Chef's PSA Podcast

Chef Matt McCallister is the Food and Wine Best New Chef 2014, three-time James Beard Award finalist, and one of a handful of chefs to ever receive a five-star review from the Dallas Morning News. He opened FT33 in Dallas in 2012, followed it with Homewood, and is now opening River Sing, a 24-seat tasting menu restaurant in Fair Park, Dallas, in fall 2026. He has been sober since 2016.
This episode is the less glamorous side of the chef world that people do not talk about.
How the success of FT33 accelerated access to every vice that was already available, and what that looked like by 2016
The morning he called his business partner's wife two days before Valentine's Day, ready to say something stern, and she answered and said Michael's dead
What imposter syndrome actually feels like when you move from being one of the best fine dining chefs in Texas to being a food and beverage director at a casual dining group
André Natera and Matt McCallister trace the full arc from FT33's peak to Homewood's collapse to getting sober to disappearing from public view to building River Sing. The conversation covers the intervention, the shame of public failure, what forgiveness actually costs over time, and why he is doing it again. River Sing is named after a line in a Grateful Dead song and his lifelong love of fly fishing in the Arizona mountains. It enters through a courtyard garden. It opens this fall. It is 24 seats.
Guest
Matt McCallister on Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/matthewt.mcallister/
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/
Lead Like a Chef App → https://studio.com/apps/andre/leadlikeachef

Hanalei Souza is the sous chef, author, and content creator behind @ladylinecook, one of the most recognized culinary humor and leadership voices on Instagram with 88,000 followers. She has been in the industry since 2018, has worked at the same restaurant for seven years in a mountain town, and is the self-published author of the kitchen memoir "Nice Work, Boys!" She started making cooking videos on YouTube at age 14, posted with no audience for 11 years, and went viral on Instagram in 2022. She was flown to Texas by commercial kitchen equipment brand Cuchimix, which is how she ended up at Just Push Record Studios in Austin for this episode. The episode was also recorded twice because André forgot to press record the first time.
This episode opens with the night a man was literally on fire outside her restaurant. Hanalei grabbed a kitchen fire extinguisher, pulled the pin, chased him down the street, helped save his life, and then went back inside to finish the last three hours of service. That is the opening story. It gets better from there.
Why a title earns zero automatic respect in a kitchen and how the only path to genuine authority is being the person who can actually do every job in the building
What the night she burned $300 in New York strips as a new sous chef taught her about leadership, integrity, and why a good chef does not fire you for one mistake
Why creators who build their platform by complaining about the industry are doing more damage than the toxic kitchens they claim to expose
André Natera and Hanalei Souza cover the clipboard fear she had as a line cook and why she now runs four of them, why 80 percent of her job as sous chef is still hands on the food, the transition from being everyone's friend on the line to being the person responsible for their stations, and the social media conversation that the culinary world needs to have about what viral actually means and who it serves. The episode closes with her Mount Rushmore of chefs, her Mount Rushmore of culinary content creators, and a shoutout to Cuchimix and the women's chef coat she co-created with Funky Chef.
Guest
Hanalei Souza on Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/ladylinecook/
Lady Line Cook Website → https://www.ladylinecook.com/
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/
Lead Like a Chef App → https://studio.com/apps/andre/leadlikeachef

Chef RJ Yoakum is the chef de cuisine at Michelin-recommended Sushi Kozy in Dallas, a kaiseki-inspired omakase restaurant from chef-owner Paul Ko. A 2025 James Beard Award finalist for Emerging Chef, he previously led the kitchen at Georgie in Dallas to its first Michelin recommendation and trained at The French Laundry, Angler, and The Clove Club in London.
He is 32 years old. He has trained in some of the most demanding kitchens in the world. And in this episode, he says that the more successful he became in Dallas, internally he was broken.
Why four excellent elements on a plate always beat seven mediocre ones, and how learning to edit is what separates mature cooking from the need to prove yourself
How cooking meat and fish whole on the bone and portioning after service protects yield, improves consistency, and teaches teams to develop real judgment instead of following a timer
What nobody tells you when you leave a three-star kitchen to lead your own, why the resume gets you in but culture has to be built from zero, and why the army disappears the moment you need it most
André Natera and RJ Yoakum cover the TFL classics that shaped his approach, the asparagus question of when technique serves the ingredient versus when it gets in the way, the mentorship of David Breeden and Thomas Keller and what it actually transferred, the imposter syndrome that followed his success in Dallas, and the leadership lessons that only made sense once he was on the other side of them. The episode closes with his Mount Rushmore, rapid fire questions, and what he is building at Sushi Kozy.
This episode is sponsored by Rational USA. Learn more at https://rationalusa.com

Todd Duplechan and Jessica Maher are the husband-and-wife chef-owners of Lenoir, a MICHELIN Guide restaurant in Austin's Bouldin Creek neighborhood open since 2012. They also formerly owned Métier Cook's Supply next door and opened Boni's Bar, a Spanish drinks and bites concept, in Spring 2026. Todd is a native Texan who trained at The Danube under David Bouley and served as chef de cuisine at the Four Seasons Austin before opening Lenoir. Jessica cooked through the Bouley restaurant family and at Tabla with Floyd Cardoz and Gray Kunz before moving to Austin. They met through the Bouley restaurants and have built Lenoir together for 14 years.
This episode is about the gap between technically skilled and genuinely great, and what it actually takes to close it.
Why great cooking is built through process, patience, and accumulated experience, and why social media trends actively work against that development
The foundational cookbook list every serious cook should own, from Ducasse's Grand Livre de Cuisine to Jacques Pépin's La Technique to Paul Bertolli's Cooking by Hand
How mentorship through observation, athletic team dynamics, and genuine hospitality have kept Lenoir evolving for 14 years without losing what makes it worth returning to
André Natera, Todd Duplechan, and Jessica Maher cover Todd's stage at The Danube, being hired, and the 12-course meal at the pass that changed how he understood professional cooking, how they met through the Bouley restaurant family, what separates cooks who develop into great chefs from those who plateau, and the teamwork and hospitality philosophy that has driven Lenoir's 14-year evolution. The episode closes with rapid fire kitchen gear, the chef Mount Rushmore, and the story behind Métier and Boni's Bar.
Guest
Todd Duplechan on Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/duplechananigans/
Lenoir on Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/lenoiratx/
Boni's Bar on Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/bonisbaratx/
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/
Lead Like a Chef App → https://studio.com/apps/andre/leadlikeachef

Chef Brian Lewis is the founder and CEO of Full House Hospitality Group and a three-time James Beard Award finalist for Best Chef Northeast, with nominations in 2018, 2022, and 2025. A Culinary Institute of America and Johnson and Wales University graduate, he apprenticed under Jean Louis Palladin, Marco Pierre White, and Eric Ripert before becoming the founding executive chef of Richard Gere's The Bedford Post Inn, which earned Esquire's Best New Restaurant in 2009 and an Excellent review from The New York Times. In 2015 he founded Full House Hospitality Group, which now operates The Cottage in Westport and Greenwich, Connecticut, and OKO in Westport and Rye, New York, with 125 employees across four locations.
This episode opens with a story about a job interview that most chefs would have walked away from. Lewis did not walk away. He secretly prepared an eight-course meal before anyone asked, controlled the entire tasting, and landed the role that gave him what he calls a PhD in opening and operating a restaurant from the ground up.
How he built Full House Hospitality Group around a single principle: only expand when operations can thrive without you in the room
Why empowering teams with genuine autonomy inside defined guardrails is the only leadership model that scales across four restaurants and 125 people
How strategy and psychology replaced technique as his primary tools when he made the shift from chef to CEO
André Natera and Brian Lewis cover the identity shift required when a chef stops being the creative voice in the kitchen and starts leading other chefs to express theirs, the role of kindness as a non-negotiable management standard, navigating reviews and social media pressure across multiple concepts, and the research trip to Japan that preceded the launch of OKO. The episode closes with rapid fire kitchen gear, stocks and dashi minimalism, and the chef Mount Rushmore.

Guest
Brian Lewis on Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/brianlewischef/
Full House Hospitality on Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/fullhousehg/
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/
Lead Like a Chef App → https://studio.com/apps/andre/leadlikeachef