Chef Carlos Asseph

Statement

The Game of Chef

My favorite chef is Leonardo Davinci.

He sees the kitchen as a dynamic process and incorporates machines.

His favorite chef was Arquimides, who yelled “Eureka, Eureka!”.

I haven't tasted his food, but being a chef is about more than what happens in your mouth the moment you eat.

It’s a way of being in the kitchen.

Chef Carlos

Biography

I started cooking very young. My grandmother was a Grand Chef who opened and managed 2 impressive restaurants where I’m from in Argentina. She was a master of mother sauces and knew all the secrets to French, Italian and Spaniard cuisine.

She taught me the most important thing: the chef has to be confident that the floor is so clean, he can dine on it.

Food is culture.

You can't be a grand chef if you don't travel.

I have learned about food traveling across South, Central and North America.

Potatoes and corn come from the Andes. Potatoes and corn have been cooked with a wooden spoon into stews for more than 10 thousand years. Quinoa. Cacao.

100 recipes with potatoes

100 recipes with quinoa

But with ceviche Peru has reached the glory of taste, nothing makes “la explosión” like ceviche.

Later in time French cuisine, after having discovered potatoes and tomatoes have learned how to farm them, divided the cuisine into a family of 5 mother sauces, of which 4 remain until today in most kitchens of the western world.

When the French developed this method they were looking to elevate the dining experience with one thing in mind: Elegance. They needed to transcend the way of being a barbarian. The kitchen was the place to start. Over-salted and too spicy are the “barbarian way”. Salt was used as a means of preservation for the meats. Used generously is a poison that hardens your arteries, elevates blood pressure and causes inflammation of the kidneys and pancreas.

A long time has passed since then. Today we live in a world where the food business has elevated the resources and possibilities for chefs around the world which were unimaginable.

One day I was walking around the indigenous market of Oaxaca, having meaningful conversations about coffee with merchants and a very old indigenous woman walked up to me and said: “esto es para usted”. She handed me a coca-cola bottle with a liquid on it. The color was light brown and it was dense.

“What is it?” I asked

“I pressed it with my hands, take it”, she replied.

“How do I use it?” I said, confused.

“Put it on everything” she replied with such clarity and self comfort that I asked: “On me?” she laughed and said “yes”, charged me 10 dollars and walked away.

I walked out of the market with 10 giant shrimp which had just been caught and the oil.

That evening after I cooked, I oiled all my skin with the oil and went for a swim in the beach of Carrizalillo. The most beautiful place I have yet been to.

Since then in my chef's practice I have replaced milk for coconut. No butter, no heavy cream, no salt, no bottled juices, nothing that will hurt your body and saden your spirit.

My food is now cleaner, tastier, more delicate, healthier, faster, neater. “La explosion” that happens with every bite is unique.

Education:

Film. I graduated as a 35mm film editor in 2001 from ENERC, Argentina.

Art History. University of Buenos Aires. 2001-2003

Visual Arts. 3 years at Institute of Visual Arts of Buenos Aires. 2004-2007

Archeology. 2 years at University of Catamarca. 2017-2018

Work experience:

As Leonardo Da Vinci, I have worked in many fields of my interest. I studied film in my 20s. I also worked in kitchens as a server or busser on and off. Always loved the kitchen and admired the chefs. A thing of familiarity in the kitchen which has to do with my grandmother. As any really good chef.

I will list the skills apprehended in each job I’ve had (to name the most important) that I think can help me become a great chef.

1995. Casa Bonita. Denver, CO. Server. Mass food production. A traditional american restaurant. Seats 2000 people per hour, and the food is horrible. I learned about massive food volumes.

1999. Crepe Maker. Buenos Aires, ARG. While studying film I took a job with a Grand Chef who cooks at Punta del Este every summer. I learned to faginar, to clean the plates with alcohol. The crepes were fair.

2000. At my uncle's foreign trade company I distributed mail in very important buildings in downtown Buenos Aires. I had to hand in an envelope to CEOs in the financial district. Mostly I left them with their secretaries. I learned elegance. To observe the city's best buildings and their protocols.

2001. I graduated from film school and started working at a suit factory. I was their sales agent. I became friends with the workers and started making a documentary about them. This film would later premiere in Sundance Film Festival 2008 for best international documentary film. You can read all about my career as a filmmaker in this blog. asseph.wordpress.com

2008. I started my film production company in Los Angeles and Buenos Aires called Creation Cinema, in reference to “La creación” by Miguel Angel. A project which lasted 10 years, gave me many films and awards in many film festivals. I learned to manage a successful film company, traveled all over, managed, invented, fixed, hired, fired, taught, inventoried, administered, budgeted. During all this time I learned to be in big venues as a guest, to see great catering, great service, elegant chefs, amazing people and very good food.

2009. I started the shooting of “Lost in Buenos Aires” a comedy which talks about a food critic who travels to Argentina to learn about their food. In Los Angeles I got to be at the best hotels, talk to the greatest chefs, be in their kitchens, get a real feel of the action. The film was released by Amazon Prime and it's available online.

2012. Finished “Lost in BA'' and started the shooting of 2 films simultaneously. “El Robo” in Uruguay which was released in 2014 and the anthropological documentary “24 Revolutions per Second” about the restoration of the historical footage in the history of Bolivia. Both films were released and are available online with funding from the National Film Academy of Argentina. In Uruguay I learned chivito, specialty Italian pizza such as Fugazzeta, Napolitana, Faina and Asado with Francis Malman in his restaurant at the beach called Garzon.

2014. Buenos Aires/Chicago. Cooking it out. During all this time I rented a huge countryside house in the greater Buenos Aires where I started a private chef practice as a hobby. I would cook paella for my friends in an arado disco. It got so popular that a best friend, Ariel the logic professor, asked me to cook for his wedding. I did. 100 people. 3 courses. Matambre Arrollado. Paella and veggie option a heavy 7 grain soup. Cake. It was a true banquet. I started getting hired and started cooking some recipes inspired by the Grand Chef Francis Malman. This is a beautiful story with the 2 children who were born in that marriage. Last January in a town called Mar del Sur where I like to go to relax and cook, we rented a beautiful cottage at the Beach and I asked the kids, Astor and Blas what they wanted for dinner. They both said: “Chicken Nuggets”. I made chicken nuggets from scratch with basil and polenta. At the end of the night Astor made a necklace with beads and letters that read: “chef”. I became a chef.

2017 Providence. India is a restaurant of traditional cuisine. It was a fantastic experience as a chef to work in that kitchen. The 2 head chefs were from India. They could sautee with both hands and both feet at the same time. Their superpowers included a very disciplined kitchen. They didn't speak any English. I never understood a word they said. The crew was from Guatemala. They didn't speak any English or Hindu. I still need to learn how they communicate with each other. It was fantastic. In this kitchen I learned very important things: how to cut a cauliflower and how to use cumin.

2017 Catamarca. The second part of the year I got hired by the University I was studying Archeology at the University of Catamarca. Their Archaeology program is completely “novel”, they don’t treat the indigenous people as a subject of the past. I was asked to shoot a 5 episode show for TV about the Museum of Laguna Blanca, a boutique museum at 6 thousand meters in the highest peaks of the Andes Mountain Range. The revolutionary thesis proposed by the renowned archaeologist Alejandro Haber claims that the house is the center of the sapiens sapiens and elaborates a sophisticated theory about the role of the house in the cultural identity of a nation. If the house is the center, the kitchen is the epicenter of the identity of humans. Walked for 2 days from base camp to the highest peak, carrying gear, water, food, batteries, for a crew of 6 people. Once we filmed the images on the rocks, we were invited to dine and sleep at the only house in the next 100 miles. I walked into this old ladies kitchen, in a house made of stones, probably some 300 or 400 hundred years ago, if not more. She was 103 years of age. She served me tea with different local herbs. It made me feel very good immediately. She cooked us one of her young lambs. She killed it, cleaned it and cooked it in 1 hour. Wood grilled. I can’t say how divine it was. No salt. That night I slept on a lamb fur, next to the fire, under the stars of the milky way, at the highest peak of the Andes mountains range. I was happy. The 5 episodes came out great, they were published, translated to french. They are online and they are the most watched videos on the university's TV station. In this region I learned: Locro, Carbonada, Humitas, Empanadas, Dulce de Membrillo and tea. Llama on a local malbec wine demi glace and local olive oil, the best i’ve ever tried.

2018 The pandemia struck and I shut down Creation Cinema. I went on a long introspective trip to the South of Mexico. I learned a lot about food and health during this time. I learned to cook the octopus on the grill for the Pulpo Taco. I learned to make coconut milk, coconut bechamel, the true taste of pineapples and mangos. The real Piña Colada. I learned about mole. I dined at Lila Downs restaurant and in La Opera Cafe in Mexico city and sat in the chair where Pancho Villa had dinner the night he took over the city. I learned that foods are narratives. That every meal is a story. I fell in love with food again. And I lost 50 pounds. Reaching my actual weight. 210 lb. over a height of 5’11’’.

2019. Asheville, NC. Glass Maker. I came back to the US and got to work with my best friend AB who is an architect and artist designing complex structures with glass. I learned to build windows. I learned to use the antique Royal measure system which today remains in the US. We fixed the windows of the finest buildings of beautiful Asheville and got to work in a building designed by the renowned architect I. M. Pei. I sat on the deck of the Biltmore mansion with AB, he ordered 2 Manhattans that were precise. There was a show on John Fitzerald, the great American novelists. His typewriter was on display. I took a piece of paper and typed “This will be the next great American Novel”. I want my food to be my next work of Art.

I cooked at 2 restaurants in Downtown Asheville.

-The Foggy Mountain. Bar Food. Small kitchen. The chef was a very honorable chef who did his best to keep that ship straight. They had fun working which was good. I learned to assemble and to prepare. Most important for me was a very good knife sharpening clinic by the owner.

-Village Wayside Bar and Grill. Bar food and a small saute with noble recipes. Pretty clean. The chef Paulie was a great chef and a good person. The food was over-salted but clean and fresh. I learned to bread their fish with cream and butter. I blanched fries, chips, prepped a pantry station and serviced. I will come back to Asheville one day and cook there again.

2024. Narragansett, RI. Saute Chef. This year I started at a private Beach Club in Narragansett. The kitchen had some extraordinary dishes. I learned to Sautee with tongs (not my favorite). We made a few decent beurre blancs. But the lack of cleanliness and overall the attitude of the kitchen was not of excellence. After 2 months of setting up the kitchen from scratch and starting to run a menu a la carte, a few banquets and specialty brunches I decided it was time for me to try out something more ambitious.

2024. NYC. Delmonico's. Tournant Chef.

Being hired at Delmonico’s was certainly a highlight in my life. Walking down to 56 Weaver St. in Manhattan has an epic taste. Delmonico’s is the oldest fine dining restaurant in the US. Cooking there was a great experience for me. Everything I was exposed to there was excellent, the food, the processes, their cleaning methods, the chef jackets, the knives. I worked the fryer during service and cooked for “family” every day I was there. The instruction of the Exec. Chef Edward Hung to me was to deliver a banquet each day at 3.30 for the family (100 covers). It was so exciting to cook there for all these chefs and elegant restaurant workers. I was very proud to make all kinds of food for them, a very demanding audience. Their gratitude was expressed daily and really made me feel good to deliver my food for them. The prep for the fryer included bringing 1 floor up 14 cambros of fries to blanch. I am turning 46 and this isn’t a type of work that I can do at such intensity.

2024. Brooklyn. Republic Latin Fusion. Executive Chef. I walked into this kitchen and it was a mess. Not just dirty, but everything had been turned upside down after the resignation of the previous chef, who had managed to run a menu and a crew for a while. I was asked to redesign the menu. But really we needed to clean and organize the kitchen. For 1 month I took care of the menu, the providers, hiring a reliable crew and forming a leadership team. And all of this on a very tight budget. I successfully accomplished all my goals here. But it was very stressing. I worked for about 18 hrs a day. When the kitchen was back up and functional, the owners and I decided that it was time for a change. We remain friends and I may go back to Brooklyn to work with them next year.

Im currently cooking at U of Brown for the Faculty Staff and consulting in diverse restaurants in Providence and surroundings.

My grandmother died the year I graduated from Film School. My greatest regret is not having filmed her cooking. But when I cook, she cooks with me.