Thursday, March 28, 2024

‘Hustle & Soul’ Star Chef Lawrence Page: ‘I Feel Like The Guy That Made It Off The Plantation’ [EUR Exclusive]

*“I not only sell food, I sell an experience,” Chef Lawrence Page tells EUR/Electronic Urban Report. “And not only the experience, I sell history. I sell the Pink Tea Cup.”

When the 55-year-old Pink Tea Cup closed in 2009, manager Lisa Ford blamed the city, but new owner and longtime regular Lawrence Page (who previously owned J’Adore) resurrected it and began a quest to garner the coveted Michelin Star.

“The time it takes to cook a steak is the same time it takes to cook a hamburger,” he noted of the advice his mother once gave him. “She said, ‘Go for the steak, son.’”

Chef Lawrence is back with a drama-filled new season of his WE tv docuseries “Hustle & Soul” — following his big plans to expand the Pink Tea Cup brand.

When we caught up with Chef Lawrence last year to discuss the debut of the series, he explained that his greatest challenge was trying mold his staff into Michelin elite. This time around he tells us:

“We’re almost there because the first season was “learning” for everybody. Sometimes you have to see what family is. So we had to go through a lot of Tylenol. After we took those Tylenols we had to wake up the next day from our drama hangovers and come back together,” he explained. “Once you get the bumps and bruises out the way, I think that’s when you can actually move forward. So now that my staff is finally getting it, I think they’re finally getting it, I think we’re on the path to getting that Michelin star.”

But Chef Lawrence says that elite star status is “not really the biggest accomplishment this year.”

“This new season is about trying to get to Miami so I can bring the staff with me and elevate and go to the next level,” he said.

“Our new restaurant is in Miami/South Beach. It’s 7000 square feet, so we’ll have a lot more staff than we had last year. We’re going to elevate the hospitality to that next level. So now that we got all the B.S. out the way from the first year, everybody knows we’re stepping up our game.”

Meanwhile, his girlfriend and general manager Ana is the jealous-type, so the ensuing bickering and cat-fighting will certainly leave viewers wondering if his staff has what it takes to become Michelin elite.

Get the scoop from Lawrence and Ana below.

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What you reflect on season one, what were some of the more obvious mistakes you made that you had to get right together before rolling into season two?

Chef Lawrence: I learned that I gotta stop saying yes to everything and stop being overly nice to my staff. I had to learn how to have tough love because I sat back and watched who wanted to really grow with me and not everybody wanted to grow with me. I learned who wants to step up their game. Even the food. I had to step up my game with the food. I liked what we did last year. It was average. It was basic southern and now we’re putting a Latin twist on it because, as you know, my baby mama is Latin.

It’s very important that I take her culture and add it to mine so we can continuously grow. The next level is I want to empower these women around me. Instead of just being waiters and bartenders, I want to empower each person so they can have an avenue of their own, and stop fighting each other. 

Talk about your influence in the soul food realm of the culinary world.

Chef Lawrence: There’s black chefs all over the world. No matter where I eat at, if they find out I’m sitting down eating, it’s weird because they’ll come out and bow down to me. I hate to put it this way, but I feel like I’m the guy that made it off the plantation. They look at it like, “You’re paving a way for us in the culinary world.” I didn’t realize how black chefs go through so much in these high-end restaurants and not being able to shine and become executive chefs.

Is it important for you to stay current on culinary trends?

Chef Lawrence: I don’t follow chefs but I can tell you where my biggest inspiration to keep things popping comes from, and that’s my partner Ana. I’m gonna let her answer that question because she’s the one that likes to dig in and find these things all over the country and Europe and try these different things. She’s really into that social game of watching who’s doing what and how we need to bring it to the forefront.

Ana: I watch trends. I really like to find new spices. I’m always looking for new ingredients from different countries. I always bring it to Lawrence, like “Hey, why don’t you taste this? How do you like this? Try this/try that and see what you want to do with this.”…. And he creates!

How vital is social media to your marketing and branding strategies?

Ana: Social media is possibly 60-70% of the marketing and branding. It is everything. People are on their phones and always looking for content. People are always putting up their food and looking for new places to eat and they go to Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and Snapchat — and that’s the new word of mouth that can travel to millions.

Chef Lawrence: We want everyone on social media seeing Pink Tea Cup/Hustle & Soul. When you go online, we want you to see us ‘cause that’s what drives business to us. A lot of people get on reality TV and they have nothing to sell. They don’t have a business model. My thing is, I’m glad I partnered with WE tv because I get to give them something and give them a great, successful show and let them do what they need to do with that and in turn they give me a great avenue to showcase my food and become the chef that I need to become, especially being self-taught and not going to culinary school.

Most guys wouldn’t have given me a chance in the kitchen so I had to develop my own and actually take it to television with WE tv. Most networks would have never touched this show. They say, “Why would we touch a show about an untrained black chef with drama?”

But hey — we’re real with ours.

What we do on that show is serious. I went through things as a chef trying to stay focus and getting caught up with women after women, waiter after waiter — that was a very touchy situation for me because you’re working 18 hours a day and you slip and I had to get therapy. Thank God Ana forgave me and worked with me to stop the nonsense that I was doing. It’s not easy for me.

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Your drama with the ladies last season certainly made for great TV. How does this season compare?

Ana: All I can say is Lord-t = with a “t” at the end. That’s how much drama is in there. It’s ridiculous this year.

Chef Lawrence: But I’m trying to be a better man, don’t you think?

Ana: No… Maybe.

How do you balance this relationship, parenthood, running the restaurant? Do you have to get away from each other in order to decompress?

Ana: It’s so funny you said that. Lawrence just told me that he likes to watch his tv alone. But when we work in the restaurant together, I don’t see him. We see each other but don’t see each other. We’re so focused on work.

Chef Lawrence: She only sees me when somebody has a big booty flashing it around me.

Ana: That’s the only thing he sees, big booties. But when we get home it’s like, “I didn’t see you all day today. How are you?”

Chef Lawrence: We balance it pretty well. I think my mom played a big part in it as well because I’ve been praying a lot and asking God to take away this lust that I’ve always had. Things are getting a lot better in my life, so now I’m able to balance the show and manage everybody’s personalities. I have faults. We have all faults and some people hide them but the world just so happened to see mine so I can’t hide it.

What do you find most rewarding about working with each other?

Ana: The most rewarding part about it, I’m a test-taster. I get to taste the food non-stop and that’s really fun because I get to create with him. I just love food and I like working with him and being able to help him create. 

Chef Lawrence: Ana always challenges me to do bigger and better things. I like that she pushes me. Ana is the reason why I am the #1 black chef in the country because she said, “You can do that, and I’m gonna make you do it.”

I remember sitting down the last couple of weeks in Miami on Lincoln Road, having coffee and a famous chef walks by me and I told him that I’m opening up a restaurant but he didn’t really hear me, and I don’t think he recognized who I was, but I think his wife did. So he comes back and he says, “Hello Chef. How are you?”

It’s people like Ana that pushed me to make people recognize that you’re going to respect who I am and you’re going to realize that I am the #1. That person was Marcus Samuelson from Red Rooster.

With all the challenges that come with running the business, does it ever take the fun out of simply being a chef?

Chef Lawrence: No one has ever asked me that question. You’re the first person in my career to ask me that, and that’s one of the best questions I’ve heard since I’ve been doing this. In the beginning, it was very-very hard for me because I was straight-up military style and I was very hard and I couldn’t find that soft balance. It was very difficult for me to find that and no matter how hard I tried to find it, it just wouldn’t come.  It’s gotten better because the staff has been helping me out. Ana has been helping me out. I’ve been learning and taking a couple of days off here and there — just spending some time by myself.

It’s kinda like when you find yoga. I find different things to help me balance so I’m not so hard on myself and the staff. So now when I go in the kitchen I have fun when I cook. When we create, we’re bad as hell in the kitchen. And then when I go out on the floor, I learn to separate it now. I know that my staff knows that Lawrence is changing. His blood pressure is coming down, so let’s do the right thing so we don’t raise his blood pressure so we can have our boss around. It’s great that everyone came together to help me balance that. Now I’m great in both areas but before I wasn’t. It was a mess. 

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What’s something new cooks often do wrong in the kitchen?

Chef Lawrence: They do everything by the books. A lot of new cooks don’t put love into it, and it’s okay because you’re supposed to do it by the books, right? Like, when I walk away and I leave something on that table I want it exactly like that, but then I tell my sous chef, “Look, I need you to put love into it.”

A lot of cooks don’t use common sense and they don’t use love and I think that’s what messes them up in the kitchen. Nothing is perfect in the kitchen and I tell cooks, it’s not how perfect you can prepare the food, if something comes back from the kitchen, can you prepare damaged food? That makes a great cook. If something comes back to the kitchen and it’s damaged, how fast can you get it fixed to send it back out? Problems are always coming up in this restaurant business and I try to teach my staff to look for the problems ‘cause that’s gonna make us great.

I once overheard a white woman say that soul food is not real food, and It kinda made me sad for her because she clearly has never had a savory southern meal.

Chef Lawrence: By me partnering with WE tv, we have changed that a lot. We have made history with soul food because soul food was never looked upon as a dining experience, and Pink Tea Cup, you have to come dressed up on the weekends for brunch and dinner. We make you respect the culinary game and respect the food that we call southern food because we grew up on southern food and we feel we shouldn’t have to pay $25 a plate for collard greens, chicken and mac. We feel we should be able to go get it in urban cities for $8 in a styrofoam container. I make it very sexy and now I see other chefs are doing the same thing.

Before, other chefs went to culinary school to cook different dishes and now they’re trying to push soul food because they realize Chef LP is making it happen. It’s a journey to make other people respect it but it’s gonna take other chefs and other restauranteurs to do what I’m doing.

Speaking of other chefs, now that they are jumping on the soul food bandwagon, certain foods are becoming painfully expensive. I was at the grocery store recently and was horrified to see a 6-pack of Oxtails was nearly $40.

Chef Lawrence: I was asked last year, “How do you feel about white chefs selling southern food in restaurants?” It stunned me and I said, “Well, if they do it let them do it. At least they’re bringing awareness to my culture and I respect that. I’m just gonna do it better.”

That’s a big thing that’s happening right now in America. A lot of chicken and collard greens and it’s being owned by people other than African-Americans. I’m just one guy that made it through. That war is never gonna stop so you don’t get mad at people, you watch them and then you do it better.

Tune in to “Hustle & Soul” Thursdays at 9/8c on WE tv.

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