A Chef's Entire Routine, From Waking Up To Dinner Prep | Allure

i'm kristen kish i'm a chef and this is how i work it i'm going to take you through 24 hours of my beauty and wellness routine food to me is my love language i know we've all read that book we all know which ones we are food needs to be right in there i've been in this industry for over 15 years give or take arlo gray opened june of 2018 i'm the executive chef and partner i went to culinary school in chicago had my first executive chef position at 24. i eventually went on tv won top chef season 10 in seattle hosted a show on travel channel called 36 hours in partnership with the new york times wrote a cookbook kristen kish cooking recipes and techniques and i have a new tv show called fast foodies most challenging part of being a chef we miss holidays and special occasions and we work weekends it's hard for me to say there's a negative because i live and breed this industry i love it it's what i feel good at it's what i am most confident in the most rewarding part to working in a restaurant whether you're the chef or you're a part of the team is when that team vibes and you create that family that is a bond like you will never ever have good morning to 6 a.m austin time i kind of enjoy now more than i ever have waking up when it's still just a little bit dark out there's a piece and like this calm that i need going into perhaps not a very calm day beauty and wellness what is that just kidding i think it's funny that i'm even here talking about beauty and wellness because i just quit smoking i always start with about a pint of water i like to freshly juice lemon and ginger if you need a juicer the omega juicer is like so good and so i do a couple tablespoons of this concentrate with cold water i have to drink my water cold and then from there i typically have three coffees with my first coffee um i get started on emails my first hour and a half that i'm up is like my meditation it's my quiet time it's the only thing that i ever have consistent in my life is water coffee and a shower that's it some days i don't even take a shower i'm not gonna lie i swear i don't smell i am korean and i don't produce body odor it's like a fun fact that i like to talk about at parties if i could figure out how to bottle up that gene let's all take a minute and think about this i feel like we could all benefit we are now all part of the same business plan and we're all rich now first time i think i've ever recorded myself in the bathroom oh wait i do have something that's like beautyish i am obsessed with my teeth i use an electric toothbrush uh i'm accused of using too much toothpaste but i feel like this is an appropriate amount i do use a lot of floss because i like to feel like each tooth is getting a clean piece and i whiten them religiously so i use crushed white strips i probably use them a couple times a month i like nice teeth i appreciate nice teeth i like to keep them white i've never had braces i've never been to an orthodontist a day in my life i don't know my birth parrot so whoever gave me these teeth thank you very much here we go the majority of my life i use dove bar soap i use on my face i use that on my body sometimes if i got real lazy i used it in my hair i did kind of have a little glow up i started buying this bar soap that's a french brand that's like ph balanced with the g don't know how to pronounce it pretty sure it ends with two e's and then i rinse it off pretty riveting material i still use dove soap on the body and then there's a little two ounce lotion that cost me like 45 dollars which is like mind-blowing to me that you'd spend that much on lotion but i got obsessed with it because i love the way it smells and then my lotion again very fancy for me because i was for a long time user of just a cheap bottle of lotion from cbs i feel like i learned putting it on my face like this in like magazines or something and i remember someone is definitely cringing right now and i always do my neck i moisturize and that is all you want on your face because there's nothing worse than opening up an oven a steam oven and then like if you had mascara on or other makeup it would just it would probably like cake to your face pro tip with me in my hair when i'm greasy in it because i have very coarse thick asian hair just sometimes just wipe the rest of my hair pre-coded i had buzz sides and like you know kind of like a cloth thing and i would get haircuts every week and a half i've always wanted to shave my head and i eventually did not too long ago a few months ago also again because coved i had to learn how to buzz my own hair so i give myself my own haircuts now which is really fun it's a one it's a two it's a three and then it's a grazing of a four so if we probably look a little close and i like turn you'll see a line that i didn't know how to blend but what are you gonna do the only makeup i ever wear and it's only because i'm when i'm in front of a camera i'll do this black eyeshadow about this big and i think i bought it from cvs like eight years ago and i still have it because that's how often i don't wear makeup and then some neutrogena like mascara and that's it carmix that's all after i do the coffee water shower brush your teeth i'm obsessed with ironing so i need all my aprons and my shirts to be freshly pressed i feel like it's also worth noting that um i love a lint roller so anything that's dark typically my hat my jeans aprons i do like to roll so i have full kind of sleeves i guess from on both arms and then a couple of a few like small things on my neck when tattoos are fresh i like to use aquaphor paw paw or you know whatever kind of vaseline stuff you have on it and then after that i just use a vino lotion just like as if i didn't have a tattoo i always like my arms moisturized sometimes i forget about my legs because i'm wearing pants and then you put your jeans on and then you just don't take your jeans off and put it back on but my arms are mostly always exposed in some way so i do remember to do that and then my hands and my right on my lips and that's it bloodstones are amazing they are waterproof and heat proof like you pour boiling water on that toe and you're not going to feel anything when i'm working in the kitchen the last thing i do is kind of care about everything that's happening i want to feel good in like my apron and my shirt i'm very specific some people call me high maintenance ultimately the running river that ties everything together in my life is comfort and efficiency i am so specific with how i want to feel whether it's what soap i use or what shirt i choose to wear those are all driven because growing up i was struggling with my sexuality and i was trying to fit into a world as a straight asian woman i wanted to fit into like this like quintessential feminine world that i was supposed to follow and so i would put on the short shirts and like i'd grow my hair out and you know and put on eye shadow and wear these shirts that just were so uncomfortable to be in and because i think i distinctly remember so vividly like the discomfort that i felt in those moments for much of my life i am so specific now in finding and doing the exact opposite so now i throw myself into like kristin what makes you feel comfortable and i become so obsessed with what that looks like and what that feels like to me from the inside out now we have the accessory of the ear which is a mask and now we can go arlo grey is housed in the line hotel right downtown i live in the hotel so i have a very simple commute push the elevator button and i ride the elevator down hang a right and i'm in my restaurant i'll swing through the coffee shop down on the lower level i'll get another coffee just to kind of sip throughout the day always drink your coffee from a reusable or a eco-friendly straw because it keeps your teeth white when i walk through the restaurant your eyes never shut off from looking at anything so i'm constantly looking the floors the tables if there's dust that needs to be wiped in a restaurant consistency is huge i need the candles to always sit to the left of the flower vase if you're standing at sea one position one at a table if you talk restaurants you all know what that means within a matter of 10 seconds from elevator to kitchen door walking through the dining room i have scanned the entire room and i checked the reservations like neurotically i'll say hello to the front of the house and then i work my way into the kitchen and in the kitchen chef alex mark being shy martine gwen spencer darby oh my gosh so many people opening a restaurant is unlike anything that you can really fully explain it is this adrenaline feed that just keeps going i lived in austin for two years through construction picking plate wearing glassware and the forks and setting up the kitchen and writing menus and doing food costing is a lot of time in front of a computer like nearly 20 plus hours a day when we were first opening i was there till about 11 30 at night and then i would show up at 5 30 in the morning because we opened for breakfast at 6am so anywhere from 18 19 hours a day right at the beginning to now i have a really fantastic team my daily operations within the restaurant look very very different than they did two years ago my job now is to keep a standard keep an expectation doing a lot of edits reviews that kind of stuff and you know be present during during service for my team it's the only thing that ever feels so natural to me in my entire life is working in restaurants truthfully one of my favorite things are all my little notebooks so these are pages from my actual notebooks that we use as art our menu at arlo gray typically when people ask hey kristen what's your food and i'm like well that's really hard i grew up in the midwest of very comfortable like comfort food meat and potatoes and a lot of box things so for me it's rooted in french technique italian influence through pasta but ultimately it's a story of my life good food is good food but great food comes with a story the most popular dish on my menu is a house made muffaldini we make it beautifully through our gorgeous italian pasta extruder and then i do a champion sauce which is essentially just a fancier word for mushroom sauce it's like salty it's umami but that dish was inspired off of my love of hamburger helper restaurants define a true culture and sense of place we aren't just there to serve you we're there to define hospitality and and leave you with a memory hopefully a good one and to be able to do that through the medium of food it's like how amazing is that you know every day is not rainbows and butterflies and every day there are challenges but at the end of the day we are there to provide an active service which i feel like is the greatest thing and the world needs more of them i'm again neurotic about my nails because of my profession so i have to keep them short they are considered long when you can see like the nail come just slightly above i just trimmed them this morning i probably cut them one or two times a week just to keep them this length and then i started doing a clear coat just because when i look it down at my hands i kind of like when like it hits the light i don't know that's like my fan like i got fancy with clear narrow nail polish my mentor barbara lynch is definitely a trailblazer she saw things in people you know we weren't capable of seeing in ourselves and so without her i would have never put myself out there in a way that i could be judged she's the one who put me forth for top chef and i was like i do not want to do top chef it was something i never ever really ever wanted to do but she looked at me straight in my eyes and this was a point where like women in the industry was even far less of a thing we talked about than we do now but she was like women need to be in front of the camera women you need to represent for women chefs you can go on this show you can win it i know you can do it so you're going and you have no choice here i am like a completely shy insecure awkward socially anxious kind of person in a lot of different ways and then she throws me on tv and then eventually i did well my whole life just kind of flipped upside down from that point forward for her to see something in me basically gave myself permission through her to be exactly who i am and allow that to shine because i'm not meant to be anybody other than myself whether i'm in front of a camera or not i have a new show coming out on truetv it's called fast foodies experience a gourmet twist on fast food me and two other chefs basically invite a celebrity guest into our kitchen uh we cook their favorite fast food and then we kind of remix it into like this weird contorted like our chef brains take over you said your favorite part of the hot dog was the poppy seed bun so i'm going to give you little mini sardinian yocatini does that look like your little poppy seed bun it's beautiful yeah kristen won everybody everyone offers hair and makeup i typically say no to be honest i'm like i don't want stuff on my face if you want you can just put a little bit of powder here because this becomes like a headlight but again if i'm cooking the last thing i want to do is look like i'm wearing makeup we're about five minutes before service 20 minutes before our first reservation so every year is ready and set team setting up say hello it's a very very special dining experience here when you work in restaurants and i think a lot of people will mirror the sentiment is that you always have to remain on like the verge of hunger because if you're too full and then you're around food and you're like ill this is gross and then when i know i'm kind of slowing down and the night is kind of coming to an end i'll do like my main sweep through the dining room that kind of marks the end of the evening and then i'll typically start shoveling food in my face so as chefs we eat standing up most the time out of plastic containers over trash can and that is my preferred way of eating typical day in the restaurant i probably don't go to bed till midnight by the time i take a shower i do my whole nighttime thing like my adrenaline is still going like i'm still in the mode of restaurants and i could be physically tired that my brain's not yet so i watch a lot of videos like youtube videos on my phone to go to bed like i can't just like zonk out okay laura it is time for me to put myself to bed thank you so much for following along and i hope to see you at arlo grey someday there's always this one thing whenever i first close my eyes and i have a pillow i always have a pillow that i like to hug and i've named it susie so no matter where it is it's susie and bianca really loves having susie with us she doesn't so i i get susie i hug her and whenever i first shut my eyes there's always a there's always a picture there's always a thing like one item that immediately comes into my brain so it could be like i shot my eyes and i'm like oh pine cone and so my weird ocd self needs to say it out loud sometimes so i'm like pinecone and then bianca's like got it and then that's it so weird good night so i do want to take a minute and address the fact that we are still in a worldwide pandemic and by no means am i taking away anything from any other industry but speaking from my point of view and my experience uh restaurants are in a tough spot um so many have already closed which is incredibly heartbreaking millions of people have lost their jobs and it's tough it's really tough but there are ways to support not only do you have takeout and delivery you can buy gift cards they're merch um you know buying a meal and paying it forward if you don't live in that city and uh you know feeding or donating meals through a restaurant to frontline workers um you know there's organizations like the independent restaurant coalition and roar new york and ways to kind of keep on fighting the fight so i do want to encourage everyone to um give it a search find out your local organizations give back if you are able small actions make big impacts when we work together um as a group of united people so um that's all

Channel: Allure

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Keywords: work it, work it allure, pro chef, work it 2021, pro chef daily routine, arlo grey chef, fast foodies chef, allure chef, work it routine, work it chef, kirsten kish austin, kristen kish chef, chef daily routine, kristen kish, kristen kish fast foodies, kristen kish top chef, chef kristen, kristen kish beauty, kristen kish interview, chef routine, kristen kish 2021, kristen kish arlo grey, kristen kish dishes, kristin kish, kristen kish restaurant, kris kish, allure

Id: iYAMqBzndac

Length: 16min 47sec (1007 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 16 2021