Chef Joe Sasto reveals the Food Network star he shares a friendship tattoo with and how he started producing cooking videos that have garnered millions of views.
Chef Joe Sasto reveals the Food Network star he shares a friendship tattoo with and how he started producing cooking videos that have garnered millions of views. He shares how he met his creative and romantic partner and how they collaborate to produce his drool worthy videos. Joe talks about his journey to Michelin-star kitchens even without formal training and how those experiences shaped his passion for intimate dining and attention to detail. He shares the serendipitous story of how he landed at the pasta station and slowly fell in love with preparing pasta “fatto a mano” and what he thinks it takes to gain Michelin star recognition. Joe talks about nurturing relationships with Bay Area farmers and purveyors and how it has informed and influenced his point of view as a chef. He talks about the process of developing a packaged snack and what inspired the idea for his puffed pasta creation, Tantos. Joe shares his reaction to being named a Food Network Hotlister, what it was like to compete on Chopped, and what he is really thinking when he is on the other side of the table as a judge.
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Find episode transcript here: https://food-network-obsessed.simplecast.com/episodes/joe-sasto-on-those-viral-pasta-tiktok-videos
[MUSIC PLAYING] JAYMEE SIRE: Hello, and welcome to Food Network Obsessed. This is the podcast where we dish on all-things Food Network with your favorite Food Network stars. I'm your host, Jaymee Sire, and today, we have a social media sweetheart and super star chef on to talk about his passion for handmade pasta, his Michelin star background, and the friendship facial hair tattoo he has with another Food Network favorite.
He is a Bay Area chef, entrepreneur, content creator, Food Network hot lister, and he's competing on the new season of Tournament of Champions. It's Joe Sasto.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Joe, welcome to the podcast. We just had Justin Sutherland on the pod, and I saw on Instagram that you two have each other's facial hair tattooed on each other's bodies. So please, explain.
JOE SASTO: Yes, that is one way to put it. I prefer to think of it as like best friend tattoos.
JAYMEE SIRE: OK.
JOE SASTO: The friendship tattoos.
JAYMEE SIRE: Oh, that's nice.
JOE SASTO: long story short, I was visiting him and we went to his tattoo shop. And he gets all of his tattoos from same wonderful tattoo artist. And we're hanging out there, and he had surprised me and was like, oh, wouldn't it be really cool if we had matching friendship tattoos? And she had already drawn up the beard and the mustache, and he's like, let's do it. I was like, oh, my God. This is insane.
It's not my first tattoo. So I was already used to it, and it wouldn't have been like the first time getting ink. And I was like, oh, OK, maybe. I was like, first, I got to check with Bella, my partner. I was like, I can't just show up back home with a new tattoo. And so I texted her and was just like, "Hey, I'm with Justin, we just got to his tattoo shop hanging out." And then she responds immediately like a minute later, all caps, "Wouldn't it be awesome if you guys matching friendship tattoos?" And so--
JAYMEE SIRE: Was she on it?
JOE SASTO: On each other. No, had no idea, that just her response. I mean, how awesome of a partner is that, right?
JAYMEE SIRE: That is pretty incredible.
JOE SASTO: She's just instantly new. She's like, this is what you guys have to do. And so we did it. It was a very significant bonding moment for us, and it was a lot of fun. So yes, I have now an outline of his big beard on me, and he has the outline of the mustache on him. Excited to see what else the two of us have in store. We're forever friends.
JAYMEE SIRE: We are looking forward to seeing what's in store as well. But meanwhile, you are, I would say the social media king of carbohydrates. Your TikToks have broken 40 million views, your Instagram an amazing grid of color and texture. What inspired you to take to social media to showcase your personality and your pasta making?
JOE SASTO: First of all, the king of carbohydrates is a huge compliment. I love that title. Because it's not just pasta, it's bread and anything carbs. I'm into cookies, donuts, that is me. Social media was something that became very new right as I was getting into the, let's call it the television culinary scene. It was just kind of starting its birth and something that had not necessarily been in the forefront, food media.
And so I have been posting things and posting pictures of food and what I was doing, and it wasn't really until right at the beginning of COVID, March 2020, as lockdown started. And I was initially traveling, doing dinners and events and cooking for people, and that all obviously had to stop, we were in quarantine, we were at home. And I didn't really know what to do or what was going to happen next.
And so I just did what came naturally to me, and what made me happy was cooking. And I just made things that I wanted to make. I made pasta, I made pizza, all sorts of different recipes. And we just record it and post it online. Post the recipe, post things, and it just kind of snowballed from there, sharing those recipes with others. Then other people would make it. They would repost it, they would cook along, and they would do all these other things with it.
And it really just took off from that sense, where I was organically sharing and doing something I loved, and it just showed that power that food has to connect people with others. Seeing other people cook my food was the closest thing I got to cooking for other people during that whole time. And it was this really awesome exchange of gratification for me, people got recipes and got to cook as well, I gave them education and entertainment. And so it was like a win-win for everyone involved. And it's really just taken off exponentially from there.
JAYMEE SIRE: Yeah, I mean, it's really good and it has evolved over the course of time. So as a fellow content creator, do you still shoot and edit all of your own videos?
JOE SASTO: Yes.
JAYMEE SIRE: Wow.
JOE SASTO: I actually do. So I do about 90% of the shooting, I do 100% of the editing. My partner, Bella, is huge on the creative. And so everything creatively that you see is all her. A lot of the cinematography and the way that the style that we've developed, the aesthetic of the page, and everything. It's a huge team effort, it's not just entirely me. She's definitely a very hands-on in the process. But yeah, it's a full-time job and probably more than just the two of us can handle.
And so we've slowly grown our little team to have a couple of other people and parts and components, but all of the shooting and editing is done by me and her.
JAYMEE SIRE: Does she come from a creative background or is this something that she's also kind of learned on the fly?
JOE SASTO: Creativity is definitely in her blood. It's just something I think that comes naturally to her having an eye for art. And so she's a dreamer, she's very ethereal in that sense, always thinking about beauty in the world and all of those things. And so I draw a huge part of my inspiration from the way she looks at the world. And so, yes, we make a really great team the two of us.
JAYMEE SIRE: How did you guys meet?
JOE SASTO: We both met in the restaurant industry. So I was back of house, she was front of house. We were both working at Quince, which is a restaurant in San Francisco. I think I was a sous chef at the time, she might have been like an expediter or captain in the restaurant and would come around and bring iced tea and espresso at 4:30 right before service. Come to my station, oh, chef, here's your iced tea, here's your espresso. And I was like, oh, here's a little bite of pasta. And we have this cute little exchange of flirting with food. It just grew from there.
JAYMEE SIRE: What's been your favorite video so far that you guys have collaborated on?
JOE SASTO: There is one I could think of in particular that comes to mind. It's like a tortellini-making video. I can't even think how far back it is you have to scroll for a bit, but it's making tortellini with like a spinach and ricotta filling. So it's a yellow dough with the green filling. And I just love the different angles we got and the way that it edits together and that kind of natural flow. It just keeps you engaged and interested, and it kind of shows the pasta-making process, which to me is incredibly sensual and appealing and just so tactile and loving.
That video I think encapsulates that whole thing, and it's just like beautiful, the colors, and the way that it all kind of comes together. That's one of my favorite, just pasta videos. It's not necessarily one of those viral food trends that, oh, here's baked feta and cherry tomatoes. It's just genuine pasta-making that looks real aesthetically pleasing and satisfying for the soul.
JAYMEE SIRE: Yeah, no, I totally agree. They are beautiful videos that you guys should definitely be very proud of that. And I definitely want to talk about Quince as well, but let's go back to 2010. You wrapped up your degree at UC Davis, entered the food world being a-- a chef wasn't quite the career path that it is today. How did you make that decision to pursue the industry seriously regardless of what others thought that you should do after graduation?
JOE SASTO: It was definitely not the career path it is now. Chefs were not rock stars, not on television, not traveling around the country, not doing any of these things. I always grew up knowing I wanted to cook for people. I wanted to provide that love in hospitality and I got joy out of seeing people eat things that I made and taking care of others. And I think I got that from my mother very early on. So I knew this was something I wanted to do.
She didn't want me to go to culinary school. She had said that maybe you need something to fall back on. So like you said, I went to UC Davis, I got a bachelor's degree. I had this internal conflict of hey, all of my friends are moving to San Francisco, they're all getting jobs in tech or sales or finance and business and doing all these things with a degree that you do from a very reputable school. And here I am, I just took out a bunch of student loans, I have this degree, I want to go work in restaurants. I need to know if this is the right choice.
And there was a lot of self-doubt initially, but I think the thing with self-doubt is it's almost a sign that you're doing the right thing. Because there's that natural part of your brain that maybe is telling you, hey, don't do this. But then you have to listen to that voice as the sign that you're doing the right thing because that's just your ego, your self-doubt, whatever that you want to call that, look at it from the inverse. If something is telling you this is wrong, it's probably the right thing. Otherwise, you'll never know.
So I just dove into it and started working at the bottom in whatever restaurant I could get into and work my way up from there. And it turned out very well for me. I'm very glad I stuck with it.
JAYMEE SIRE: I like that piece of advice. I'm definitely going to take that for myself. You mentioned you started working your way up. You eventually landed at RN54 under Chef Michael Mina, rose through the ranks from line cook to sous chef in just six months. What do you remember about those formative experiences that really laid the foundation for your career?
JOE SASTO: Working on RN74, it was a Michael Mina restaurant, and he was there not day-to-day. There was an executive chef, a chef named Jason Berthold. And anyone out there that's listening to this that has ever worked for Jason Berthold or know Jason Berthold probably shares the same sentiment that I do. He was the first chef that I've ever worked for or known or met. And so he had a huge formative impact on the way that I approach food, the way I approach leadership, that the way I approach running a kitchen. And just all of these things.
He was the type of chef that you didn't want to do well for because you were afraid of him, you wanted to do well because you wanted to make him proud. He was that kind of loving, caring, stern but nurturing figure. He held himself to such a high standard. Him and Corey Lee helped open per se for Thomas Keller, he worked at the French Laundry. So he has this really intense fine-dining, Michelin star background working for Thomas Keller.
And so he's here now at this really large-scale restaurant doing a lot of covers, not exactly the French Laundry. But he still held himself to such a high standard for no reason other than that was the standard that he held for himself. So it made you want to come into work every day holding yourself to a higher standard to wanting to not get mad at people because they did something wrong but to actually teach them the right way to do something. So I learned so many things from him specifically that I still carry on through my entire career. A lot of those little tidbits from there was incredibly formative.
JAYMEE SIRE: After several years in that job, you kind of took a break. You traveled through Europe with your twin brothers who had just graduated college. So first of all, coolest big brother ever. You guys were all over Europe for eight weeks. UK, Spain, Italy, Germany. I guess first of all, what was your favorite city?
JOE SASTO: Yeah, that was quite the euro trip. And it was a different time too, so you didn't have cell phone service internationally. You could connect to Wi-Fi when you're at a hostel. So as soon as you leave the hostel, you're disconnected. There was no maps on Google Maps or on your phone, so you had to memorize or take photos and screenshots of the map and kind of guess where you were.
JAYMEE SIRE: Or it out.
JOE SASTO: Print it out. At one point we had books--
JAYMEE SIRE: Yeah, imagine that.
JOE SASTO: --that told us maybe where we should eat or stay. Imagine a book telling you like, hey, go here. A very, very different time. But yeah, we did the whole euro trip. It was about eight weeks all through backpacking. We never made it to Eastern Europe, we stayed mostly West. But I think my favorite city was Rome. I just loved the juxtaposition of old world and new world, and all of these architecture and buildings and stones and art that was just so easily immersed in part of the modern day appeal of the city. And I'd never seen anything like that.
I mean, a little known fact about me, I grew up in Las Vegas. And so growing up in Las Vegas, you see all of these hotels and fake versions of the Bellagio and all of these things. And then you go there and you see them in real life and you're like, oh, my God, this is real. This is actually how they are.
The hotels do a pretty good job of painting a picture of what it's like. But until you're there and you see it for real yourself, you don't realize until-- I definitely think Rome. I loved that new and old that I've never seen anywhere else really in the world.
JAYMEE SIRE: Yeah, it is a very memorable city for sure. Is there a meal that really stands out from that trip?
JOE SASTO: There was two. There was like the Rome meal that we ate. It was like deli called Roscioli. And anyone that knows Rome knows if you're there, you have to eat at Roscioli. But we got put in the basement, in this little basement area with a couple of tables where they put all the people that speak English. So they have the one server that spoke English. Incredible meal of all these classic room pastas.
But I think another more formative meal for me since we're talking about my culinary career through things, we ate at Toy Grill. So three Michelin star restaurant is my first fine-dining Michelin meal. And we went for lunch, which is less expensive, still incredibly expensive. I don't remember how much we paid for the three of us, a ridiculous amount of euros.
We did the whole lunch, and it's like a three-hour dining experience. And you start in the garden. And then you have a tour in the kitchen, they give you bites in the kitchen, then they take you to your table, then you get the whole tasting menu. Then they bring out the cheese cart, then they bring out the dessert cart, then they bring out all these different things. It's just like, I never experienced anything like that, I'd only heard about it.
And this is pre-Instagram social media. So you don't even see these things on your phone, you just hear about them from friends and other people that are like, oh, I went to this restaurant in Europe and they had a cheese cart and you choose any cheese you want or this giant tower of desserts, and you could take anything. And you're like, oh, my God, that's so cool. Where now, it's like, you hear that, you could look at it, you could see a million YouTube videos or a million Instagram videos and what that looks like.
But at that time, it was the first time I had seen it. I'd only ever heard about it. And so this was mind-blowing to me. But also unlock that like, OK, I'm done doing high volume in restaurants, I want to cook really fine dining, I want to know and care and have integrity behind every single plate that goes out of the kitchen regardless of how many people were cooking for. Every detail needs to matter. And so I think it was that meal where I knew when I go back to the city, I had to find a restaurant of that caliber.
JAYMEE SIRE: So how did that meal and those travels eventually land you at Quince in San Francisco?
JOE SASTO: So I had got back. And at this point, I was a couple of years into the industry and had just kind of learned how it works, how you get a job in a kitchen, what staging was, how to get an interview, how to kind of-- the application process. But I knew you just kind of go to the restaurant, you talk to the chef at the right time of the day and you try to get a job.
And so I was staging around, I was trying all the different Michelin star restaurants trying to find one that's the right fit because in the world of restaurants, you don't want to bounce around kitchen the kitchen, you know you're going to be there for a while, a number of years. And so you want to make sure you make the right choice.
I was looking around for all the restaurants, talking to friends in the industry, and Quince kept coming up as a place. Hey, stay away from there. It's very grueling, it's a very difficult kitchen, it's very demanding of everyone that works there, you probably won't like it. And to me, that was all the words I needed to hear.
JAYMEE SIRE: Challenge.
JOE SASTO: I was like, that sounds perfect. Challenge accepted. I think I spent a week staging there and so. I was like, this is where I want to work, and the rest is history.
JAYMEE SIRE: I used to live in San Francisco, so I've been to Quince. I've been to Catania, the sister restaurant as well. Both definitely experiences that people should enjoy and savor. You eventually became the manager of the handmade pasta program there. Was pasta on your radar at the time at all or is this something you kind of fell in love with at Quince?
JOE SASTO: Not at all. And it's incredibly ironic. I grew up in an Italian-American household. We ate a lot of pasta growing up, so much so that I did not like it. I despised it. I was that annoying kid that was like, mom, do we have to have something? Do we have to have pasta again? Do you have anything else? Please, not pasta. I don't like pasta. Stop serving as pasta.
And eventually at one point, gosh, she was like, if you don't want pasta, you're going just have to cook dinner for yourself. And I was like, oh, magic words, perfect. Please, can I cook? And I don't know how old-- I was maybe like nine or 10. And that was the my invitation into, oh, so I can make something. But again, I digress.
I got the job of Quince not really knowing that Michael Tusk the chef and owner, was known for his take on pasta. Very reputable American chef doing incredibly intricate and authentic traditional Italian pasta. And so I just wanted to work there because of the level of detail and precision and care that was going into all of the food, where we were getting our ingredients from.
And people were coming, cooks, from all around the world and all around the city trying to get a job here to learn how to make pasta. I was completely blinders on, did not realize that, was just focused on learning how to properly make a perfect brew while at shallot. I was not thinking about pasta. And it was just one of the days, I was getting ready to leave, I was working morning prep. I was just one of the commis there doing morning butchery and stock work and sauces and things like that.
And I was getting ready to leave. I had already put in the full 12-hour day or whatever it was. And I was saying goodnight to all the chefs going around shaking hands. And one of the pasta cooks, I don't remember what he did but he had already done some pretty egregious things leading up to this moment. And finally, it was the last straw. And the chef was like, look, he's not working here anymore. He's out. Here's his apron, you're in.
And my heart dropped, my stomach started doing back flips. Hey, here I am. I get to cook night but also-- oh, my God, how did I end up here? So one of the sous chefs end up cooking with me all night long. I didn't just get thrown on a station by myself. The food still had to come out the right way. But I just made that natural transition into the pasta station without really even trying and not seeking it out. It was almost like pasta chose me, I didn't choose pasta.
And then lo and behold, through that process, when you work the pasta station in a restaurant like that or any station for that matter, you're responsible for all of your miss and plus, all of the ingredients, everything on your station for the menu that you're serving, you need to make sure you have. Sure, you have a prep team and sous chefs and people that help make sure you get those things, but at the end of the day, it's your responsibility.
You can request from the AM pasta makers, I need 300 triangoli, I need 200 tortellini I need 400 cappeletti. Depending on the day, maybe they'll do 400 or maybe they'll do 350. And so it's on you to make sure those extra 50 are there because there's no running out. People are coming to this restaurant from all over the world to have their once-in-a-lifetime meal. And so you're not out of cappeletti because someone didn't make it that day. You make sure it gets made.
So inevitably, I spent a lot of time coming in early, staying late, hanging out with the pasta team learning how to make pasta to make sure all of my pasta is ready for my station. And so they didn't speak very good English, I didn't speak very good Spanish, but pasta became our communal language. And so through touching the dough, feeling things, and just visually and pasta being that kind of medium that we shared, I was able to learn how to do it. I picked up some Spanish along the way, which definitely helped. It was this full circle experience of getting to then make the everything that I was serving then later that night.
JAYMEE SIRE: I mean, it's clearly something that you have a love and a passion for now. So was it love at first sight or was this a slow burn for your love of pasta?
JOE SASTO: It was a love hate relationship for sure at first for a number of reasons. Initially, it was little things like having to have everything ready and there regardless. And so it took a lot. It was very demanding on my part because of how many items I had on the menu, how many things I was responsible for, how difficult it was to do a lot of these things that you only learn through repetition.
Pasta can't really fake it. You could tell when they're not made well versus when they are made very well. The shapes, the cooking, everything about it. And so it was just a very steep learning curve for me, which I think was twofold. It was a steep learning goal, which was very frustrating but at the same time, I am very demanding of myself and always hold myself to a very high standard of doing things.
And so I think that pushed me to continue to want to get better and to continually improve. And all of those things that I had learned up to that point where like, hey, you're not giving up on this. You need to learn how to do it the right way, the best way possible. And so I just spent a lot of time doing it, which then eventually, inevitably, I fell in love with it. But it was a long back and forth with me and pasta.
JAYMEE SIRE: Did you make all of it by hand at Quince?
JOE SASTO: Fatou Amano. For my time spent there, I got a tattoo that says fatou amano, specifically from the amount of pasta we made my hand. And there's a story that goes along with that as well. Chef Tusk came back from Italy, had learned about in Bologna where they make all the tortellini by hand, a very classic iconic shape. Ruled out by hand, dough is made by hand, cut by hand, shape by hand, everything by hand, no machines.
Up to that point, we had used the dough mixer, we had used the dough sheeter for everything else. But he came back, he's like, tortellini, we're only going to make by hand. And so that just became this kind of chip on our shoulder that was like, we make our tortellini, everything from the dough to the filling to the whole process by hand.
And so there was a six or eight-month period where that was my only dish on the menu, was tortellini, and it was about 18 pieces per order. We did about 100 people per night. So what is that? 1,800 pieces of pasta I had to have done every single day. And that was the only thing I was responsible for. So I would just bring the pasta board out to the dining room, put it on a couple of tables, roll out the big folios, the big sheets of pasta. And I would just learn how to do this whole process.
It became incredibly therapeutic and meditative and cathartic, and it kind of removed me from the chaos and craziness that was often happening in the kitchen. And it was this very grounding moment for me. And I think it was during that time when it went from the hate to the love because of how much time I just spent doing it. It's like, we're not listening to music, you're literally sitting in silence with you, your thoughts, and the pasta.
And so you learn to just settle into your work area, your table, your pasta, tabletop, or whatever you are and just fall in love with the process or realize it's not for you. And I realized this was for me. I could do this for hours and hours and hours and hours. And I did, and I do.
JAYMEE SIRE: And during that time at Quince, they rose from a one Michelin star to three. After being part of such a dramatic rise to this recognition, what do you think it is that separates one-star establishments from three-star establishments?
JOE SASTO: To understand the difference between one to three, you almost have to think about two in the middle as well. So one is generally very good food, and it's really just focused on the food. Yes, service of course, matters as well. But a lot of it is the food, the service, but not necessarily maybe the restaurant itself, the plates you're eating off of the decor, the way it is, and none of that matters as much. As you get into the two-stars, it's more about the plateware, the dining room, the ingredients, are they luxurious? Things like that. You kind of brush into the two-star area.
Then you get to three-star, and it's like every single plate is custom, the restaurant has its own farm, it's a destination for a number of reasons from the artwork in the room to the entire dining experience from the moment you show up on the property. It's this whole curated, very thoughtful, and things you don't even realize that are planned for you are often planned in advance. You can kind of see that progression where as you move up in the Michelin star ranking, more and more of the details matter, where I think initially, it's just about the food and the service, and then it gets more and more granular.
JAYMEE SIRE: What do you think it was that propelled Quince to three?
JOE SASTO: I honestly think it was the team that we had. At that time, it was a very dedicated team of cooks and chefs, and everyone that was there was in it. And it was a very different time in the restaurant industry where you're working longer hours than you maybe would have wanted to, you're working more days than maybe you would have thought you could or should. But we all did it like we wanted to. It wasn't a forced thing by any means, we just all really want it to be that good.
And so it was this sense of community that brought us together, it's almost like the fellowship of the stars instead of the ring, where it was like, we are going to do this, and we're all in this together. And we're all going through this crazy, grueling, demanding experience but something we could all be incredibly proud of because of the food we're creating, everything that we're doing.
And so I think it was just that whole team that we had. Because we didn't have a lot of turnover, there was a pretty set core group of people through that. And I think that was like about four years or so during that time.
JAYMEE SIRE: I know you also managed the market program there, meeting with local farmers at the farmers markets in San Francisco, sourcing ingredients that would inspire that week's menu. What did you learn as you created and fostered relationships with these purveyors?
JOE SASTO: It changed my entire culinary perspective in the best way possible that I would have never thought imaginable. I knew of farmers markets, I knew of them, but I'd never really understood why they were so talked about and sought after until I got put in charge of the market program. The way Chef Tusk works, he is from the School of Alice Waters where farm to table is at the forefront. He now has his own farm that supplies the restaurant. We did not then, we worked with all the local farmers.
And he would show up at the market as the farmers are still setting up. Sun hadn't come up yet, 5:00, 6:00 AM, and would walk through and just buy all of everything. He would see that like, oh, they have the first of the strawberries or oh, the first of the cranberry beans. I'll take 300 pounds. I don't want any of the restaurants to have them. We're going to have them all, and we're going to have them first.
And so this idea of why is this thing so sought after didn't click with me until I started going and building these relationships with the farmers. And you then learned that these people as much as we're dedicating our life and our craft to cooking, these individuals are dedicating their lives and generations of lives, not just theirs, to do one thing and just grow carrots.
You think you know what a carrot tastes like until you taste a carrot from someone that has only grown carrots on the same piece of land for 75 years. And then you're like, I now understand why people may say they don't like carrots or they just think carrots taste like carrots. They don't. That's not what a carrot tastes like.
And the same can be said for every other vegetable. Every farmer is so good at the one or two or three or four things that they do that sets them apart. I just became infatuated with this process, and it started off with me getting in trouble because I'd be like, oh, it's so much easier to just send an email or call in to the produce company, hey, we need a couple pieces of celery for tomorrow. And then I would get, hey, why did you not go to the market and get celery? You ordered celery from the previous company? And I was like, oh, whatever, it's celery. But then you go have real celery and you're like, oh, I get it. I finally get it now.
And so that's something that has now transformed the way that I cook, the way that I approach food. I fall in love with vegetables. I'm not by any means a vegetarian chef, but I very much like to treat vegetables like you would an expensive cut of meat. I'm much more comfortable cooking vegetables than proteins like fish or steak. They're just an endless number of, dare I say pastabilities that you can do with a vegetable. And so many techniques and ways to utilize it from root to stem.
And so yeah, you can do that with protein as well but to me, it's just so much more technique and understanding of the ingredient goes into vegetables that I just absolutely love them and I still cultivate and foster and cherish those relationships with the farmers in whatever city that I'm living in. It's like the first thing I have to do if I move to a new city.
I was in LA for a while, I was at the farmer's market three days a week getting to know these farmers. Because I was like, OK, who has this? Who has that? Where can I find this? Oh, wow, you have peas already? What time of year is it? Oh, my God, it's so different here. And just kind of learning all of that because it means so much to me in my cooking.
JAYMEE SIRE: I know you carried a lot of those connections into your next chapter as executive sous chef at Lazy Bear. After the three Michelin star experience, I'm sure the steaks had to be pretty high for your next gig. What drew you to that opportunity?
JOE SASTO: That was a very difficult decision, because we had just gotten that third star. Lazy bear, I think had just gotten their first. They were maybe a year old or less than. They were maybe like nine months old, that's a brick and mortar restaurant. And they started as a pop-up dinner party, kind of breaking all of the rules of fine-dining in the sense, where they were cooking fine-dining food but serving it in a very laid back, party, music, dinner, party, communal dining, no tablecloths, everything against kind of what everyone thought Michelin star food had to be.
I was deciding is it time for next chapter? Should I stay at Quince? We just got the third star. And everything kind of just fell into place, where I had met David who's a chef and owner at Lazy Bear. He had started it. Him and I were market buddies, so we'd always run each other at the farmer's market. His executive sous chef was leaving. I had known of the restaurant, I'd seen them on Instagram, just what they were doing looked so cool and fun and innovative and different and not so traditional French technique or traditional Italian technique. Interesting combination of flavors, a lot of preservatives, and fermentation, and just cool approach to cooking.
He made me an offer I couldn't really refuse. My biggest concern was just like, what are my peers going to think of going from this really high-end, really reputable restaurant to this almost experiential restaurant at the time. But just like everything up to that point, all of those self-doubts are usually a sign of maybe you're doing the right thing here, Joseph.
And so we had made the move over. And I say we, because Bella came with me. And at that point, we were a team. So we've kind of bounced and grown and done everything from Quince to Lazy Bear, when we moved to LA and have built now our business and brand and everything together. And so we made that move over to the Bear from Quince at the same time too.
JAYMEE SIRE: Let's talk about some of those current projects and businesses you speak of. You developed your own line of puffed pasta snacks called Tantos, which translates to so much yes. Where did the idea for a pasta snack come from?
JOE SASTO: Yes, so much yes. Very excited about this. Tantos are puff pasta snack. It's almost like a happy accident at some point, where I was playing around with dry pasta and drying pasta and at one point, I got them to where they almost looked like chicharrones. And I was like, that's so bizarre, they look like a chicharron. I wonder what would happen if you fry this. And it just puffed up beautifully. And I was like, oh, my God, I think I'm on to something.
Initially, I was serving them to VIPs, to friends. And when I started doing pop-up dinner parties on my own out of the restaurant, as almost this combination of my two favorite food groups, pasta and nachos. And so I was doing like, well, shallot fat refried beans and parmigiano fondue, and this almost like cumin, smoked-paprika, chip spice on them.
Through those dinner parties, I met my now business partner for Tantos. He comes from the Shark Tank world of his own entrepreneurial business. And he approached me after one of the dinner parties, he said like, have you ever thought about bagging and selling these things? I was like, I thought about it, but I don't really know anything about that. I'm a chef not a business entrepreneur in that sense. And he was like, well, let's partner on this to figure it out.
It's been two years, maybe almost three years now, developing, testing, branding all of the whole process, which for anybody that doesn't know, it is not an easy task to package anything, let alone a food product. But now, we have-- very exciting to announce last month was the first release of Tantos, a puff pasta snack. We have marinara, tiramisu, cacio e pepe, and pesto, all of your favorite Italian flavors.
And for right now, we're doing direct-to-consumer only while we still kind of get the next distribution phases in. And so you could sign up for the email releases at etantos.com. They're just really freaking good. I haven't had any, thankfully, knock on wood negative feedback so far from anybody that's tried them. So we're really excited about them. And I really look forward to everyone getting to try them.
JAYMEE SIRE: Oh, congratulations on the launch. You talk about this process of creating a packaged snack, and it's taken a while. How involved have you been at each step of the way?
JOE SASTO: I've been very, very involved. And so just like our business now, Tantos is also another business but just a handful of people involved in it. And so we are very fortunate to find an awesome design firm based out of the East coast, Lacuna Designs. And so they helped us come up with the entire brand and identity for Tantos. So we knew the name, we had come up with that on our own based on so much yes. Kind of just like Tanto Si was the name of my pop-up which roughly translates in Italian to mean so much yes, which is that feeling you get when you open a bag of Tantos or when you're about to eat all of the food on the table.
And so just like we kind of loved the idea that I don't know, 20 years ago, no one knew what a frito or dorito was. So in our mind, 20 years from now, everyone will know what a Tantos is even though right now, it's a new word to a lot of people. And so that was the idea behind the naming and the brand. But every step of the process from choosing the color to the packaging, to the font, to where things are on the bag, to how much to put on the bag.
All of those little things just are not only anxiety-inducing, because I don't have a child, but I imagine it's like naming a child, you can't really change your mind necessarily once you do it. And so you're making all these decisions on the way something looks and yeah, you could rebrand and change the packaging. But at this point, you're not doing that. You're choosing something that hopefully is going to last years.
And so definitely stressful, but a lot of fun at the same time. I mean, it's creating in a new sense where I'm used to creating food, but this is packaging and branding and all sorts of other things. So it's still kind of plays into that same part of my brain that I know and love.
JAYMEE SIRE: Well, I'm super excited to try it. I know you also host virtual cooking live streams. You share your love of pasta and cooking, there's intro to handmade pasta, filled pasta 101, ricotta dumplings, potato gnocchi. People can kind of pick what sauce to finish with. Can you tell us a little bit more about how you got started with that?
JOE SASTO: Yeah, no. Absolutely. It's something that kind of started around the same time, COVID, when we were all at home cooking. Everybody was looking for outlets to do other things. And so I started hosting monthly public live streams cooking, cook alongs, teaching recipes, making myself open and available to questions and Q&As, and interacting with the whole audience that I had had and built. Because to me, social media is one of those things that you should be social.
And I really make myself available in that sense. I try my best to answer every comment, answer every DM, which is daunting. And I know a lot of other people on social media don't do, they just kind of amass this following, look at it like a number, and then don't take the time to respond to anyone, which to me, that's like they're supporting you, you should look back and support all of these people as well. You're building your foster and you're building a community.
So I made this community around food of cooking classes and live streams, and they went from the public realm to then people wanting to do them privately, corporate teams wanting to do it for their party, for their team building experience, people's birthdays, anniversaries, special events. And so we're still doing that now. If people are out there interested, you want to host your own little pasta party, I'll teach you, I'll take care of everything. It's a lot of fun. You can find out more at my website, @josesasto.com.
JAYMEE SIRE: Coming up in a bit, Joe reveals the strategy he used when he competed on and won Chopped. You're going to want to hear this, so stick around. Well, let's talk a little bit about Food Network as well. I know you were named a Food Network hot lister alongside some of our other favorite podcast guests. Of course, you landed on the Food Network map when you competed and won in season 28 of Chopped.
Did your experience intense Michelin Star Kitchens prepare you for competition or is it a completely different ballgame?
JOE SASTO: Yes, Food Network, crazy humbling and in full circle experience for me as someone who grew up watching Food Network, learning how to cook with Food Network, not having gone to culinary school, watching all of these old cooking shows just over and over and over, like, learning techniques and seeing how people do things. And now, having the opportunity to work with beyond and recognized by Food Network on something like the hot list, just so incredibly grateful and thankful that I've made it this far.
And it's a huge milestone for me personally that I always take a moment till now and think back. I'm like, holy, crap, this is really awesome that I've made it here when I used to watch Food Network. To speak to Chopped, 1,000% working in the restaurant. I will also add that Quince prepared me for Chopped in the best way possible.
There was a lot of unknowns every day when you walk into the restaurant, especially when you're working with farmers and ingredients that may or may not show up on time or something that just comes too late in the day or the menu changes every single day, and you have to be able to think on your feet, work quickly, use ingredients that you're not used to seeing, and make it happen no matter what. And so when you show up to the Chopped kitchen, you have every single tool there. The only variables are the ingredients in the bag or the basket.
I had such a fun day and fun experience cooking on Chopped. I thought it was a walk in the park compared to the average day cooking back at the restaurant. I loved it. I thought it was awesome. I'd grown up watching Chopped, so I knew all the nuances. I had a strategy going into it.
JAYMEE SIRE: What was the strategy?
JOE SASTO: Well, I knew if Scott Conant was a judge, don't serve him raw, red onions.
JAYMEE SIRE: Yap.
JOE SASTO: If Freitag's a judge, she needs chocolate for dessert. So many little things. If Aaron's a judge, he's going to want chili. But if you say chili, it has to be spicy. But then you worry about making it too spicy for the other judges. So many little nuances. I had a very strong strategy for each round too because I had watched the show so many times.
I was in this belief that any four ingredients in the appetizer round could be made into some sort of fried fritter and dipping sauce. So regardless of what it was they give you, you could put it to the meat grinder and the food processor, add some cheese, add some egg, breadcrumb, forming into some sort of fritter and fry it. And everybody loves fried food as an appetizer. And as long as it's cheesy and hot and crispy and seasoned, it's going to taste good. And just about whatever random nonsense they give you, that'll work for apps.
Entree round, my strategy was just like, don't undercook anything, don't overcook anything, make an entree. Kind of like, just get by. Don't shoot for the fences but just make something tasty. Dessert, kind of shifting back to that anything can be the school of thought. I believe anything in those baskets can be made into an ice cream, a caramel or brittle, and some sort of crumble or streusel. And then that is your kind of base there of your dessert to use the ingredients.
And then you just need like a vehicle. Like, I used crepes. I did my mom's crepe recipe. I've seen people do dutch babies, which work really well, or trifle sort of deals with the layers. But in that sense, you kind of go in with that strategy. I don't think any ingredients that they give you can't be manipulated into that strategy. And this is me just playing the game and being a chef, but even I still watch Chopped every now. And I look at it and I'm like oh, furter ice cream, straight soft caramel, done.
JAYMEE SIRE: That's so interesting. I'm going to think about that next time I watch Chopped.
JOE SASTO: Because I know there's probably a lot of Chopped avid watchers and viewers out there, longtime viewers. So next time, think about my strategy. And then you could go and impress your friends that are not listening to this podcast. You'll be like, oh, I'll just make a furter out of this, turn it to a sauce, and you'll sound like a pro.
JAYMEE SIRE: By the way, it looks like you were on the other side of the table recently judging Chopped with Maneet and Geoffrey. What was that experience like?
JOE SASTO: Oh, my God. That was incredible. Maneet and Geoffrey are seasoned pros at this point too, so incredibly intimidating to sit down next to them that have been doing this for so long, and this is my first time now on the judging side of Chopped. But so much less stressful than competing. And it just feels so good.
It's almost been about 10 years since I competed the first time and won on the show. So now to be back, there's only a small handful of chefs I found out that have competed and gone on to judge. I think maybe less than five or something. So very kind of small circle to have that experience. And everyone there from the whole production team to Ted to Geoffrey and Maneet were so nice and warm and loving and welcoming and kind of bringing me into the family as if I had been doing this forever. It was a lot of fun.
JAYMEE SIRE: Well, you were also on the latest season of Tournament of Champions well-known as the most difficult food competition on this podcast. Without any spoilers, how did you feel when you found out about your first match-up?
JOE SASTO: It's going to be a very, very exciting season and show. I was so grateful when Guy called me up and asked me to come do it, I was just blown away. I was like, oh, does that mean I'm a champion too because I'm here now? This is awesome. Really, really great. When I found out that first seed and match up, definitely very, very intimidating to find that out. And I was new to this Food Network competition circuit.
JAYMEE SIRE: How do you approach the randomizer, and is it similar to how you approach a Chopped basket?
JOE SASTO: The great thing about the randomizer is like it's the great equalizer. So even if you're going up against the number one seed or someone who's done this 30 times and this is your first, that randomizer kind of levels the playing field where you're both cooking with things you're not expecting to do or we're used to working with.
And so yes, I had a strategy for the randomizer, not the same strategy as Chopped but a strategy in the sense where I knew a couple of base ingredients that I was really comfortable working with. Maybe it was carrots or maybe it was sweet potatoes that I knew were in the pantry and I could manipulate in order to then kind of move and work with all the rest of the ingredients that were part of the randomizer.
JAYMEE SIRE: Who were you most excited to see competing this season on TOC?
JOE SASTO: It's a good question. I mean, I really was happy to just be in that same group of everyone. It was so many talented chefs and people I had watched grow on Food Network, and I watched compete. And a lot of people that I've competed against in the past on other cooking shows or other platforms. It was a really, really great group of chefs that we had there.
It was really great to see Justin there. And at that time, we were kind of playing our cards. Where oh, we're not super best friends, no one really knows we have matching tattoos under our chef coats. And so because we were still in competition mode, very fierce and serious. And so it was really great to be in some of the best company that you could be in.
JAYMEE SIRE: We are looking forward to seeing you compete, whatever seed you might be and definitely looking forward to seeing what's next for you. We're going to finish things off with a little rapid fire round and then we have one final question for you here on Food Network Obsessed. Rapid fire questions. Most underrated pasta.
JOE SASTO: I'm going to go with ricotta ravioli in red sauce. I feel like it's one of the hardest combinations to find done well on a menu anywhere. Everybody, they just possibly usually tries to do more. I mean, I'm just as guilty of it. But ricotta ravioli with red sauce, it was my favorite growing up, and I think it's underrated.
JAYMEE SIRE: Yeah, it's a classic. Key to successful focaccia.
JOE SASTO: Time and temperature. The longer, the better, and not rush the process. Trust your proofing time. Time is everything.
JAYMEE SIRE: Favorite TikTok follow.
JOE SASTO: I like watching when Saul Payne's videos come up. Because he's just a home cook that makes these really delicious sandwiches that are super craveable. And he does them all ASMR and fast cuts and really quick and sloppy and messy and just comfort food. I like a cook named Matt's videos. His are fun because he is a restaurant cook and chef that kind of transitioned now into being a content creator. So it's great to see someone that kind of found their own path and making their own move like that. Yeah, I really enjoy the two of them.
JAYMEE SIRE: Favourite Bay Area food spot.
JOE SASTO: Restaurants, got to be either Rich Table or Ernest. Two very similar but different. Daytime would probably be Bread Belly or Deli Board.
JAYMEE SIRE: Something you can't live without besides the obvious like water, food.
JOE SASTO: Oh, my God, I thought you said the obvious was pasta.
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JAYMEE SIRE: Well, with you--
JOE SASTO: My mind didn't even go to water or oxygen. I was like, oh, she must mean pasta. No for me, probably nachos. As much as I love cooking and making pasta, nachos and Mexican food, tacos, all of those things are my favorite things to eat. So whether it be Mexican food or just specifically nachos, that's my answer. Couldn't live without that.
JAYMEE SIRE: Next travel destination.
JOE SASTO: I want to get a trip to Toronto on the books as soon as the weather gets nice and it's safe to travel up there. And I know international travel is always difficult, but there's a lot of really talented Italian chefs and pasta makers up there and just food in that city that I want to spend some time enjoying and hanging out with and seeing.
JAYMEE SIRE: Superpower you wish you had.
JOE SASTO: Teleportation. I mean, Stan Lee would say, I think luck is a really good one too.
JAYMEE SIRE: How do you keep your mustache so pristine?
JOE SASTO: There's a handful of products that go in there that are definitely involved in the process. Not even hair and makeup does the mustache. I always show up on set with the mustache done.
JAYMEE SIRE: What do you always pick up at the farmer's market?
JOE SASTO: For me, it's usually sweet. So whatever the time of year it is, if it's wintertime, it's citrus. If it's summertime, it's stone fruit. If it's springtime, maybe it's berries. Because kind of going back to what I was saying, once you have that real peach from the farmer's market, it's so hard to get or eat anything else. And it's like, I'm a big sweet guy and I could feel healthy eating these. Even though they're loaded with sugar, it's fruit sugar. It's good.
JAYMEE SIRE: Nature's desserts, right?
JOE SASTO: Nature's desserts, exactly.
JAYMEE SIRE: Advice you would give your younger self.
JOE SASTO: Don't doubt yourself. You're on the right path, everything's going to work out.
JAYMEE SIRE: All right, well, this has been a blast. I could talk about pasta with you forever, but I do have one last question and that would be, what would be on your menu for your perfect food day? We ask this question to all of our guests. It is a completely different answer depending on the person.
So we want to hear what you're eating for breakfast, lunch, any snacks if you want to throw in, you don't have to. Dinner, dessert. There are absolutely no rules. So you can time travel, you can have other chefs cook for you, yeah. Whatever you want to do, yeah.
JOE SASTO: Breakfast, I'm a sweets person in breakfast. Never eggs. So I'm thinking some sort of pastries, maybe a great patisserie in France or even just if I'm in San Francisco, Breadbelly is always, it's the spot for me. Just really, really good pastries. Lunch, I'm going to say let's teleport to Italy, let's do the pizza tasting menu. That's where you can look down-- I forget the name of the spot. Where you can look down through the window in the dining room and see the pizza oven, and it's like a tasting menu of all pizzas and different pizzas.
JAYMEE SIRE: Oh, wow. It sounds like my dream.
JOE SASTO: Yeah, I want to say it's a Michelin Star restaurant, and it does pizzas as a tasting menu.
JAYMEE SIRE: It's incredible.
JOE SASTO: And then dinner, we're going to jump back and we're going to go to Smith in Chicago. That's probably my favorite restaurant I've been to to date around the world. So if we're going around the world, we're going to go to Smith. And then for dessert, I would love ice cream cookie sandwich with rainbow sprinkles. It doesn't matter where. Maybe cake batter ice cream, strawberry shortcake cookie, white chocolate macadamia nut. Almost reminiscent of that like old good humor strawberry cookie bar but with warm cookies and ice cream and sandwich and sprinkles.
JAYMEE SIRE: That sounds delicious.
JOE SASTO: Yeah, doesn't that sound good?
JAYMEE SIRE: That does sound good. Wait, are you having-- so there's no pasta on your perfect food day?
JOE SASTO: If there's time, I would just swing by Missy in New York.
JAYMEE SIRE: Sure.
JOE SASTO: And have some of her pasta because I really like the vegetables at Missy. And they're kind of the unsung heroes of the menu. But yeah, if I have time after pizza before dinner, we'll stop in New York, we'll get that, and then we'll head over to Chicago. But like I said, I love making, cooking pasta, but it's not at the top of my eating list oddly enough. I think because I eat it every day, it's not as special. It's so special. I did not even say it. I take that back. Strike from the record. Pasta is special.
JAYMEE SIRE: I think that's the most interesting response that the pasta guy is not eating pasta on his perfect food day. But if you come, I'll meet you over at Missy for some pasta. It's in the neighborhood,
JOE SASTO: Sounds good. We won't even have to wait, I'll text Missy and we'll get it right here.
JAYMEE SIRE: Perfect, love it. Well, this has been a blast. Thank you so much for taking the time and looking forward to all of your projects and endeavors that we'll see the coming year.
JOE SASTO: Oh, my God, thank you so much for having me. This was so great. I really appreciate it. And thanks, everybody, for listening.
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JAYMEE SIRE: The magic is in the mustache. Great catching up with Joe today. I have a feeling this is just the beginning for him. You can catch Joe on the latest season of Tournament of Champions with new episodes airing Sundays at 8:00/7:00 Central on Food Network and streaming on Discovery Plus.
Thanks so much for listening and make sure to follow us wherever you listen to podcasts so you don't miss a thing. And if you enjoyed today's episode, please rate and review. We love it when you do that. That's all for now, we'll catch you foodies next Friday.
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