Private Club Radio Show
Welcome to the Private Club Radio Show, the industry's weekly source for education, news, trends, and other current developments in the world of private clubs.
Hosted by the talented entertainer and industry expert, Denny Corby,
the podcast offers a unique perspective on the private club industry, featuring expert guests, product spotlights, predictions, and more.
Whether you're involved in a golf club management, yacht clubs, athletic clubs, or business clubs, the Private Club Radio Show is the essential podcast for
anyone seeking valuable insights and information on the latest trends and developments in the private club industry.
Private Club Radio Show
426: Crafting Exceptional Club Dining Experiences w/ Chef Matthew Gilbert - Medinah Country Club
Some people are great chefs. Some are great leaders. Matt Gilbert is both.
As the Executive Chef at Medinah Country Club, Matt isn’t just running one of the most well-known kitchens in private clubs—he’s leading a team, creating unforgettable dining experiences, and setting a new standard for club cuisine.
But beyond the accolades, the high-pressure events, and the five-star menus, Matt is just a genuinely great person. He leads with humility, passion, and a deep respect for his team, knowing that the best food comes from a kitchen where people feel valued.
In this episode, we talk about:
*How he went from fine dining and Michelin-starred restaurants to private clubs.
*What it really takes to run a high-volume, high-expectation club kitchen.
*The biggest lessons he’s learned about leadership, teamwork, and keeping a cool head under pressure.
*How Medinah balances tradition with innovation in its food & beverage program.
Matt is the kind of leader who gives credit before he takes it and builds people up while delivering world-class experiences. If you’ve ever wondered what it takes to run an elite club kitchen—or just want to hear from one of the best in the business—this is an episode you won’t want to miss.
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Hey everybody, welcome to the Private Club Radio Show, where we give you the scoop on all things private golf and country clubs, from mastering leadership and management, food and beverage excellence, member engagement secrets, board governance and everything in between, all while keeping it fun and light. Whether you're a club veteran just getting your feet wet or somewhere in the middle, you are in the right place. I'm your host, denny Corby. Welcome to the show. In this episode, I am chatting with the executive chef and director of food and beverage operations at one of the most top tier clubs in the world Medina Country Club, because there's club dining and then there's Medina Club Dining and we chat with Matt Gilbert, who gives us the behind-the-scenes look at showing what it takes to make sure Medina's F&B program lives up to the club's legendary reputation. We go over Matt's background, coming from a very small town in the middle of nowhere to working with Michelin star restaurants and top-tier chefs from Hong Kong to Cairo, all over the world, and now bringing all of that to Medina. He's bringing that experience into private clubs, creating menus that balance fine dining, casual favorites and large scale event production. I mean, this episode is so, so good and he is such a good human. I got to meet him as well. We connected more in person at CMA, a world conference, and oh, this is so good. I hope we get to have a couple more conversations, but we talked just about how he transitioned from restaurants to private clubs, the biggest challenges of running a high volumeexpectation club kitchen and what members really want from their club dining experience. So if you want to hear about some next-level food and beverage at top-tier clubs, this is the episode for you.
Speaker 1:Before we get into the episode, a quick thanks, a quick shout-out to some of our show partners, who you're going to hear about a little bit later. We have Members First Kennes, member Vetting and Golf Life Navigators, concert Golf Partners, as well as myself. The Denny Corby Experience. There's excitement, there's mystery. Also there's magic, mind-reading, comedy and a ton of crowd work. If you or your club is looking for one of the most fun member event nights, head on over to dennycorbycom to learn a little bit more. Enough about that, though. Let's get to the episode. I'm super stoked All the way from Medina Country Club, the executive chef and director of food and beverage operations. Let's welcome to the show, matthew Gilbert. How's Medina been? You've been there how many years now?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I started just before Thanksgiving in 2019. And I love it. I love it. I started as their, their chef uh, at that time, just executive chef, and then in my career, until really 16 months ago, um hadn't done uh, F and B director stuff. It was all just chef for 32 years, Um, but my first four years there, four and a half years, were as the chef, and my predecessor was awesome. Uh, chef Michael Ponzio. He did a great job, Um, but definitely he and I have different styles and so taking the club in the direction that, um, I felt I wanted to do or we wanted to do, uh, took a long time. It took a few years to get the team built. Um, right after I got there, COVID started.
Speaker 2:You know, which is everyone has their COVID story. For me it was very interesting, like landing there and it was like the fanfare of the holidays and I was just learning the ropes and all of a sudden it was kind of like show us what you can do. And then we closed, you know, for a long time, but we took advantage of that time. You know, my belief is, no matter what's going on in the world tough things or easy things we got to do cool stuff. I'll talk a little bit today about my philosophy about clubs as a chef and the things that we should do, but we took advantage of that period of time to do some really awesome stuff that defined somewhat of what our future became with regard to like a butcher to go program, which was very strong. We had a food truck program, a smoker program that started during that period of time.
Speaker 2:So by the time, you know, COVID ended, everyone was. We didn't even really know each other as well as I wanted to on a personal level because everybody was stuck at home or whatever, or we were outdoors, you know, because of the restrictions of being indoors, but we had established a lot during that time. So, even though that was kind of a period that was weird for everybody, like for me at Medina, it was awesome. So Medina is an awesome club, Like I love being there. I feel very honored to be a part of that. We have a fantastic membership, so yeah, all things are good.
Speaker 1:I got to come visit when the NCA show was in Chicago.
Speaker 2:Okay, what was when the ncaa show was in chicago?
Speaker 1:okay, what was that three years ago, two years ago, yeah, two, two years ago, something like that. It's all blended together now at this point, but um, yeah, no, um. So yeah, it was a, it was awesome. You guys went out of your way. I mean, there was just like it. There was, you know, nothing held back, it was stations. It was so good. When the bus was leaving, I was like no stuff in my pocket, shrimp and stuff. It was no.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, we do. That's one of the things at Medina and probably a lot of clubs are like this. But everything is very you know, and I was listening to, actually I think his name was Nicholas Gora, it was a GM you had on at one point. I was enjoying that episode because he was.
Speaker 2:You all were talking about the challenges of, you know, getting a chef to work in a club environment. I've been through all the stages of of like the chef. You know, you're, you're young and like my 20 year old self, wouldn't have dreamed of working in a club. You know, just that's where a creative chef goes goes to die. Basically is what I thought. And then did you know it was all freestanding restaurants and Michelin stuff that I was aiming for at the time and then got into hotels and eventually clubs and what I'd say now, definitively in my 40s. You know, to be a club chef is the hardest of any kind of chef because you just really need to be well-rounded. It's not about you at that point. So you have to really overcome your ego and I think that's kind of what he was saying. There is a lot of times chefs coming in to really overcome your ego and I think that's kind of what he was saying there. A lot of times chefs come in and it's about you most of the time as a chef right, like your identity and your personality are what sells stuff, but in the club that's not what it is. So I think finding your footing in a club has a lot to do with understanding your membership, developing a rapport, taking the time to meet everybody and understand what they like before you start to build things, the time to meet everybody and understand what they like before you start to build things.
Speaker 2:So what I've learned as a long-winded answer to your question at Medina we love bespoke menus, like we have a great banquet book. In my third year here, I redid all the banquet menus. I feel like it's awesome and it's totally like what our members love. But, that said, we design almost everything not almost everything, but a large percentage of what we do is custom, and so what you experienced that day was certainly a one-off.
Speaker 2:Our banquet team is so versed in doing different things literally every day and building that takes time, but once you have it, it's awesome, because what you experienced was a bunch of different stations and live cook stuff. We have what I refer to as the fleet, which is all just fire powered equipment. You know that we can move around and do awesome stuff grills and smokers and Santa Maria grills and pizza ovens and stuff like that. So, yeah, that's what Medina is all about. You know, my lens is doing awesome stuff for our members. What they want to do is what we build programs based off of, and then when folks like you or you know, club managers or whoever visit the club, we want to show that part of our identity to you too, because, uh, you know we're peers and we're all out there doing doing cool stuff. So I'm glad to experience that.
Speaker 1:Are you getting into conference?
Speaker 2:Uh, wednesday midday. Okay, I'm missing your party.
Speaker 1:I only brought that. It was one of those. I just wanted to make sure, because tomorrow Nick Gore is joining us for dinner also.
Speaker 2:Oh, is he really? Oh man, yeah, I would love to meet him. I would love to meet him. I love what he was saying because certainly, like you know, we're like these mythical creatures that you're trying to tame. You know chefs are such weird and I probably pissed a lot of chefs off by saying this, but you know there's a lot of ego involved, usually in my way or the highway, and so, for a club environment, you know you're building something for the membership, you have to really get beyond. You know what you want to do and the way I think about it is like tailoring our skills to what they want to have. And so it's fun to listen to him. You know there's so many things that I like hear him wanting to say that he can't really say but yeah, fine, and I'm glad that they did.
Speaker 2:I think they promoted from inside and that's. That's a pretty good move if you're having a hard time finding people from outside and a lot of times, like, you'll bring in big names or like big you know awesome people from other parts of the industry and it's and it's a tough fit like if they can adapt. My, my, when I adapted was I was in cairo at um, and I like the most important thing and I think to be well-rounded, like I said, as a chef in a club not like egypt, okay, okay, yeah, yeah, I was like I was there for three years with with the, the fairmont raffles group, right and getting out of freestanding restaurant into into um hotel world too.
Speaker 2:That was a big shift. So I started with the Mandarin Oriental in San Francisco and I got in there and I wanted to just work for this like kind of star chef. I was doing Pacific room cuisine in San Francisco and the deal that their executive sous chef made with me when I was getting in the door he's like all right, I'll let you work with that guy, but you also have to agree to work in banquets when we need you and young chefs like, especially when you're an a la carte or a Michelin person, you're like F banquets all the way, like I'm not interested in that stuff at all and so I remember hating it. You know, from an a la carte standpoint, I think that chefs, the ultimate in Michelin style cuisine or like really high-end cuisine, is just doing perfection in the moment and it takes like maybe days you know a lot of cases, days to get everything prepared just right for literally a moment that I'm going to say lasts for 10 seconds or 15 seconds and then begins to diminish. So that's why you see these chefs yelling at waiters like get this to the table. You want the person who's going to eat it to have it right when it's perfect, and every second that passes it's diminishing in quality and you've worked so hard to get that perfection there right. So a la carte is sort of the pinnacle of that and the Michelin stuff I did in France, the three-star, you know. It was 40 cooks serving 90 customers per meal. So if you think about how much labor goes into creating perfection, like that's really hard. So going from that into a buffet, you know I think a lot of chefs perceive buffets as like food trough kind of thing, you know, like a feeding trough, and so when I was in San Francisco, like I didn't do anything creative with bangles, I just helped them out and I got what I wanted. I got to work for that chef, but it was the introduction.
Speaker 2:It was that guy who made that deal with me, chef Ryan Sansan, who's a good friend, and we ended up working together in Egypt. He ended up over there. It was an opening of a property, fairmont Nile City, on the Nile, literally on the Corniche, and I got to be a chef de cuisine of a California cuisine restaurant in there and part of the deal I had with that chef is I'd have to have a buffet and I just like hated it. You know, just, oh, you know, this is not what I and he was like. You know, matthew, he's a French speaking Swiss guy, actually a great mentor of mine, philippe Bischoff. Matthew, you know, your a la carte is very good, but this buffet it looks your standard.
Speaker 2:So I was struggling and the story that I tell it was right before the Arab Spring kicked off. We were actually in Syria and we had a friend at the Four Seasons in Damascus, and so Ryan and I were there with our wives, who are both Latinas, and we were in Aleppo, hamahoms, like places that have just been absolutely destroyed since, unfortunately, we were some probably the last tourists in the country. Wow, but we got to go to that hotel and I'll never forget like walking in there with the executive chef, who was a friend of his and Western, and we walked into their buffet and it was like there was food there that was beautiful, but what it was was artifacts from, like Syrian history. You know, that's this cradle of civilization. So these giant like tea urns and everything's like copper and like stone and stuff. And I looked at the guy and I'm like they let you put all this stuff like on your buffet. And he's like what do you mean? This is our culture framing the food. And that just completely changed my way of thinking.
Speaker 2:Getting to Hong Kong, which was my first chef job in a club, I thought, oh, how hard can a club be? And honestly, I was there for just under six years, three years. I just got my ass kicked like daily and it was very humbling because after you do Michelin, after you work in five-star hotels, you think you're good, and that club kicked my ass. It was such a big club, two locations, and then really in clubs the point I'm getting to is you have to understand buffet dining. In Hong Kong they have a phrase the camera eats first. And when I came to understand that it was going to, you know, the Ritz-Carlton or the Mandarin Oriental, there, four Seasons, the food displays were things that people would go take their family photos in front of. You know what I mean. And so if the camera eats first means beans as a chef, if people don't want to take pictures of your food, even if it tastes really good, you've failed on some level. And you know that's we with our eyes like we have things in America that we say too.
Speaker 2:But I brought that mentality after six years there at amazing chief steward who helped me catalog so much cool decor. Um, and we had the hair. We called it the harry potter closet of decor. It's just a giant room. We had to get up on ladders to get things down, had gardeners that took care of bonsai plants for me, bamboo all over the place. Of course everything grows in hong kong and so the buffets were able to pull off over there. I embraced that. As a person who always hated it, I was like dude. So if we can just do anything we want as a chef to frame our food Like I'm going nuts, and that club had a lot of funds to support us getting decor, and that's what happened. After a few years people were taking their family pictures in front of the buffet. I was like really I love that, and so that's what I brought to Medina.
Speaker 2:I think most chefs you know in a club environment, like if you're an a la carte only guy and you come in the door with that, you know Gordon Ramsay mentality of like you all suck, that's going to be hard for you, you know you have to be able to feed people in large. Like our. Easter is 1,200 people, mother's Day is 1,100 people. Thanksgiving, we feed 1,700, 1,800 meals.
Speaker 2:Fourth of July, forget about it, right? So, yeah, I can do foie gras and truffles and all that stuff. A lot of chefs can, but in a club environment a chicken nugget is just important, as important as a piece of foie gras, right? Like, being able to talk with children is a great chef skill. Um, that you'd think you probably never need. But the family aspect of most clubs is just as important as, like, what you think the fine dining aspect of clubs should be. So, again, that's why you got to really get to know your environment. But you know, back to the point, that he was making hard to find that fit. When somebody kicks the door down and thinks they're going to redefine the club based on what they think is cool, as a chef you know, yeah.
Speaker 1:And that episode with Nick started a well, it was a conversation before that he and I had cause I performed at his, his club a few times and we were just chatting. We were just like shooting the crap one day and I was like, oh, what's going on? He started like telling me about the chef stuff and I I think I understood and knew some maybe I don't want to say issues, but chefs and clubs and trying to find a good one. But like when he was telling like, oh my goodness, I didn't even think of and I can't remember if he said it in the episode or off the episode, but it was like, oh, if you can get a chef that could, uh, be presentable and talk to the talk to the members, who can also cook, who is, for the most part, sober. And he was like, and I was like, oh my goodness, I even start like like you're right and just taking the ego, putting it down and going like, yes, you can have these ideas and we can try them. But really it's about that. It was just like eye-opening and from there it's it's just been like now I'm like, oh, like that makes total sense. And then now it's just like opened up my eyes to just the appreciation I have for clubs and the food like much, much, much, much more.
Speaker 1:In the beginning you mentioned kind of changing styles a bit from, you know, from the former chef to your chef. Was that what the club wanted? Is that what you were? Is that what you were? Is that what you wanted to do? Like, what was? What was that shift like and why was that shift happening?
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, that's an awesome question. I think always as a chef again with your ego in check you have to say things that were done before me that members love and want to keep doing. We just have to keep doing them. You know like we have to keep that going for them because those are beloved things and there were certainly things that Chef Ponzio was doing that were like that.
Speaker 2:I think, stylistically, I call my style of cooking global eclectic. You know, after all this travel and living in different places and just really like admiring all the different chef styles around the world and food styles around the world, you know that's the direction that I, you know I always want to go in, depending on where I'm at. But, like I said, you got to, you got to meet the members and really what he said about talking to the membership, I think the chef has to be, you have to develop a rapport with the members and, in my opinion, your first year in any club as a chef, you should spend a lot of time out talking to people and listening to them. You know hearing what they want. A lot of times, what they want isn't what you want, but that's very important to know, and so I was really thankful, with our 1,100 plus members and then their families and guests, it's a club community of, let's say, 3,500 diners and then, plus they're entertaining if they're doing business or whatever. So that's a great size demographic to be able to do different things. And what I was hearing from a lot of people were yes, we do want sort of like, not so spicy, like, not non-authentic, but also not like rip your head off. You know fish sauce in a Thai curry or you know like a lot of the spice, I think spice we call it Medina, spicy, right, like, so that means two on a scale of 10 is spicy. There we go. Yeah, you know, it's just one of those things where, again, as a chef, you're like no, it needs to be authentic, and so I'm using habaneros or whatever, and everyone's out there crying and like chugging milk and pounding pieces of bread to try to recover, right, like that's not good and so making that shift.
Speaker 2:And also, I think COVID helped to have a clean break on certain items, because we weren't open for a long time and so the things that we were doing during COVID were things that were like really, in my wheelhouse, I love barbecue, I've done it for decades. I bought this giant it's Frontiersman II, yoder Smoker, which is enormous competition grade, you know item and different grills, and so we had a food truck during COVID and then we had that as outdoor restaurants that were centered around that, and those were all just menus that I thought were cool, that members seemed to be digging. Sometimes you're a little like two, they call it here, they call it chef. You know, you're getting a little cute with the menu. There are certain times where that's a cue that it's like a little too pinkies out maybe, and so it's about finding the balance.
Speaker 2:I would also say one of the things I learned in Hong Kong that every chef in a bit larger club you got to figure out is the demographics of the membership right. So in Hong Kong what was interesting was we had an entire Chinese kitchen. That team was probably 105 cooks and the Chinese kitchen was probably nine, and so the menu there was hilarious because in a lot of cases as the chef I was like guys, you know, like, help me out here. A lot of times the food for the Hong Kong Chinese, chinese, chinese was not authentic enough, and then we would go in that direction and then a lot of the membership. Even some like what they call ABC American born Chinese were like we want PF Changs, like all this fricking authentic, you know bird's beak claw in the, you know stock stuff. We hate that, we want American style Chinese. And so like I felt like I couldn't win, almost you know. And so you get to a point in clubs of this size, and that was, you know, we had as many memberships there as we have in our entire club community here. So, and that was a reciprocal club with lots of other Asian clubs and so just so many people coming and going. You know that menu was also big, which is good, cause I could, I could take like half the Chinese section in one direction and half in the more authentic direction.
Speaker 2:So here it's the same. Like in our restaurants. You know, there's certain stuff that we we feel like we're hitting the pocket for this group, like they just love it and like we're like all right, we finally got it dialed and then within a week I'll have like two people that are like this is too. You know, da, da, da, da. So I think, as a chef also, you always have to know that you're never going to please 100% of the people. You're certainly trying to please the majority plus, but you have to just keep it all moving. So I think that's another thing that we did in my time there. We change our menus a lot and things that need to stay the same always do. There are certain items that will never leave our menus banquets or all the cart restaurants but we change our menus very frequently and that, I think, in this club, is good. It keeps people because they eat there a lot. You know, in summer it's some members are 10, 12, 15 meals in a week in the club and they don't even look at the menu at that point, like they know the menu by heart.
Speaker 2:So what's your role? How do you make the switch from one chef to another? Get to know the membership and have a rapport? What he said about being able to speak to the members like a lot of chefs are like I'm a kitchen chef, you know, like I stay back here, that's what I do. Yeah, if that's all you do, I mean not all right, like you could do that very well and that's good. But in a club it requires of you to get to know the membership and then cool things happen, like when the bear came out.
Speaker 2:Have you seen the show the bear? Yeah, all right. So when that first came out, every member just wanted to talk about it. I mean it really captivated, certainly people in the industry, I think thought that show was was like pretty legit and a lot of shows are not right. So it was like oh sweet, like it's kind of a true version of us. There's dramatization of some stuff, but it's pretty authentic. And then also like normal people you know, non-culinary people out there were captivated by it and so our members, I would say, for like a year, most of the conversations that I had at tables or with members at some point would delve into like chef, what do you think about the bear?
Speaker 2:You know. And then we talk, we talk, we talk, you know. So I love that, you know. That's I think, think, and that's how you get to know members is figuring out, just listening to them. You know what do they think is cool in the bear? It's that in Chicago, so that helps. But you know what I mean. Like chef tables, episodes, like what are they watching? What do they think is cool? Build your program around what the members are talking about liking. That's kind of my philosophy.
Speaker 1:So, going back quick to when you were in Hong Kong and you had the members who you know, from the PF Changs up to the you know not, you know traditional enough, how did you find that balance? What was, what was that middle ground and how did you make it? I don't say everybody happy, but did you, did you find that? Did you find a place or a lane that kind of fulfilled everybody's needs and wants?
Speaker 2:We did, but it took time. I think so much of it is that in life. One of my philosophies is you've got to adjust expectations for people. It starts with yourself. But really in the kitchen as a chef, you have to in a club environment versus an a la carte or hotel environment. Those are places where you can kind of tell people no, back in the day as a chef, if somebody was like I'm gluten-free, you'd be like get the fuck out of my restaurant. You know, you just kick them out In hotels and you know those freestanding restaurants. Still you can kind of be like oh, I'm the chef, this is what I do. If you want that, you can go to one of these places In a club. You can't say no, you just don't. There are certain things that maybe you don't have in-house and so you're like well, I don't have Mongolian yak meat, but I could do Mongolian beef or something like that. So you're always trying to figure that out.
Speaker 2:But getting the team. So my point here is getting your team, especially if it's a big team, Like in Hong Kong we had 100 plus people In summer at Medina we have 80 plus people in the kitchen and so they at nine o'clock a cook, you know we're supposed to be closed and in a club at 9.15 or 9.20, if there's still people there and a member walks in, you're cooking for them, you know. So even just getting those expectations adjusted for cooks takes time and maybe you lose some cooks. They're like screw this man. Like I want to go to the bar at nine o'clock and it's like well, you can work at a hundred other places and do that, but just not here. So building that team in Hong Kong, that took a lot of patience from them to roll with me on the feedback we'd get, and so it took a while to build that but, like I said, it helped that our menu was pretty big. Another cool thing that I think that some again chefs are going to kill me for saying this, like on air type of deal, but I think your Nicholas Gore might appreciate it. On air type of deal, but in I think your Nicholas Gore might appreciate it.
Speaker 2:So what we called it, we have this at Medina too. We have what's called the off menu menu and that drives cooks crazy and drives chefs crazy because your mise en place, like the amount of, like the food you are using you have to keep certain things around that you wish you didn't, right, and space is always limited or ergonomically, blah, blah, blah. But what we did was we found dishes that people really loved and it was more than could be on our menu. So we had the menu that was working in both those directions. But then when someone came in and was like I just want Hainan chicken, you know we could do that, it wasn't on the menu. In the POS, the price was there, you know. So the servers were trained to just bring that in. And then the cooks, you know, in their mind it's like instead of 22 dishes, we actually have to be prepared to make 36 at any time. So that's where you have to adjust.
Speaker 2:But again, what are we there for? We're there to serve our members, right, and so there are reality, the realistic limits on that. Like you couldn't keep mise en place for a hundred dishes, but you certainly want to just make sure that you can dial it in for people. So, yeah, I think in the end we got there and we've done a pretty good job of that at Medina. But yeah, we also have every club has its own spatial challenges. Here it's walk-in space, so we have to do a lot of running. Let's just say so. Then we just tell the member hey, listen, I can do that for you, but I need 50 minutes, or I need 40 minutes or something. And then they can decide oh, I got a round, I need to get out there. I got to golf right now I can't do it. I also tell people hey, if you want to do that, just let me know in an email and we'll prepare it for you for sure, just give us a.
Speaker 1:My opinion, our job, so what was it like going there to hong kong and working with a team from hong kong because, like, how was their english, how was the? I mean, that had to be a little bit of a shift. Like, did you, did you prepare for that? Like, is there, is there like a, you know, a us guide to chefs going to hong kong, to to work with no? No it's got to be hard then, not speaking their language, not being from there, and now you're leading their team.
Speaker 2:That's got to be hard.
Speaker 1:Because aren't they a very? But also maybe and I could be kicking myself in the foot they're a very hierarchical. I don't know if that's even a right word, but they take well to levels and respect and stuff the structure. There we go. So was it a little bit easier? Because they have that like yes, sir, because now you are the boss, what was that?
Speaker 2:like, yeah, yeah, that's an awesome question. Growing up, I grew up in Montana, in the middle of nowhere, didn't go almost anywhere until I went to culinary school. I was 19 when I went out to Vermont from Montana, left my girlfriend, all my friends. I was scared, just just shitless, you know, to leave. But I had a great mentor who helped me do that. Um, my second great mentor was a French guy and he was the one who helped me get set up in in a Michelin restaurant in France, which led to the two and the three later. Um, and being a little kid from the middle of nowhere in Montana, experiencing France, you know, and then Europe, traveling around, I was like, dude, there's all this stuff out here, you know, like you're blind, as a little white kid in in somewhat rural Montana at that time, to like what actually happens in the world and all the differences and cool things that are happening out there. So I like, well, as soon as I went and did that, I knew in my mind I got to do. This is my life now. And so I traveled a lot, worked a lot abroad, ended up marrying a Peruvian. Our kids were born in Lima. Our daughter was born there right as the Arab Spring was happening, and then our son was born in Hong Kong. So you know, I think a certain element of your mindset is just being open to situations like that.
Speaker 2:As a chef, I think you also kind of have to be ready for whatever you know. So in Egypt and this is leading to Hong Kong in Egypt, people are like literally the nicest people in the world that I've ever met, like are Egyptian. They're just the nicest folks and it's a hospitality culture. It's awesome, but it's also very, very chill. Like the work ethic is not what we may be used to, and so, working with those guys to get them to do stuff, it was required finesse versus force. Getting to Hong Kong, whoa, that was such a very different experience culturally, because externally these folks are not do not seem warm at first. They're just as warm as anybody.
Speaker 2:But you have to get in, and so, as a chef there you said the hierarchy and I totally agree with that, but they do not want to be told what to do by a foreigner, right. And so in order to get the legitimacy and that's why that club kicked my ass, or part of it was you got to earn the respect right and as a chef, respect is like other things, like the military and there's all these hierarchy structures where respect is really important. You have to earn the respect of your staff, which means working more than them, working harder than them and being able to answer any question that they have. So getting my feet under me there took a long time, and it wasn't that I didn't have the right skills, I just wasn't. I couldn't put it all together, and then the communication challenge was huge.
Speaker 2:So in Hong Kong, you know the British occupation during that whole period of time. Most Hong Kongers speak with the British accent and the folks that speak English are educated more than most cooks are. So, like bankers, office workers, you know they're going to be able to speak with you in English. Most cooks know, and so I spoke for a long time. I spoke through my sous chefs and chefs pretty much only so when I would do a whole team meeting, I'd have everyone together and I'd be talking and then I was at the mercy of that person's understanding me and translating.
Speaker 1:You know, and so Hopefully you didn't take anybody off or they're saying the wrong stuff yes, exactly.
Speaker 2:And Robert Serecci, who I think you, I'm sure you've heard of him, he was over there. Mark, yes, exactly, and Robert Serecci, who I think you, I'm sure you've heard of him, he was over there. Mark Galladet, who was the GM of CC at the DC Ranch in Arizona. He's a longtime chef too. We worked together for 14 years in a row 12 years in a row and worked together there. And so us and a couple other you know Guailo, that's the white devil, white Westerners we took Cantonese classes and that's a very difficult language to learn, but boy did that open the door, like us sounding like children in their language in front of them and just putting ourselves out there. In that way, we made these connections with those guys.
Speaker 2:That were incredible, incredible connections, and so my Cantonese is very poor, but I can make them laugh. They can understand a lot of what I'm trying to say. It's just like as though a six-year-old was talking to them, right? So it was a combination of all that stuff, and I think that I did learn Spanish well and, at the time, french. I took three years of Arabic, and so my philosophy in terms of connecting with people around the world has to do with trying to do it on their terms, right? Like not just kicking the door in and being like do you speak English? It's like I'm going to try to speak your language with you, even if I don't sound good. And so that results in some connections that I cried for days leaving Hong Kong, like so sad to leave that team. Like there was one meeting we had where like 30 people were crying Like we're all just crying, you know they were leave that team Like we.
Speaker 1:there was one meeting we had where like 30 people were crying like we're all just crying, you know, um, so those deep connections.
Speaker 2:They were like, finally this yeah, exactly, this bastard is out of here, um, but we really set up for six years. We set up a culture there with, like the last two or three years there was almost zero turnover, and Mark had a lot to do with that. So did Robert. It was very, very cool and it had a lot to do with just us all trying to communicate but also kicking ass and like working really hard in the kitchen, streamlining things for them. I think as a chef, you always have to work for your employees, right, like I'm there to serve them. They work, we work together, but my role is to serve them. So we worked hard everywhere I've been to make conditions work well for them and like favor them and then guess what? They do awesome things for their food. Is that much better for the membership or the customers, you know? So it was a challenge to your point, but, wow, really well worth going through it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Now you mentioned in the beginning also that you know you're executive chef and also director of food and beverage operations and, like I said, it's one of those I know enough to be dangerous, so I might be shooting myself in the foot also, but the times I think I have seen or heard of that, it's usually because it's a smaller operation and they just need a chef to do everything, and that's sometimes not even the best scenario. How did this come about and how do you have the focus of both to make sure both go effectively or run effectively?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's such a good question and I would not have said yes to this had the conditions not been just right for it to work out. Yeah, chef and bee you know that's the industry term for it. You're right like sometimes ends up pretty bad In this case. So our GM, robert Cerecci he had left, he's at Colton River in South Carolina now he's awesome doing his thing down there. We were blessed. You know, anytime you have a good GM and you switch GMs, you're like, oh God, it's like the roulette wheel, you know like where are we going to land? And so we were very lucky to get yeah like literally everyone's like really quiet during that period.
Speaker 2:It's like praying Um. And we got an incredible GM, so I'm so thankful. His name is Dave Schneider. A lot of people in the industry are going to know him, but he's awesome and I feel very blessed to be working with him because I'm learning a lot with him too. Great mentor, awesome, awesome guy and then just extremely high energy, super positive dude, which is kind of my style too. So we talked about it. He assessed for quite a while and approached me.
Speaker 2:There had been some members who made that suggestion and I was kind of just nervous about it, not because I don't know what to do, but it's a time thing, right? And am I going to do disservices to people by spreading myself even thinner? As a chef, you're always busy in a club. There was, you know, I'm working 70, 80 hours a week as the chef anyway, so how do you add to that? Right? And so he helps, as did the director of human resources and other people who were involved in that really helped. And then I'm just incredibly blessed on the kitchen side to have created a team. I have seven leaders in that group as chefs, chef de cuisines, and then a gentleman who is running our banquet program that I promoted to be our executive sous chef. His name is Chef Chris Tatar and he's the dream dude to do this with. So at this point in time, really, he's running kind of the day-to-day operations in our kitchen.
Speaker 2:And then I told Dave, I need to have I refer to them as pillars right, so like to keep the roof up, you need the proper number of pillars, and so we created our org chart to suit your point exactly, which is how do we not go backwards with the food, first and foremost, but then how do we, how do we tackle so much territory? Right, and so I have six reports and then they have a bunch of reports. Our structure is, like, very intentionally created to make this work. But yeah, you know, hiring I got to hire a front of the house manager who runs all of all the cart service awesome guy named Michael Boschert, from St Louis but spent a long time in fine dining here in Chicago. He comes from the restaurants our members go eat in downtown, so that was awesome.
Speaker 2:So, creating a spread of responsibility in a way that's possible to work down through those pillars Do I feel like I have enough time to do it as well as I'd like to right now. No, like I'm still working on and I told Dave, give me three years to really have this pegged. It's been a year and a half, so I feel pretty good about where we're going, but to create the structure to be as efficient and, you know, operate on the level that we want to, we still have a little ways to go, if I'm honest.
Speaker 1:That's a trust thing and a ballsy. Just give me three years, like that's give me three years bud, Like that's, because it's a lot of time, but it's also not so. So to say that like that's, that's, that's, that's a lot of trust there too.
Speaker 2:So yeah, it is. And I also said you know, judge me at any moment. You know, like assess and the thing with him, that's awesome. And our assistant general manager, like they're around a lot, right, and so I'm like you guys, just like you see what's going on. I'm an open book, like there's nothing hidden at all. So at any time if you're unhappy or whatever, let me know. But you know we're going to push forward and we are, but there's a lot to do.
Speaker 2:It had been two years since the last food and beverage director before me, and so when that happens in the front of the house, you can imagine, like without stable leadership, there was a lot of turnover there were. There were folks who who like maybe they're good at the job but they don't have the cultural aspect that you want, like the, the buy-in team wise, or vibe wise. You know those are the things that I want to provide for them. Again, I'm there to serve them. So I got to get you stable leadership on three different levels between them and me and then make them happy and that again, that turns around to make the membership happy. But teaching the culture of like we're there to create a feeling for our members, like that takes time Right.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, he, I do believe that he trusts in me. You could have him on and ask him, but you know, at any time, like those guys can, can tell me how they think I'm doing and how they think we're doing. I'm an open book and open to feedback, but it's a team effort and that's what Dave does is he creates the feeling that we're all doing this together, across our leadership team and across our entire team, which is, in season, 400 and whatever 30 people. So, yeah, it's a good vibe. I'm really happy, I'm proud to work for him, I'm proud to be at this club. Like I said, it's an awesome project and I do feel confident that we're going to get to where we want to, but it's a, you know, month to month deal.
Speaker 1:So now, what's so? Now, what's the plan with Medina? What you guys got cooking, what's the long-term vision? What's the plan there?
Speaker 2:Thank you for asking. Yeah, so for our membership, definitely for our team as well. We are in what we are considering the greatest three years of Medina history, and I'm sure that there's been other great three-year periods that I was not born for or whatever, but right now is incredible. So last year, in the summer month of July, we launched course number three, which is our PGA competition course. It's the one that Medina prides itself on. So that was an 18-month even a little longer renovation that was done by OCM out of Australia. A long process of choosing them, building the plan for the work. It was very expensive and then it took all of the time they planned. So the unveiling of that. That was the ultimate drum roll. Does it turn out the way everyone likes? And it was a resounding success last summer, which was awesome. So so much fanfare leading up to it. It launched perfectly. Our grounds team, the guys who designed it on our side too just incredible people involved in that. So very, very happy for them and all of us when that launched.
Speaker 2:The second year of that is this year, so our centennial was actually last year, but we decided to celebrate it in 2025 in order to focus on course three in 24. So this year we're doing a large centennial celebration that lasts all year, but it's going to really culminate in a big party in July and we're going to have lots of music. That everybody knows. My dream in terms of the culinary there. I told these guys I'm working with a music promoter to do some believe it or not like pyrotechnic aspects of the food, and so that's all I'll say about that, because we haven't fully discussed it. We're going to make this. This is going to be very cool in a rock and roll food sense and the goal being like after they you know, I said to him I was like after they forget who we are, they remember what we did. You know what I mean. So that's going to be super cool and that's in July, and then we go into 2026.
Speaker 2:As a lot of people know, we have the President's Cup arriving at the club. So PGA has been with us for well over a year now. They spend like three years with you in the lead up, and so we've gotten to know that team well, doing a lot of planning for that too. So, from a culinary standpoint, which is really all I can talk about, all of these things have really, really fun components that allow us to show our best to take what we know our members love and amp it off the charts. So I would be remiss to not mention that, as we talk, it's a great year for our club. The next year will be too. We have an awesome president right now. We have an awesome board of directors, an incredible membership, a great GM, a wonderful team. So, yeah, things are really good at Medina and I'm very proud again to be a part of that. So thank you for asking. Awesome man.
Speaker 1:Awesome, awesome, awesome. Well, hey, thank you, so, so, so much for coming on the show. This is so good, so many good nuggets and insights, and your story is absolutely fantastic, so thank you, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to be with you and an honor.
Speaker 1:Hope you all enjoyed that episode. So good, so much good, great valuable information. If you did give it a like, a share on LinkedIn, that's where, hopefully, you found this episode. Give that post a nice share, comment on the post what your biggest takeaway was, or you can leave a review, a five star with a review on it. Meet the absolute world and cost nothing. But that is this episode. I'm your host, denny Corby. Until next time, catch y'all on the flippity flip.
