EP 30: Tracy Malechek-Ezekiel

Transcript

HOST: ALICE CHENG

Welcome to Hospitality On The Rise, the podcast about the people shaping the hospitality industry and their journeys. I'm your host, Alice Cheng, founder and CEO of Culinary Agents, hospitality's go-to hiring platform. And I'm here to give you your dose of virtual mentorship.
Here, we'll be sharing the stories, lessons learned, and advice from hospitality leaders who've carved out their own path to success. After all, this industry is where many get their start and go on to do incredible things.
Whether you're a pro, starting out, or just love the hustle, this podcast highlights what makes hospitality extraordinary, the people.

HOST: ALICE CHENG
I'm so excited to have Chef Tracy Malechek-Ezekiel with us today. She is the Co-Owner and Chef of Birdie’s, based in Austin, 2023 Food & Wine’s Restaurant of the Year, 2022 Bon Appétit and Esquire's Best New Restaurants in America, 2021 New York Times’ The 2021 Restaurant List. Tracy, thank you so much for joining us today.

GUEST: TRACY MALECHEK-EZEKIEL
Thanks for having me.

HOST: ALICE CHENG
You know, I was looking at some of the things that you've done, and I realized that our paths have been in parallel over the years. I'm excited to get to hear a little bit more about your career path and some of the things you learned along the way. How did it all get started?

GUEST: TRACY MALECHEK-EZEKIEL
I think, you know, it started pretty early on in a certain capacity. Like most chefs, had some kind of connection to food early on. For me, when I was two years old, my grandmother would make pasta for me and I had a strong connection to it. I would kick and scream and lay on the floor yelling, “Noo noo’s, noo noo’s, noo noo’s!” And my Aunt Gigi would look at my mom and be like, “This isn't normal. Most kids don't act this intensely around food.” And I just always had a passion for eating, and at lunch, “What's for dinner?” I just, I love the art of eating. And I didn't grow up cooking, but I always wanted to be around food. I grew up really into sports, and I always wanted to be… I was always kind of doing things. I never wanted to sit still in school, commonly like so many other chefs. My favorite things were like playing sports, being active, and eating.

HOST: ALICE CHENG
And when did you kind of get into like, “Oh, I'm gonna actually start exploring the career path of cooking”?

GUEST: TRACY MALECHEK-EZEKIEL
It kind of slowly unfolded for me. So I was really into music, towards the end of high school, like a lot of independent punk-rock local band kind of shows. And that became my new obsession. So it went from like sports, the strong focus on soccer, just every day of my life, into this obsession with music. And I loved the raw energy you got from these small intimate shows. You know, I love the electricity of walking out of a show just buzzing with happiness and excitement. I thought that was so cool. And for a minute, I thought maybe I could try to be a musician. This is very late in life. I never played any instrument growing up, so that was not rational, really.

HOST: ALICE CHENG
Hey, dream big, dream big.

GUEST: TRACY MALECHEK-EZEKIEL
But I think what I did learn from that kind of moment of high school, and then which took me through college and being obsessed with music, is that I wanted to connect with someone in a way and I didn't want to work a nine-to-five. I certainly didn't have the capacity to sit down in a nine-to-five environment at a desk in front of a computer. So it did teach me that. And so I ended up going to college at the University of Houston for Hotel Restaurant Management. Because I knew I wanted to work in food, maybe be like an aspiring Danny Meyer in the dining room. And then it wasn’t until the very last month of university that I helped a friend cook an eight-course dinner. I mean, “help” cook. I was very green. I didn't know what I was doing. I was like putting one plush of parsley on, you know, one of 200 dishes. But I connected to the electricity of plating all these dishes, the intensity, the focus of service. I was like, “Oh, I'm hooked. This is it.” And that's when I decided I'm going to give cooking a whirl.

HOST: ALICE CHENG
Wow. And that's kind of a bold move, right? So you have your degree on the management side, which is great. And then now you're like, “OK, well, I'm going to give back of house a try. I'm going to go cook.” How does one make that kind of transition?

GUEST: TRACY MALECHEK-EZEKIEL
Well, it's funny because my friend who was running the kitchen for that, she was a sous chef at a nice restaurant in Houston. She was like, “Don't do this. It's terrible.” She was like, “Go do something else.” And she was– I think every chef has the friend or the parent or whoever who's like, “Are you sure? This is probably not a good idea.” And I was like, “No, I'm going to give this a real actual shot.”
So actually after college, I took six months off and went to Barcelona to learn Spanish and took some classes there, and that's where I learned about going to the boqueria and seeing all these beautiful fresh ingredients. It sounds kind of cliche to say, but I’d just never really seen that. I grew up in Tomball, Texas which was like a country kind of town suburb at the time, and everything was in a grocery store, and the apple section was red delicious apples. And I had never seen langoustine and just all of these really beautiful seafood items. And so there I had an opportunity to get outside of my bubble, and I kind of knew that I wanted to live in a different city and actually definitely start cooking.
So then I went to Chicago where I had a friend, and I visited him a few times before. And I love this little restaurant in Chicago called Lula Cafe in Logan Square. Neighborhoody but like seasonal. They had a farm dinner every Monday night that changed every week. And I'd heard about Chez Panisse in the Bay Area, and Houston didn't have a lot of restaurants like that at that time. And so I knew Chicago was the right place, and I knew I really wanted to work at this particular restaurant, Lula. I also considered New York at that phase of my life, but I felt like I was at least aware of my greenness and that New York would probably pick me up and spit me out where I was.

HOST: ALICE CHENG
I don't know, you seem pretty tough, so I wouldn’t…

GUEST: TRACY MALECHEK-EZEKIEL
Oh, it's been a journey. So I started cooking at Lula after a couple tryouts. Finally, they let me in, and Jason and Leah, the chef and co-owners, were just the best humans, really cared about their team. I learned how to hold a knife there. I learned how to move in a kitchen. I learned the basics of running a station, how to communicate.
Within the first few weeks, I realized, wow, I have a lot to learn, you know? And it was very humbling. Because I thought, I was like, “Oh, I have this shiny degree. I know about food. I've loved food my whole life. And I can taste if something's good or not.” But I had no idea how to get it there. I had no idea how to balance flavors. I had no idea of the fundamentals of any cuisine.
So I was with Jason and Leah for a year and a half. And I learned a lot actually. Jason Vincent, who's a really talented chef, started the first day at Lula that I started myself as a prep cook, him as a sous chef, and now he runs Giant and some other great restaurants in Chicago. But he kind of took me under his wing and gave me, like, the chef speak, and “this is how you should act” and “this is how you should hold yourself in the kitchen.”
And so even though I was new to it, I was in the right place at the right time. Like, his roommate was the opening CDC for Alinea that was opening. This was like 2005. Yeah, 2005. And so we'd have a little restaurant party on the weekend and I'd get to talk to those guys about what they were working on. And I realized that I had a long ways to go, but I really wanted to be ultimately trying to push for excellence, you know?
And so that was a really transformational time for me. ‘Cause I went from this, you know, person growing up in Houston, going to like music shows, kind of like into college, but not locked in, to moving to Chicago and working at Lula was like the time for me to be like, “Okay, I'm obsessed. I'm in it to win it. Let's go.” So after being in Chicago for a couple of years, then I went to move to upstate New York to attend CIA in Hyde Park.

HOST: ALICE CHENG
Yeah, and we hear that very often from leaders who are like, if you love it, even if you know you love it, go spend some time working in a kitchen for a little bit, and connect with it differently, and then make a decision how you want to potentially progress. Right? And so your progression took you to school to get some more formal training up at CIA. And from there, you're in New York now.

GUEST: TRACY MALECHEK-EZEKIEL
Yeah, well once in New York, and I guess something I missed is to echo your– or to continue your point. I knew before I made that investment in school, it needed to be the right one, because it certainly is not cheap, and it's only gotten more expensive in the past 20 years. And so I would just tell young folks considering that make sure you're really invested because it's not cheap. And you don't want to look back on that, and you're realizing, okay, being a line cook you're not making six figures. You got to pay off that debt and everything and just make sure that equation works and you're committed.

HOST: ALICE CHENG
Yeah. And also know that I'm not a chef, but from what I've heard, also there's different routes. You know, if you know this is what you want to do, there are other ways to progress as well. There's different training programs, there's different schools. There's also just continuing to work and finding kitchens or individuals that you're going to continue to learn from. But of course, the CIA is a wonderful place to be if that's what's in the cards for you. And then that also brought you into Manhattan after that.

GUEST: TRACY MALECHEK-EZEKIEL
Yeah, so I externed at CRU in 2007, with Shea Gallante, and he was the chef at Bouley for many years. Really talented guy. I learned a ton. He would make me test trays. Essentially, I was different stations commis. It was a very small but intense kitchen. The only thing we said was there weren't really conversations about feelings or anything. It was just put your head down, and be invisible, and don't mess it up. But I learned a ton, and he really emphasized balance and technique and make it delicious. You had to make it beautiful and delicious both. And I really felt those are my big two takeaways, you know? And so essentially I was a commis for every station. And then after I worked every station my last two weeks, he'd give me a test tray and give me, I don't know, 30 minutes or an hour. And I'd have to make a dish for him. And then he'd critique it.
And it was the coolest externship. I mean, I wasn't making very much money at all, but it was truly a big education. You're all working six days a week in those days, it’s just a little bit different generation, but I was so excited to just be learning and getting better. So after that, I was a TA–teaching assistant– in the meat and fish room at CIA for a bit, because I wanted to learn a little bit more about fish and meat and just kind of getting better at the craft. I was reading French Laundry cookbook, and that's all about the details and the monotony of every day, but make sure you're getting better at your task every single day.

HOST: ALICE CHENG
And obviously those are things that don't go out of style. Those learnings just keep coming back in different forms. And so, I'm taking a look, you've spent quite some time at some really amazing businesses here in the New York City area as well. So take me through your career journey through some of these kitchens.

GUEST: TRACY MALECHEK-EZEKIEL
Sure. So I started at Del Posto after culinary school. Mark Ladner was the chef, really smart guy. I cooked all the stations there. You know, for me, my big takeaway from Del Posto was A) volume, because we were doing 350-ish covers a night. And then we also got four stars from the New York Times, which was really incredible to be a part of and see kind of the work that goes behind that. And then technically speaking, I learned about pasta and how to pick it up in a pan and kind of what that meant. And then, whenever you take the pasta, how cooked it is, to the pan, and how long it should be in the pan, and the sauce it makes from the starch. And you know, all those little nuances that you only learn from doing over and over, I learned, and we actually apply here at Birdie’s.

HOST: ALICE CHENG
Awesome. I miss that restaurant and excited for Mark's new project. And then from there going up the Blue Hill. Very vegetable-forward. Also technique, tasty and beautiful.

GUEST: TRACY MALECHEK-EZEKIEL
Yeah, yeah. So Dan also worked with Bouley. And so there was like moments of connection, you know.

HOST: ALICE CHENG
The network, man.

GUEST: TRACY MALECHEK-EZEKIEL
And I think what I loved about professional cooking is like, you kind of have these touchstones to the chefs that become your mentors, and seeing the food of their mentors, and that kind of all gets passed along. The work ethic, the technique, the tasting, the try to get better every time. You know, I think it's so cool how that's all connected. And I really loved what Blue Hill was doing with vegetable cookery particularly, and the respect for vegetables and freshness and a lot of reductions.
I think for me, when I left a restaurant, I thought about what do I want to focus on and learn next for myself? I think sometimes a lot of cooks, we all–I mean, I definitely did too–you get obsessed with moving up the ladder. And like, “Who's on roast? ‘Cause roast is the best.” Then you want to be saucier and sous chef. And yes, it's so important, but I think the significance of how you make a salad for your own personal skillset is what really matters. I think just building your own toolbox is so important. Something I wish I would have learned earlier, if I can just sneak this point in…

HOST: ALICE CHENG
Absolutely.

GUEST: TRACY MALECHEK-EZEKIEL
Communication skills. I don't feel like it maybe was coming up in that generation. There wasn't an emphasis on that. It was a little, you know, a little more direct style of communication, which they're…

HOST: ALICE CHENG
In one way. Sometimes.

GUEST: TRACY MALECHEK-EZEKIEL
Yeah, yeah. And I mean, that's how fine dining was, you know, 20, even more so 30, probably 40 years ago in New York and in France, etc. But I think really, if I was a cook and to do it again, I think one point from that time, I would be reading in my spare time, not only about cookbooks, but also about leadership skills, listening skills, things like that. I think as you're growing your skillset as a cook, it's also important if your goal is to be a chef and your goal is to perhaps have your own place as well. It's really important to also be learning those soft skills, and there's no time like the present.
So I think it's great to be acquiring skills as you go. Because I was just really obsessed with techniques and learning how to work a station. But then after I went to Gramercy Tavern and worked with Mike Anthony for five years. And that's also where it was kind of like a finishing school for me in terms of techniques, still very vegetable-forward, very fish technique cooking-forward, but Mike really was just a fantastic communicator and manager and leader. And I learned so much from him about how to talk to a team, and how you push for excellence respectfully, and really try to bring out the best in people.

HOST: ALICE CHENG
Yeah, he definitely has a way about him. We had just recently did an interview with him as well. So we're excited for all. I mean, I’m definitely seeing a common thread of connections of who worked with whom and what techniques and behaviors have been passed along. And it's exciting to see, you know, because we're kind of like one step back and looking in.
And so from there, now you're working in the Union Square Hospitality Group organization and you had a couple more things here at Untitled at The Whitney.

GUEST: TRACY MALECHEK-EZEKIEL
Yeah, so Mike was opening another restaurant with Danny in USHG, and I was a sous chef at that time, and I begged to go. I love Gramercy Tavern. Gramercy Tavern is to this day my favorite restaurant I've ever worked at, and I felt so connected to it. And we joke, when you go back to Gramercy, it's like you're coming back home. But I knew for myself, I wanted to learn how to open a restaurant, and I wanted to learn, to see how Mike Anthony did it. And so I begged him for like six months to please let me open this restaurant with him. And I finally wore him down. And it was all meant to be because that's where I met my husband and business partner, Arjav.

HOST: ALICE CHENG
Yeah, and the rest is history. So take me… Did you know from early on that you wanted to have your own restaurant one day or own business?

GUEST: TRACY MALECHEK-EZEKIEL
Yeah, yeah. I thought in college–and this is I think very common too for people in college or of that low 20s–is I want to have a restaurant by age of 30, you know, and I definitely said that out loud. For me, it wound up being I think 38, 39 when I opened Birdie’s. But you know what? That was definitely the right path because I was so confident with my skill set, with my people set, with kind of the creative outlook I had, and the partnership I had with Arjav, who's just fantastic in hospitality. Then I also was, you know, to be fully transparent, we were really scrappy on a budget when we opened Birdie’s. And we thought about having one of our friends who's a Master Somm do the wine list. And then we were like, “We can't afford to pay them what they deserve to be paid.”
And I was like, “Just do the wine list. Just make it. You have good taste in wine. It's going to be great.” And sure enough, he crushed it. I think Esquire named him the Wine Guru a couple of years ago, and he's just had a natural kind of connection to it, even though he was never a somm or anything.
So I think whenever we opened Birdie’s, because I didn't really miss a step, I felt like I did my time. I learned the station maybe and then some. Then I also think, like, my connection, me connecting to my creative elements–and for me that's like through music–we kind of piecemealed Birdie’s together.

HOST: ALICE CHENG
Yeah, it sounds like you've been training for all your life, right? With the soccer, you have high endurance, standing on your feet for long periods of time.

GUEST: TRACY MALECHEK-EZEKIEL
You know, cooking is a sport. It is no physical joke. And now that I no longer work a station, and I'm 43 now, there's some days I'm like, “Oh, the low back's hitting it a different way.” Because it truly is a sport.

HOST: ALICE CHENG
Yeah, and I'm smiling super wide, for those of you who are just listening and not watching, because we did– Spoiler alert. We did also do an interview with Arjav. And I don't know when these are going to be published and in which sequence. But he did attribute you, Tracy, nudging him a little bit to go ahead and do the wine. And I commented that great partnerships, both in life and business, are very difficult to find. That's really… I think that's a recipe for even greater success if you can find that. So kudos for the two of you. I wanted to make sure we had these interviews separate so we didn't kind of overshadow each other's timelines here.
OK, so now you're Birdies. What's next?

GUEST: TRACY MALECHEK-EZEKIEL
Well, you know, we are trying to–just like things I learned early on–trying to get better every day with what we're doing. I think something I learned early on from one of my first chefs was treat every restaurant you work at like you own it, just in terms of, like, if you see something on the ground, pick it up. If there's an issue, say something, not just being a passive “I'm just gonna do my job.” “I'm gonna ask questions, I'm gonna take ownership.”
I'm not saying work off the clock or anything like that ownership, I just mean really caring for your restaurant, because whenever we open Birdie’s, because I always thought like that, it was actually easier than running restaurants for other people. Because it's like, oh this is just what I do, you know? And things like, especially as people think about opening a restaurant, I think getting the business plan together, raising capital, those are the things we had never done as restaurant people. So that was the hard thing. So once we got through construction, it was like, “Oh, we have this restaurant? Now we know what we're doing. We know how to run the restaurant, we can get it going.”
So I think once you kind of overcome that learning curve, running it is just like, now we're in a group and we have our, you know, hired an amazing team that we're so fortunate to have. And we're always thinking, we do a lot of pop-ups, in-house mostly. So Heejae, our Executive Sous Chef, does jibbop. Essentially it's like a Korean homecoming food that her mother would cook for her, but a little elevated. But we do that as a prefix-style and then. We do Aiello's twice a year, which is a red sauce pop-up in honor of my late grandfather, Phil Aiello. And then we do Bistro Remy right before Christmas for a couple of weeks, which is just French bistro food. We went with my son Remy two Mays ago and had a great time with him. And so we just thought Bistro Remy would be sweet.
So yeah, I think we're always… we're never really settled. We're always kind of evolving. Right now we’re looking at how can we be more creative? We're lucky to be a busy restaurant. We have a small kitchen, we cook à la minute, and that's really challenging to be boiling pasta to order, putting in the pan to order when you have 75 seats. We are–I should touch upon–we're a counter-service restaurant, serving fine dining food and with a fantastic wine list. So what does that mean? It's the same ingredients as you find in a fine dining restaurant, the same techniques, but in a counter-service kind of model. So guests walk up, wait in line if there is a line–there typically is on a Friday, Saturday–but then we serve wine in line and non-alcoholic beverages. They grab their flag, they sit down, and then it transitions to a full service restaurant experience where we have servers checking in on them, seeing how they're doing.
But what this allows us to do, it allows us to take care of our team in a really meaningful way because we have less employees. So fantastic benefits. We have a flat tip pool. We tip everyone out who's with us, just flat. So I think in coming up through New York fine dining, I saw the disparity of pay and that always… it was just so extreme. I was making–myself and my colleague cooks were making like $22-25K, if that. And then the captains were making over a hundred [thousand]. And that was just bonkers to me, because we were all professionals, you know. They're fantastic at their jobs too, but I just felt like someday if I have my own place, we're going to do things different. And so that's what we're doing in our jobs.

HOST: ALICE CHENG
That's how it happens.

GUEST: TRACY MALECHEK-EZEKIEL
Yeah. And so, you know, I think a little bit of the why, why we do what we do, is to take care of our team. We close for a month a year and pay everybody two weeks over winter break around the holidays and two weeks in August, paid time off. And so that's, I think, just really important to do this. So we've always been kind of unique in our approach and really being uncompromising in terms of our values and our philosophy of not wanting to compromise on what we're serving and the hospitality we're providing, but also prioritizing our team and making sure they're great. And our team is awesome. My exec sous chef's been with me since day one, Heejae. Phil, my sous chef, my AM sous chef, has been with us for three and a half years. Ethan, my lead line cook, almost three. It's just such an honor, and I can't emphasize taking care of your team enough. But just to answer your question, we're thinking about some menu things and how we can restructure things and evolve to the next chapter. That's what's next.

HOST: ALICE CHENG
I love it. I love it. And you answered like six other questions that I had potentially in there as well. I'm going to add on to your comment about how you thoughtfully structured your team, and the benefits, and how you're going to treat them based upon experience, etc. And that's one of the things with this industry, it continues to evolve. And as we see more leaders that have now stepped into their leadership role, whether they're the owner or they're just leading in a different business. And they get to set the rules. They're taking all their experiences and the things that they had wished for while they were coming up and applying that. And it's really amazing to see, because each one of you and the decisions that you're making are not only impacting your business and your guests and the people that work for you, but the overall industry as a whole. I think businesses will continue to evolve and try to figure out what is that balance of taking care of yourself, your team, your guests, your business, and what works best. It's like a constant kind of re-evaluation. So thank you for sharing that.
I was gonna ask you how you continue to stay inspired and what keeps you going. But your last couple comments, you could see it in your face. You could see that. I love doing these because when people start talking about things they're passionate about and they really believe in, it's very, very obvious. And it's infectious, so thank you. I have no other questions about that stuff. But what I do have are quick-fire questions.

GUEST: TRACY MALECHEK-EZEKIEL
Okay, do it.

HOST: ALICE CHENG
All right. What advice would you tell your younger self?

GUEST: TRACY MALECHEK-EZEKIEL
I would say take a deep breath and enjoy the ride. On your days off, yes read, yes push yourself, but I'm just naturally a pretty intense person. And it's funny, Mark Ladner one day told me, he was like, “You just need to relax, like go to the park on the weekend, like get in touch with nature.” And I was like, “Chef, what are you talking about?” You know what I mean?
So I would just say don't forget to relax, recharge, reset. Even though you're young and you have your energy, don't forget to just reset and take a minute to breathe.

HOST: ALICE CHENG
What's your advice for someone struggling in the industry?

GUEST: TRACY MALECHEK-EZEKIEL
Like how so, “struggling”?

HOST: ALICE CHENG
Struggling with whether or not this is the industry for them. Which is a great question because there's a lot of different things that people can struggle with.

GUEST: TRACY MALECHEK-EZEKIEL
Yeah, I mean, this is a tough question because as I really want to professionalize our industry, it's not for everyone. I think there are so many sectors within our industry that you can do that are food-adjacent, that are beverage-adjacent, that are hospitality-adjacent, that maybe just ask yourself, what about the industry initially attracted you to it? And if what you're doing isn't working, maybe explore something in that place that you love, but that's just a little bit different.

HOST: ALICE CHENG
Yeah, I love that. I mean, that's why we do these Hospitality Career Paths. It's like everything that you worked for and what you learned is not for nothing. It's more about how do you apply that to something that you may be now more passionate about?

GUEST: TRACY MALECHEK-EZEKIEL
Such a journey.

HOST: ALICE CHENG
It is. Never a dull moment. What's your advice for fellow hospitality leaders?

GUEST: TRACY MALECHEK-EZEKIEL
Advice for fellow hospitality leaders… This is tough because everyone has their own style and their own voice. I would say just being true to yourself. Ask yourself what you want and find a way to make it happen. Don't feel like you have to do something because that's the only way you've seen it done. Don't be afraid to innovate and question things and make it better.

HOST: ALICE CHENG
I love that. On that note, Tracy, thank you so much for taking the time to share your time, your career steps as well as advice. I will say your bite was one of my favorite bites at the Southern Smoke Foundation event this past October. I really enjoyed that egg. Anyway, on that note, thank you so much. It's nice to see you and we look forward to hearing and seeing more from you.

GUEST: TRACY MALECHEK-EZEKIEL
Thanks for having me.

HOST: ALICE CHENG
Remember, success looks different for everyone in hospitality. No two paths are the same. If you have a leader or a topic you want to hear about, email [email protected].
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