Ep. 1: Matt Orlando

James Clasper: Hello and welcome to Dad Mode Activated, the podcast celebrating fatherhood after forty. I’m your host, James Clasper, and here, I talk to fellow late bloomers about the unique joys and challenges of becoming a dad later in life.

My guest today is Matt Orlando. Born in San Diego, California, Matt became a chef when he was just 16 and went on to work for many of the biggest names in the restaurant industry, including Raymond Blanc, Thomas Keller, and René Redzepi, who gave Matt a sous-chef role at his Copenhagen restaurant Noma and later brought him back as head chef.

In 2013, Matt launched his own restaurant, Amass. Among Matt's many initiatives at Amass was a commitment to eliminating food waste by turning byproducts into delicious ingredients in their own right — a journey that culminated in the launch of the Endless Food Company, whose signature product is a chocolate bar made entirely without cocoa butter or beans.

But that's not all, of course. Matt is also a doting dad to two young children. Matt, welcome to Dad Mode Activated.

Matt Orlando: Thanks, James.

James Clasper: So begin, if you will, by telling me about your childhood — where you grew up and what it was like.

Matt Orlando: So I grew up in San Diego — surfing, skateboarding, snowboarding. I got my first job at a pizza place when I was actually 14, just to save enough money because my dad said he would match whatever I saved up to buy a car when I turned 16. And I saved up 5,000 dollars, and I brought it to my dad, and he goes, “Oh, you can get a great car for 5,000. And so I bought a car, and I saved up just so I had a car so I could go snowboarding and surfing. So that's how I got into the restaurant industry, making pizzas at, to this day, one of the best pizzas I've ever had, called Olio’s, and my parents, hardcore hippies. I mean, we grew up in a super loose environment. Lof love and freedom and yeah, it was great. It was great. Can't complain.

James Clasper: Now, I can't be the only one who's watched the hit show The Bear and assumed it was a fairly accurate depiction of what it's like in a high-end restaurant in terms of the stress, the anxiety, the hours, the star-chasing ambition and so on. I don't want to litigate that now, but I am interested in understanding what it means for young chefs who want to have a family. To put it bluntly, it doesn't sound like working in Michelin-starred restaurants is terribly conducive to having kids. Is it fair to say that it's, you know, impossible to, quote, “have it all” in that respect?

Matt Orlando: I mean, impossible is a big word, but I would say that it is very difficult if you are striving for something if you are — and I don't think this is just in restaurants in general — but if you are operating at an elite level, it takes sacrifice. And generally, you want to do that when you're younger because you don't have the commitments around you. You don't own any… you don't own an apartment or a house. You don't have kids. Maybe or maybe not, you have a girlfriend. And if you do have a girlfriend, chances are you probably have a new girlfriend six months down the road because of all the hours you're working. And it is very transient, but when you're at that level of cooking, and you choose to go down — no one's forcing you to go down that road, but if you choose to go down that road, you need to kind of in your young, you need to put everything aside and just go full throttle into it. If you want to get anything out of it if you're trying to navigate. having a family and doing that kind of work. I don't see how it can work out until you're a bit older and you have, maybe you have your own place or you work in a place and you have a lot of people around you that can actually give you a bit more freedom.

James Clasper: How did having that career and working in those restaurants kind of shape your thinking about your future and whether you wanted to have a family? Did it influence it? Did it have a kind of an impact on what you wanted or thought you wanted?

Matt Orlando: 100%. “No kids” was definitely on the cards for, I mean, the majority of my life. And even when I met Julie, my wife now — I say that like I've had a lot of wives, I've only had one wife, Julie, for 20 years — we also talked about that because we've worked together for 18 of those 20 years. So we met in the restaurant industry. She worked at Per Se, Noma, and Amass. I mean, she knew what it was. And we always talked about probably not having kids. But I think you get to a moment in your life where all of a sudden you're kind of like, okay, wait, I see a window, and I might, you know, now I have my own restaurant, and I have a great team around me and, you know, engaging and having to work service every single night. Maybe it's not the most productive way for me to engage in this work because there are a lot of things you have to do when you own your own restaurant, you have to do outside of cooking, which is more productive than cooking. Unfortunately, you work so hard to get your own place and then all of a sudden you're not doing what you love to do all the time. So all of a sudden there was this window and I think, and you know, Julie and I, we didn't really even have a conversation about it. I think we kind of both saw the window, and we both saw the flexibility where, okay, maybe I work service for four of the five nights were open, and then I have three nights off, and then I could go into later on some of the days. So we saw that flexibility in her being the operations manager at that time. We saw that, like, she could work in the daytime and be home at night. So we took advantage of it and went for it.

James Clasper: Were you also kind of in the right place with yourself? What I mean by that is, you know, the average age of having, you know, one's first child is 31 in the US and in Denmark. And can you think back to what you were like when you were 31?

Matt Orlando: I mean, when I was 31, I was so full throttle. I was the executive sous chef at Per Se. I had blinders on. I was going in one direction. mean, it wasn't even a thought process in my mind about having kids or a family. I was fully committed to that job. And then you know, it's funny, you fast forward, and all of a sudden you kind of see this window, as we just talked about of opportunity. And up until that point, I was always like, I always felt like I was chasing something, or I was looking for the next thing. Let's go travel here and cook a dinner here and let's go to India and travel over India and collect ingredients and cook a dinner here. And like, all this, like traveling and chasing something and I love going to, very remote, uncomfortable places, to experience that all along, it's funny because I thought I was chasing these things that were giving me so much gratitude. And then we had Sonia, our first kid, and I was like, Whoa, that's like, that's what I was chasing, that all of a sudden there was like this piece of like emptiness in my heart that I hadn't experienced before that I thought I could feel with other things. That all of a sudden I was like, Whoa, that's, that's the feeling I was looking for. And maybe that just goes down to our biological makeup as a species that needs to reproduce. And so, yeah, that was a big turning point for me. And I was like, Oh, okay. I've been doing all these things, which have been amazing experiences, but that's not actually what I was, I was looking for.

James Clasper: Well, you just mentioned your daughter, Sonia. Paint a picture of your domestic life now. So, you know, what ages are your kids, and how old were you when they came along?

Matt Orlando: I was 40 when Sonia came along. And I was 43 when Bowie came along.

James Clasper: I want to go back to the moment you became a parent, or at least knew you would become a parent.

Matt Orlando: Yes.

James Clasper: How prepared were you for it? And maybe kind of another way of asking that is, what did you think it was going to be like? And how has that lived up to or defied your expectations?

Matt Orlando: I am a person who loves change. I love it all the time. I'm the type of person who when I ride home at night, I take a different way home every night. Or if I'm going somewhere, I never ride on the same, the same way. And so, for me, I was super excited. I had no idea what to expect. One thing that I anticipated and was 100 percent wrong on was that I was, like, I'm a chef. I am sleep deprived for the last 18 years of my life. , This is going to be no problem. Like physically, no way, man, there, there is a level of seat deprivation. You meet, you reach for your kids, but it's just, at one point I looked at Julie, I was like, we have to reach the pinnacle. Like this is, you cannot be more sleep-deprived than this. Worse than any other situation where I worked 10 days in a row for 16 hours a day. It was just a different as a different thing.

James Clasper: I just want to kind of get a sense of your… because this is a podcast that embraces fatherhood after 40. I guess I struggle with how to define what that means, and I hate to call it an older parent, it's being a relatively older parent, but in your mind's eye…

Matt Orlando: Experienced.

James Clasper: Thank you. That's the word I've been looking for. Okay. So that answers my question. I mean, how do you see yourself? Do you see yourself as a “seasoned”, “experienced” parent? Is that your kind of go-to definition?

Matt Orlando: I would say that after two kids, you can consider yourself quite seasoned, but I would say if I fast forward back to going into being a parent over 40 and starting that journey off, if I think about where I was mentally when I was 31, just my awareness of the world and how people engage with each other, and the experience that I had between 31 and 40 helped me just understand society and human nature in general. I think at 40, going into that, having a kid, and even now more so, you're able to approach certain situations with your kids with a bit more… or a bit less frustration and more going in with being more aware that they just don't understand the situation and you have to sometimes check yourself and when you get frustrated that they're not doing something or that this is sometimes the first time they're ever experiencing this situation. So they don't… they have zero reference point of how they should engage in the situation. It's taught me a lot of patience. And, which at 31, I had this much patience — zero.

James Clasper: A lot of parents in our position can empathize with that, that sort of sense of, you know, our younger selves being maybe less empathetic as well, just kind of not seeing something through someone else's eyes. Do you think that your life experience also helps you kind of make better decisions as an older parent?

Matt Orlando: Definitely. Definitely. I think that if I was 31 and making some of the decisions I make now, I would have been, like, way more protective and not really examined. Like I'm very, like, I love to, like, think in words. And when I'm about to make a decision, I really think about that and say, Okay, is that the best way to approach it? And at 31, I would have never done that. I would have, I'm just like shooting from the hip at 31 with all my decisions and very spontaneous, making decisions with like a lot of emotion, which generally, it can go either way and now I'm just much more calculated because I have a thought process about decisions now.

James Clasper: What do you find harder about being an older parent?

Matt Orlando: I would say if I was 31, I definitely wouldn't have felt the sleep deprivation as much as I did at 40, I think the physical aspect of it is a little, I mean, there's a reason I think why you have kids when you're younger, because you're just, in a different state physically, mentally and physically. But that's not to say you can't counteract that, I saw when I was 40 and Sonia was born that I was like, Okay, well,  I need to train for life now. Like, you have to train, you have to, you have to do physical things, you have to stretch, you have to be mobile, you have to make time for that, because if you don't do that, you're just, you want to move around on the floor, you want to roll around with your kids on the floor and throw them around. And, you know, as a parent, you're in really weird positions sometimes. And if you're not physically fit, you're going to, like, throw your back out or twist your knee. Or, so it's like, you're constantly, like, training these parts of your bodies. I went to CrossFit this morning, and I was doing this exercise. And I was like, Holy shit, my lower back. And he's like, Yep, that's from picking up your kids right there. He's like, We'll get that fixed up right away.

James Clasper: And one of the things I love about various forms of exercise after a certain age, when you have kids, is that you kind of start to pick out the ones that are functional. You know, there are some that you think, Oh, this would be great. This will make me look great. But actually, it does nothing in terms of, like, protecting my back when I'm picking up those, you know, 20-kilo kids, or whatever it is.

Matt Orlando: It also teaches you form. Especially if you're at CrossFit, cause CrossFit is all form. Like, every time I go to pick up my kid, I'm like sticking my butt out.

James Clasper: Love it. Are there things that you've kind of given up or sacrificed — and maybe that's an emotive word — but that’s kind of a lifestyle change you've made that you've kind of had to make and perhaps reluctantly as a consequence of being a relatively older slash experienced parent?

Matt Orlando: Drinking, definitely, is one that I just don't do. I just don't drink anymore. I've never been a big drinker, but, you know, I did like to have a glass of wine at the end of the night or a beer or something. And I pretty much avoid altogether now because one beer is not really worth it anymore. Now I'm like such a lightweight, if I actually do have any alcohol and I had like one or two glasses of wine, I'm like, headache the next day.

James Clasper: Yeah, no, I know the feeling the next day.

Matt Orlando: And you’ve got to get up with your kids at six in the morning.

James Clasper: Yeah, yeah. It kind of doubles down on it. Tell me, you know, parenting is not easy and, for men in particular, I think it can be difficult to find the right kind of, you know, mental or emotional support and to talk about why it's difficult, how it's difficult. The older men get, the less likely they are to reach out and talk to friends, and to kind of find the support when they need it. So, you know, when you compound it with being a parent, it can be tricky. Has it been an issue for you?

Matt Orlando: I don't think it's been that big of an issue for me, mostly because Julie and I have such an open dialogue and it's like, we kind of are a sounding board to each other. Like at any frustrations. I will say that, you know, I have a couple of really close friends both here and in San Diego still that I talk to frequently. One is about five years younger than me, but has the same age kids. I would say he and I talked the most about some frustrations or like, Oh, my son did this today and I reacted like this and maybe it wasn't the best way to react. What, how would you have approached it? So I have one really good friend here who's American that I talk to a lot because you don't always make the right decisions in the moment and you can't be so hard on yourself to expect yourself to make the decisions, the right decisions every single time. Once you can accept that, I think you alleviate a lot of kind of stress because that's what I find sometimes when I talk to my friends who have kids and they're just like, and they, like, really like pound themselves for maybe making the wrong decision. I'm like, Yeah, but when was the last time we actually talked about you making the wrong decision? Like six months ago, I mean, like, let it go, man. Let it go and move on because if you dwell on it, it's just gonna fester. Life moves on.

James Clasper: I think that's such an interesting answer because we talked about the culture of high-end restaurants and Michelin-starred restaurants. And part of that is perfectionism and chasing the next accolade. And, of course, there is no such thing as being a perfect parent or perfect parenting. So how did you kind of manage to exist in that world of the pursuit of excellence and the pursuit of perfection and then become a parent where you kind of have to switch into a different mode, except that you can't be perfect and you're going to make mistakes and you can't beat yourself up for those mistakes. How did you kind of manage that mindset shift?

Matt Orlando: I think I overcompensate at home by, like, labeling everything in our fridge, in our pantry, like at work. That's my way of still justifying that I'm not being a hypocrite doing one thing at work and at home. But it is hard at first because you do go in, especially with Sonia, our daughter, our first kid, you do go into being a parent with this mindset because it's just part of your life. Like, you know, running a restaurant or working in a restaurant, it's not separate than your private life. It's very much intertwined, or at least for me it is. And so you bring that home with you and that organization and that pursuit of something really great, and you are reminded instantly that you don't have the control that you have at work. And so as soon as you realize that you don't have the same control over everything that you do at work, you have to relinquish something, or you'll go absolutely out of your mind, and you'll be frustrated all the time. So I am to my detriment — or to being a good ability — I am a great compartmentalizer. I can really separate things now into, you know, this is my mindset when I'm here. This is my mindset when I'm here. This is my mindset when I'm here, and just kind of pop in and out of those without them kind of crossing over each other. And that's something you just kind of have to do. I have to do.

James Clasper: Is that a skill you think you've developed over time? By dint of being, again, an experienced parent. I mean, could you have done that 10, 15 years ago?

Matt Orlando: No, because I had one path, there wasn't multiple paths back then. It's something you really had to do, or I was forced to do just to be functional in either space, especially with having kids, if you let that bleed over into work and because, you know, that mindset at home is frustrating sometimes. It's chaotic and it's hectic and you have to, especially mornings, like if you have a chaotic morning, which there's more chaotic mornings than not when you're trying to get two kids ready for school. If you let that chaos come with you to work, you're in a bad place at work. So you really have to, like, Okay, last kids dropped off. That part of the day is over. We'll put it over there. Focus. Now we're here. And that is, there's not, I don't even think about that part of the day anymore. I just move on. I would have never been able to do that at 31.

James Clasper: A little like the TV show Severance…

Matt Orlando: Oh, I love that show. That is such a great show. Not as twisted, but yes.

James Clasper: I want to shift gears a little and talk about how you see yourself as a parent. What kind of parent would you say you are?

Matt Orlando: I would say Julie has helped me become extremely… I would say way more empathetic to certain situations. She's been a school teacher for the last two years, and as we talked about earlier, it's like seeing a situation that's super frustrating to us as parents; you can't let that frustration spill over into your kids because they don't know. They don't know better. And sometimes some people will say, yeah, but you have to show them that. So they know that it's frustrating, and they learn from it. There are other ways. And Julie has been amazing. We talk about it all the time, like how to handle certain situations with kids because now they're three and seven and they're, you know, they're becoming little humans and have opinions. And so it is being more calculated. I think I've become really good at that. Initially, if a crazy blow-up would have happened, I would be like, Everyone stop. Everyone go to your rooms. Stop. Now it's kind of like, Okay, wait, like, 15 seconds before you say anything. So I think I've become way more patient, to observe the situation and then just really asking, like, What's your problem? What's your problem? Let them both say and then like, Okay, I see it. Maybe it's better that you guys both… Like, we don't talk to the kids like they're kids. We talk to them like they're adults, I really like that. And they understand. I think they appreciate it. So I think I'm a way more patient of a parent. I'm way more stricter than Julie is. We need to go. I'm, like, Okay, now we're going, okay, we're not dealing with this anymore. Because Bowie is, like, every morning to put him in his onesies, like doing gymnastics on the floor, you know, the drill. So, I'm a patient parent, but I am firm and I think I'm fair. I think I'm fair because I have, in the early days, seeing where I haven't been fair, in addressing situations. But Julie and I also have a very… we have a very good system where it's, like, if one of us is getting like very, you know, you can go from, like, zero to… patient to, like, “What is going on?” when the other person sees that both of us will never engage in a situation together. It's always, like, one of us, but as soon as you can, you can feel when the other one's starting to, like, come up a little bit, you're like, you just walk over and tap them on the shoulder and, like, you know, They leave the situation. It's just seems to, like, reset the situation a bit better. We have a good system like that in place, but I'm also… I love talking with the kids, like having a conversation with them, like really trying to understand what they say. Because I listened to a lot of stuff and read a lot of stuff about the, like, neuroscience. I love to understand how our brains work. So sometimes I'll get in this, like, really deep conversation with Sonia — Bowie's not there yet — about why her brain is thinking that and trying to understand and tease it out of her a little bit. And sometimes she is, like, Daddy, I don't understand what you're saying. But sometimes she actually engages and she'll just like, she'll just talk off the top of her head. And I think it's… I love that because kids what they say is so unfiltered. I love it.

James Clasper: I love the idea that you're researching how to be a parent through neuroscience. You know, some people listen to elementary podcasts, for tips for tricky eating and stuff like that. But you know, on something like tricky eating, I mean, when you're, when you're a chef, you kind of have, I guess, certain expectations for how your food is received. Is that genuinely kind of a more challenging aspect of being a parent when you’re putting delicious food on the table and they're just, like, I just want crisps?

Matt Orlando: You know, I've grown a thicker skin than before, even when I had a restaurant. It'll get me ready for my next restaurant. I'll have, like, reviewers. I don't care what they say. So they're preparing me for the next restaurant. But I would say we are quite lucky in the sense that they pretty much eat everything. They don't eat everything all the time. Some days they like tomatoes. Some days they don't like tomatoes. It's always like a moving target of what they're going to eat or not eat. But I, you know, I have a pretty good idea as they, as their kind of, their preferences shift. I have a pretty good idea of what they are. So, and I… I'm like a very planned out for, I mean, we do all the shopping on Sunday and there's a meal plan for dinner for Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. And so everything is in the house. So we have it kind of really planned out. And then of course, because life is with kids is you can plan as much as you want, but you're just kind of flexible with that plan and sometimes two dinners become one. But at least you have all the stuff in the house to execute food for, like, seven days. I'm thankful because they are really good. They do eat a lot. And when I have other friends come over, their kids, they are like, No, they only eat pasta or rice or something like that. I'm like, Thank you so much for my kids being so much more open about food.

James Clasper: I'm guessing your version of pasta with tomato sauce is, you know, better than mine.

Matt Orlando: Well, I would say the kids are … they don't even like pasta with tomato sauce. They're like pasta with, like, reduced caramelized cream and Parmesan cheese and, I mean, I've also created this as well. So I take full responsibility because they go to a friend's house and it's like pasta with tomato sauce. They're like, No.

James Clasper: You've set the bar very, very high. Speaking of kids, though, and restaurant culture and so forth, I'd love to hear what you have to say about the consequences of having children on what you do. So you talked a bit before about when you were at Amass, you reduced the number of services that you were present at. So tell me a bit more about that. I mean, it is an industry with notoriously long hours. So you've obviously had to kind of juggle it. So how did you manage that?

Matt Orlando: Well, I obviously, you know, you're gonna have a kid before you have the kid, so it's not like you can start to plan around that, especially professionally. And I had, that was really the time where I'm like, Okay, I need to actually have a head chef now that can operate at a higher level than everyone else. So if I'm not here, I know the standards are still up here. Your first head chef, when you own a restaurant, is both challenging for you, but probably more challenging for the person that you're putting in charge. And I know because I was René's first head chef at Noma. Because you're relinquishing some control, and I don't care what any chef says who has their own place. Everyone is a control freak. You don't have your own place if you're not a control freak. You also have the responsibility to relinquish it in a productive way, a clear way, because you're handing over information in order to do that. And I think that the first six months was … it was, like, I wasn't giving him all the information he needed to succeed at the level I expected him to succeed at because I was holding on to things that I should have been letting go of. I mean, we got there, and it was great. And that's when I was able to kind of like start to take a little bit, take a night off here and there, and then take one night every week off and then take two nights. And obviously it took me, like, what, three years to get to taking three and a half nights off a week. But that process was, like, instrumental in me going forward with future head chefs that I have. Like, I've really learned that process now, like, this is how it has to happen. You have to be able to set yourself up like that from a business perspective.

James Clasper: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense, and the flip side I'm interested in as well is whether having children when you did, the age you did, influenced in part or in whole, your thinking about responsibility and the impact that restaurants have, that your restaurant had. Did becoming a father kickstart the journey that you're on and fuel in part your desire to change the food industry?

Matt Orlando: We opened Amass in 2013 and it was around 2015 when we really started to go down this path aggressively. Sonia wasn't born until 2018. So we were already on that path, but having kids reinvigorated my commitment to that because, at the end of the day, you want your kids to be able to look back and say, Wow, my mom or my dad really had something they believed in and they really put a lot of effort into making that happen because that ultimately will influence how they engage in the world as well. This is where work at home spills over a lot is that, you know, we do a lot of these things that we did at Amass. At home, like, we make vegetable skin XO and we save all of our own bread and we make ice cream and so that mindset… I mean, Bowie, by the time he was two years old, he knew where to put the plastic recycling and the cardboard recycling. And so that has bled over quite a bit at home, and I would like, you know, Sonia, when she gets older, when she's old enough, she'll come spend time in the kitchen and see how it works and just see that. And because I work so much, I'm probably not at home as much as the average father is, but at the same time, and maybe this is just me telling myself a story to justify it, but at the same time, I think that your kids see work ethic, your kids see drive and determination and they see why you're doing it, that it has a bigger reason that cannot not kind of bleed into their future selves. I think, like, Sonia helps me cook at home all the time. And if she's like, No, I'm, I don't want to do this anymore. I don't want to peel these carrots. I'm like, No, you came up here, you said you wanted to help. I said you're going to peel these five carrots and you're going to stay here and you're going to finish peeling these five carrots. And she's like, Ugh. But for me, that's a part of it. That's part of being a parent, to teach them to follow through with it.

James Clasper: Part of the journey you're on, and I mentioned it at the very beginning, is the company you launched, Endless, which, as I said, makes chocolate without cocoa butter or cocoa beans. Very quickly, reveal the secret. How?

Matt Orlando: The secret… so we make it out of spent brewers grain, so all the grain that's left over after brewing beer, that's the base of the entire product. And it's just a process of roasting that at a certain temperature for some time, grinding that with, I will call the black box of ingredients, it's only about three more ingredients. And setting it with a plant-based fat, and that's it. And you get something that is very, very reminiscent of chocolate. I mean, I just made brownies with Sonia last night with THIC because we don't have chocolate in the house. She still is like, It's not, I don't understand because it tastes like it. She's still trying to, like, grapple with it in her brain.

James Clasper: You said it's THIC. That's an acronym. What does that stand for?

Matt Orlando: This isn't chocolate.

James Clasper: Is it healthier than…

Matt Orlando: More fiber, less sugar than chocolate.

James Clasper: And you can find it where?

Matt Orlando: I mean, right now, we're only selling it B2B. We sell many, many hundreds of kilos to 7-Eleven right now. They bake all their cookies with it. It's on the menu at a zero-waste restaurant in Portugal called Sem. It's also a zero-waste restaurant in Helsinki called Nola,

James Clasper: Plenty of places and coming,

Matt Orlando: More.

James Clasper: Yeah. Let's kind of wrap things up with some final questions, some final thoughts. To what extent, if at all, does being an older parent play on your mind?

Matt Orlando: I mean, well, the obvious is like, I am older, so I will be older when my kids get older. And I  really think that, yes, it's something you should think about. But also that is, for me personally, like a driving force

To eat healthy, to work out, to sleep, which I always don't manage to do as much as I should, as all of us do, to just have like a healthier, more clear mindset on life. And if I didn't have kids at this age, I definitely wouldn't be, I would say, focusing as much on my health, both mentally and physically as I do, because I'm 47 and I definitely can keep up with 35-year-olds, no problem physically, jumping around and stuff. So I appreciate that my kids have like created that. Age is in the mind of the beholder. I have a young mindset. I also think that working hard is a blessing because it does keep you young, it keeps you physical, keeps you moving around. I also work around, like, all the people I work around are like under 30. So that also keeps you young because you're just, you're engaged in different kinds of talk and different kinds of antics and stuff on a daily basis. Of course, you have to, like, sometimes pull yourself out of it and be, like, Actually, wait, I'm 47. I'm not 30. I'm not going to the club after service tonight like everyone else is. But it's a mindset, and I think you can get much further mentally and physically if you engage in this kind of younger, younger mindset.

James Clasper: Hear, hear. Now tell me you're surrounded by these 20- and 30-somethings in the kitchen. How has being a parent, in this season of your life, to young kids helped or hindered how you work professionally? Have there been benefits to being an older parent with a brigade of young whippersnappers?

Matt Orlando: Again, patience has definitely been… I mean, before, I remember when I opened Amass and young people were just engaging in these like young antics that kind of you did it when you were younger as well, but you know, this isn't being productive, and this is, you know, it's fine. And, but I definitely have a higher tolerance for that. But I still do address it in a way, like, Listen, I don't care if you guys are messing around. If your work is done, you can do whatever you want. If it's not done, then there's something needs to change. So I put it on them to be aware of how they act. Because you are a professional. You need to remember you are a professional. You are paid to do what you do. A quote came across my feed the other day that said, “You are paid directly in proportion to the amount of problems you can solve.” And I loved it. I loved it. I put it right in my notebook. I was, like, I will use that all the time because you forget. I mean, as a young person, you forget you're just like grinding away, you're fucking around and you kind of have to be, like, No, you are a professional. I pay you to do a job. Let's act professional.

James Clasper: And now you're a parent, are you more empathetic towards the whippersnappers in the kitchen in a way that maybe 10 years ago, you were just like, Come on, sort your shit out? Are you now not just more patient but more prepared to listen and try and kind of see something through their eyes, whatever it is?

Matt Orlando: I would like to think that I have achieved some psychiatric status within the Copenhagen restaurant scene. I often get contacted by former cooks, and they're like, Hey, can you go for a walk? I just want to, like, I just need to get something out. I'd get your perspective on it. And I appreciate that. And I've also been able to, like, really sit down with people now and say, Listen, like, I know that you can do this job. I also know that you smoke a lot of weed, so you need to make a decision on how to proceed with your life. Do you want to do this, or do you want to do that? And that's being an adult and it's decisions that I've had to make. And so I think trying to turn an aggressive situation more into a potential life lesson, or just a realization that you're an adult and you need to engage in the world and make a decision. You know, if you want to, go off and sit in Christiania all day and do that you can do that. You're an adult, you can make that choice. But if you want to be here. Then you need to make that choice as well. So, in the past, I would have just said “Get out” rather than having that conversation.

James Clasper: So you're kind of a parent, in a way, to some of them?

Matt Orlando: Oh, I mean, especially when I was the head chef at Noma, you have three jobs. You are first and foremost, a hundred percent. The majority of your job, you're a psychiatrist. Then you are a babysitter. Then you are a chef.

James Clasper: So you were somewhat prepared for parenthood by the kitchen at Noma.

Matt Orlando: Yeah, exactly.

James Clasper: Okay. So, last question then. You kind of touched upon it before, but how has being a Michelin chef helped you at home as a parent? It's not hard for you to whip up a tasty meal for hungry mouths, but I also picture kind of Sharpied labels and everything. I think you hinted at that. So how do you parent in light of being a professional chef?

Matt Orlando: Well, I definitely never leave home without a Sharpie. And Julie is also like this. She’s hyper-organized as well. That actually comes from… we both succumbed to the Thomas Keller hyper-organized when we worked there for three years. Because she worked there for three years as well in the dining room. And everything is super-labeled and organized and, as I said, like, we have a meal plan for the whole week, starting out. So, because you know, and this is very much a mirror image of how I ran Amass, is that we were hyper-organized in the places where we could be organized, whether it's ordering and labeling, cleaning. Like, all the stuff that's kind of like robotic in the kitchen that you have to do because if you're organized and at home, we're super-organized with how we plan food and meals, and every Sunday we link up our calendars, and so we're kind of for the week, we're there because, both in a restaurant and having a family and being at home, if you organize the whole backend of your life, that leaves you headspace for the creative side of your life, which would be a restaurant, or the chaotic side of your life, which would be a restaurant. And so you're not stressed about what you have to do in, the background. You can focus all your mental energy on these two situations, the creative and the chaotic. And sometimes they go together, especially in a restaurant. Chaotic creativity is also quite exciting, but it leaves you that headspace to be able to do that more effectively.

James Clasper: I love that. So you're not just in permanent dad mode. You're in permanent chef-de-cuisine mode as well at home.

Matt Orlando: Yeah, I would say my wife reminds me of that all the time.

James Clasper: I think that's a great place to end the interview. Matt Orlando, thank you very much. It's been a pleasure talking to you.

Matt Orlando: Thanks, James. Appreciate it.

James Clasper: You've been listening to Dad Mode Activated. This episode was produced and hosted by me, James Clasper, for Archipelago Audio. The music is by Peet Morrison.

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