSA
Subscribe on Substack → https://chefspsa.substack.com/
Shop Chef's PSA Merch → https://shop.chefspsa.com/
Visit Chef's PSA Website → https://chefspsa.com/

Chef Chad Welch is an American Culinary Federation Certified Executive Chef and Certified Culinary Administrator, a Jacques Pépin Foundation ambassador, and the executive chef with The Urban Stillhouse, an elevated dining concept with locations in St. Petersburg, Florida and Somerset, Kentucky. Horse Soldier bourbon bottles are formed with steel from the World Trade Center.
He did not plan to become a chef. A Navy paperwork error put him in the galley instead of the engine room in 1992, scaling Armed Forces recipe cards to 5,000 portions aboard the USS America aircraft carrier, cutting frozen Cornish game hens on a band saw on his first day at sea, and cooking through storms that sent equipment crashing across the kitchen floor.
What Navy galley cooking actually teaches about systems, scale, and pressure before culinary school
Why the shift from scratch kitchens to convenience products cost the industry a generation of skill
How the pre-Google era of memorization and mentorship built a different kind of chef, and what that means for anyone training today
André Natera and Chad Welch cover his first post-Navy restaurant job doing scratch pub cooking, his Mexican food upbringing and deliberate choice not to cook it professionally, the classic versus molecular cooking debate, and his work with the Jacques Pépin Foundation. The episode closes with the Horse Soldier Bourbon origin story and career advice from a chef whose entire path began by accident.
This episode is sponsored by Rational USA. Learn more at https://rationalusa.com

Guest
Chad Welch on Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/handthatfeeds/
The Urban Stillhouse St. Pete → https://www.instagram.com/urbanstillhousestpete/
The Urban Stillhouse Somerset → https://www.instagram.com/urbanstillhousesomerset/
Links
Subscribe on Substack → https://chefspsa.substack.com/
Shop Chef's PSA Merch → https://shop.chefspsa.com/
Visit Chef's PSA Website → https://chefspsa.com/

Everyone wants the spotlight.
Until it actually hits.
Andre sits down with Emmanuel Chavez from Tatemo in Houston to talk about what happens when your restaurant gets attention before you’re ready for it.
Tatemo went from a tortilla operation to a full tasting menu fast. Recognition came with it. So did pressure.
This conversation gets into what it takes to run a tight kitchen with almost no space, how leadership changes when expectations spike, and the mistakes that come with building something in real time.
• What early success actually feels like• How to run a tasting menu in a small kitchen• Why leadership matters more than technique
Follow Chefs PSA and send this to a chef who thinks they’re ready.

Emmanuel Chavez on Instagram
LINKS & RESOURCES
Subscribe on Substack → https://chefspsa.substack.com/Shop Chef’s PSA Merch → https://shop.chefspsa.comVisit Chef’s PSA Website → https://chefspsa.comSponsored by RATIONAL USA → https://rationalusa.com