[piano intro] - Hello, I'm Nido Qubein.

Welcome to Side by Side.

My guest today is an award-winning chef and entrepreneur who turned a passion for Spanish cuisine into one of America's most celebrated restaurants.

Through food and hospitality, she's redefining what it means to bring science to the kitchen table.

Today we hear from Chef Katie Button.

- Funding for Side by Side with Nido Qubein is made possible by: - Coca-Cola Consolidated makes and serves over 300 of the world's best brands and flavors to over 65 million consumers across 14 states and the District of Columbia.

With 17,000 purpose-driven teammates, we are Coca-Cola Consolidated.

- The Budd Group has been serving the Southeast for over 60 years.

Specializing in janitorial, landscape, and facility solutions, our trusted staff delivers exceptional customer satisfaction.

Comprehensive facility support with the Budd Group.

- Truist, we're here to help people, communities, and businesses thrive in North Carolina and beyond.

The commitment of our teammates makes the difference every day.

Truist, leaders in banking, unwavering in care.

[upbeat music] - Katie, welcome to Side by Side.

We've been looking forward to chat with you because you're an entrepreneur on the one hand.

Fifteen years ago, you started this famous restaurant in Asheville, North Carolina.

And what's the name of it?

- Cúrate.

- It's a Spanish word.

- Yes.

- What does it mean?

- It means cure yourself or take care of yourself.

- Oh, cure yourself.

So, your food that you serve in that restaurant is what?

Is it continental?

Is it Spanish?

What is it?

- Spanish tapas.

- Spanish tapas.

- That's been my professional cooking.

- So, if I came to your restaurant, I would get a bunch of little plates?

- You would, yeah.

You'd just taste through a bunch of things and share it with friends and family, neighbors.

- Yeah, that's very, very interesting.

That sounds complicated to me.

I mean, you have to have all these different kinds of foods prepared versus just making a, you know, a breast of chicken or a steak.

- Our team would say it's a lot of work and a lot of plates, you know, just flying in and out of our kitchen.

- Yeah.

Is it a lot of waste at the end of the day in food?

- No, I think people when they order tapas, they... - They eat it.

- They eat it, yeah.

And then they order what they want and they keep, you know, they start with a set of things and then they might add some more dishes.

But I think they're actually less likely to over order.

- Really?

And does the average meal cost more because there's a greater variety of food than let's say just ordering a, is this a chicken or steak or something?

- No, on average, our check average is really like right in line with the rest of the restaurants in Asheville.

Some more like casual fine dining level of restaurant.

So it's just that the, you get more plates, but each one is cost less.

- I see.

I see.

- It adds up to about the same.

- I see.

And why did you get into this business?

When you went to Cornell, you studied sciences of all things.

And now you are on the Magnolia Network.

You show is things called From the Source.

And why did you call it From the Source?

- I, in that show, I travel to the different producers of foods, whether that's an oyster farmer or maple syrup, and I get my hands dirty learning why they do what they do and how they do it.

So I'm literally going to the source of the ingredients that make up lots of the kind of base ingredients, the dishes in my restaurant or other restaurants.

- So you honestly use those in your restaurant.

You don't have this big refrigerator truck that comes in with all the food that's been, that's been, all these preservatives and everything else that go put on food today.

- It takes a combo, well, not the preservatives, but it takes a combo of both things.

We use source from a ton of local regional farmers in North Carolina.

- Fresh food, fresh vegetables.

- Exactly.

Eggs and things like that.

And then you have to have your base suppliers of your, you know, fryer oil.

I'm not finding that at the local farm, but yes.

- Of course.

But it's going to be difficult to run a restaurant.

- It's definitely challenging.

I feel like we've crossed a major milestone making it to 15 years, particularly with the hurdles of, you know, going through a pandemic and then the hurricane that hit Asheville.

We've had a tough time the last six, but we're feeling, we're just, I don't know, very grateful to have made it and obviously created something that people really love to continue to support us.

- And you have a relatively large restaurant.

You seat 100 to 150 people in your restaurant?

- Yes.

At a time.

Yeah.

- What's a good night for you?

Is it 70% filled chairs?

Is it 90?

Is it 50?

- Oh, it's two to three turns.

- Two to three turns a night.

- Three to four hundred people.

Yeah.

- And how does the restaurant work?

I mean, how many employees do you have?

- Oh gosh, I think we're close to 130.

I mean, it was, yes.

Yeah.

- You have 130 employees?

These are more than one shift or the same shift?

- Yeah.

So there's lunch through dinner and we don't close between, so we stay open.

But then also we have other businesses like an online marketplace and we have marketing.

We've got our HR team.

Like it's, we've grown into the size that we need the support of lots of people to make that operation run.

- You're a big shot.

- Oh, thank you.

I don't know about that, but like.

- I mean, you're on television, you own your own restaurant.

You went to Cornell.

You have 130 employees.

My goodness.

I mean, that's a ton of people.

And you have two or three seatings a day.

- Yes, five on a Saturday with lunch and dinner, we'll do five seatings.

- What's the hardest part of your job?

Is it hiring people?

Is it, what is it?

- I think it is.

It's the, I think it's the people part, but also the margin part of restaurants.

Restaurants are amazing because I think they are economic drivers for communities.

We bring in a lot of dollars in the front door and then, you know, we spend those dollars on the people who work and the suppliers and all the other vendors.

And then at the end of the day, there's very little left, but it's so meaningful, the work to be able to connect with people.

So I think the hardest thing is keeping that profit margin positive.

That's the hard thing for restaurants.

- So, to the extent that you feel comfortable, generally speaking, what I understand about restaurants is that one third of your cost is food, the actual sourcing of food and the actual supplies.

One third is labor.

And then one third is everything else, overhead and, you know, rent and advertising.

And hopefully there's some profit there.

- Exactly.

On average, I think profit is about four to 6% for a restaurant.

- Really?

Four to 6%.

Is that after you take your $2 million salary or before?

- There's no $2 million.

Yeah, you're in the wrong business if that's what you're looking for.

- But you get to eat free.

- Yeah, exactly.

- You get to eat free.

- Oh, completely free.

- So there's some advantages.

Are you in the restaurant every day?

- I am not anymore.

We have a wonderful team.

I have a chef de cuisine and a general manager and a wine director who are running the day in, day out.

I mean, I think as soon as I got to the point where I published my first cookbook, started in TV, like we've had to promote our people to those roles.

And they want it.

They want to have growth opportunities within our company, so I'm more oversee and manage things now.

- You're the owner of the business.

Which is remarkable.

I mean, I honor you for that.

- Thank you.

- So when the, not the tornado, but all of the stuff that happened in Asheville, Western North Carolina, you closed the restaurant, clearly, no?

- So we were without water for about 60 days, two months.

- 60 days.

So what happens when that happens?

I mean, your refrigerator stuff goes bad and you have employees, I guess you can't pay them in that period of time.

- We immediately had to lay off a large chunk of our team.

And close things down.

It was really, really tough.

We did though, start working with World Central Kitchen, which is a group that humanitarian aid group that Jose Andres runs.

And their model is incredible because they actually pay restaurants to produce meals in these types of situations.

- Yes, yes.

- So- - Sent all over the world.

- Yeah.

Or within Asheville in this case, within Western North Carolina.

Which allowed us then to get our restaurant back up and running, pay people, hire our employees, because it's putting that economic cycle back in place.

They also helped us set up a water tank behind our building so we could pump clean water when the city was without water for two months.

So that we could actually do clean and safe food prep.

So it's, that really was like our saving grace in the timeframe was being able to produce meals for the community.

- So when you went to Cornell, you studied chemistry?

What did you study?

- Chemical and biomolecular engineering.

- So you're an engineer?

- Yes, I am an engineer.

- You're an engineer who knows how to cook and run a restaurant and be a television star and all that?

- Learned over time.

- A little bit.

So when you graduated from Cornell, did you work as an engineer somewhere?

I actually went and got my master's degree in biomedical engineering at École Centrale, which is an engineering school in Paris.

And I went abroad and did that.

And then I worked in a laboratory.

I applied for a PhD program.

I almost started a PhD in neuroscience.

And then I dropped out and started cooking.

- Really?

- Yes.

- Just like that?

- I mean, there was a little more in between.

I was like, you know, not enjoying what I was studying.

And I thought it was interesting, but wasn't feeding me, I think literally also.

And then, and I was cooking on the side, like when I was in Paris working on this master's degree, I was teaching myself how to cook these kind of classic French dishes.

So I knew cooking was something that - I thought it was just a hobby.

And then eventually I realized, I was like, I need to try this as a real career.

- So, so you own the restaurant.

How much influence do you have on the menu in the restaurant?

- Well, the, I mean, the beginning of the whole restaurant and the menu is mine and my recipes.

And I, you know, as the chef created all of that, we've just hired a chef de cuisine who now keeps it going and, and runs the day to day in the restaurant.

- It is truly your creation.

- Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

- And, and you, how do you inspect what you expect?

- That's a great question.

When I sit down, I can't eat in our restaurant without thinking critically about every single thing that's going on.

- That makes you a great entrepreneur.

- Which is hard because it's, it's hard to then separate realizing that's my job.

I've recently come to understand that's my job and I'm always going to find something wrong and that's okay too.

So - - Well, you're trying to find a way to do things better.

- Exactly.

Yes.

So, you know, my job now is like finding those things and then telling the team my feedback and, and continuing on improving.

And it's hiring and promoting people who have skills and hopefully that surpass mine.

You know, that, that is the real thing is finding the right people so that the restaurant then can grow even better than something that I could create alone.

And it becomes this thing that we've created together.

- Have you considered starting other restaurants?

- Thought about it.

I, I think a big part of our success is the fact that I live in Asheville and the restaurant is Asheville.

I've never left there able.

- Highly focused.

- Yes.

- People know you.

- Yes.

- You probably know my friend, Jimmy Noble in Charlotte, and he's been in that business for a long, long time.

And he has several restaurants continually starting something and doing something.

I've always thought that's one of the toughest entrepreneurial endeavors one can be in is the restaurant business.

Because if my statistics are correct, something like three out of five restaurants close within a matter of a year.

- Two years, yes, exactly.

- Yeah.

And, and then all these fast food restaurants come in and it's confused the marketplace.

And so your customer is not the same one who's going to go to a fast food, get a hamburger, French fries, I would guess.

- Right.

Yeah.

I mean, maybe sometimes they do, but maybe you're right.

- Younger, younger.

What's the profile of your customer?

- Our customers, we have a range, but I would say we have a lot, I mean, Asheville, if you think about it, there's the families and the people who live there.

And then there's lots of tourists, which is a big part of the support of our restaurant.

And then there's also a lot of people who are retired and traveling or their second home is in Asheville.

And so they're connected to the community.

It's this, it's the balance though, between having that local community who loves to dine out at the independent restaurants and also the tourism that comes in to visit.

- Yeah, for sure.

Do you do catering in your restaurant?

- Not yet.

- Not yet.

But you'd like to.

- I mean, don't tell my team, but yes, I would like to.

- And what got you into television?

Magnolia Network and your, does that happen, you know, as a, listen, I don't want to call it accident.

Everything's by design.

Or did you say, I need to get a show so people can get to know what I do?

- It was kind of a bit of both.

I love, I realized I actually love teaching people and doing cooking demonstrations and being on TV and in front of the camera, I found out that's something I just really enjoy.

And when the Magnolia Network was first starting, they were creating new shows for their network.

And somehow they heard through another chef friend of a chef friend of mine about me and reached out.

They interviewed me and then offered me the opportunity to create my own show with them, which was just an amazing experience and I am forever grateful.

- Was it your idea to do from the source, go and to the source of the food?

- Mine and the production company together came up with that idea as far as what might be the best TV show to pitch to them.

And then, and then they wanted it and they produced it for three seasons, which was amazing.

- What makes for a good dish?

- Oh, balance.

I think when I think about food, I look at the primary ingredient, so if that is shrimp or steak or peppers, and then I think what's the best way to prepare that one thing?

The cooking technique, whether it's grilling or roasting or, you know, searing and then it's okay, what pairs with it?

And it's very focused around what I love about tapas is I get to focus around one particular ingredient and I'm not trying to match a potato side with like a, you know, veg and a meat in one.

I get to just think about the meat and think about the sauce and the cooking preparation.

And that to me makes a great dish.

I mean, it has to be balanced.

It has to have acidity.

It has to be cooked perfectly.

Has to have enough salt.

All those things have to come together.

- Mm-hmm.

Lately, I've been watching some videos, and I don't know how accurate they are, but on social media and so on, about how certain foods are prepared, especially in fast food restaurants.

It's frightening to me, the fakeness of what goes in that food.

You know, what I used to think is a French fry.

I come to know it's got 20 different things in it and all kinds of things I never heard of before.

And it almost makes you think before you put a bite in your mouth, it makes you think, how bad is this going to be?

How quickly will I die by eating that?

You know, it's, we've lost the touch of grandma's homemade cooking and we've gone into this technologically enhanced methodology that may make the food taste better actually.

I think, for example, potato chips.

I love potato chips, but I can't eat potato chips now without thinking, I wonder if that's even a potato.

- Right.

- You know, what is that?

And what is the composite of this ingredient I'm eating?

And so on and so forth.

Does that bother you?

- Yes, absolutely.

I think the processing of foods is definitely making food less, feel less healthy, or we're disconnected from what it actually is.

In the restaurant, we start with the real raw ingredients and then turn them into something.

Sometimes it is using though technological advances in methodology like sous vide, which is cooking under pressure where you vacuum seal something and cook it at a consistent temperature.

Sometimes we use that, but the ingredients that are going in the bag are all real and actual.

French fries are the one thing that I think fast food really nailed and we, restaurants now actually, if they make their own fried potatoes, often mimic, they're using real ingredients, but often mimic the steps, the multi-step process of brining and that, which we do, brining and then steaming.

Brining is soaking the potatoes in like a salt bath.

So salt water, so that they season throughout and then steaming them so that they're tender first and then frying them and then freezing them and then frying them again.

That's like a five-step process.

- Sounds very expensive to do all that.

- Labor-wise it is, but it makes like an incredible potato.

- Really?

- Yes, yes.

Worth it sometimes.

- Are you into organic foods?

- Yes, absolutely.

I mean, I think some- - Is there such a thing as a purely an organic food or is it all, you know, messed with a little bit?

- That's a great question.

In order to be organic certified, you have to pay for a certification.

So oftentimes when we talk to our local farmers, they use organic farming practices but aren't necessarily organic certified.

So I think it's, to me, as much as you can, and it's hard for when you're shopping at the grocery store, which everybody does, myself included, it's hard to navigate.

And I think that's why those labels are there because they do give you a framework to buy with them.

- I read the labels only after I eat the product.

- That's a smart idea.

- I don't want any more depression than I really need.

- And in the restaurant, we have the ability to actually meet the farmer, learn.

So we don't have to follow whether it's labeled organic or not.

We can go to the farm and understand.

- But how do you know if they're spraying it?

- I know.

- And I think of how chickens are made bigger in size.

And I think how they leave the lights on all day and all night.

You know, all the stuff that modern technology and economic greed, you know, to be honest, and competitive terrain, all working in unison to create for a tougher product.

I like a lot of organic foods, especially vegetables and fruit.

And we try in our home-- my wife is very thoughtful about those kinds of things.

That doesn't mean we don't eat the fatty stuff.

It's just certain things that you really, really enjoy, you know, that are not enhanced too much.

You have been named as one of Food & Wine Magazine's Best New Chefs.

What an honor.

And you've been nominated for the James Beard Foundation Awards as well.

Five times, I think.

Five or six times.

- Yes.

Yes.

Five times as a nominee, which was amazing.

So I feel incredibly honored to have received that recognition over the years.

I remember the first one, the Food & Wine Best New Chef one, when that came in.

I had just had my daughter.

She was three weeks old in my arms.

I got the phone call from the editor of Food & Wine Magazine telling me that I won that incredible-- words cannot describe.

So from there-- and then we won the James Beard Award for Outstanding Hospitality in 2022, which was also just an incredible honor.

And I look forward to what's next.

- So you wrote a well-positioned cookbook has done well for you.

You've done others, or working on others?

- I have a book that's coming out this fall, October of 2026.

It is my second cookbook.

It's called Spanish Accent.

And it's my upbringing, American home recipes, inspired by the ingredients and techniques of my professional cooking in Spain.

My kids are 50% Spanish, so it's like a very personal book of my home kitchen and cooking and how I bring this to-- - I mean, you look so Spanish.

- Thank you.

I get-- people say that.

- You do.

Yeah.

Whatever that means, you know, that I've been to Spain many times.

I think you have that look.

You have a very warm personality.

I'm very impressed with you as a human being, as a person.

I can see how hospitality would be part and parcel of what you do.

I think that's natural.

That's organic for you.

- Yes.

- That comes from your heart.

What's next for you?

I mean, what is it-- you're obviously a young person.

You've done very well.

You've made a lot of people happy.

You create a lot of jobs, economic impact.

That's always a very honorable thing to do in the world, create jobs for other people so their families can do well.

You have many happy customers.

What is it that Katie Button wants to do that she hasn't done yet?

- Oh my gosh, that is a wonderful question.

Well, right now, I am currently-- I'm competing in America's Culinary Cup.

It's on CBS.

And it's this competition where they put 16 of the best chefs in the country to compete for a million dollars.

So I am-- that has been an incredible new life thing.

In the future, honestly, I want to keep writing cookbooks.

I love writing.

I also want to continue with TV.

And traveling and doing cooking demonstrations, that fills my soul.

That is all I need.

If I can teach people how to cook and add a little bit-- some tricks to adding extra flavor via my professional understanding and skills, I am happy.

- But you wouldn't give the million dollar back should you win it.

- Oh, no.

- You would not give it back.

You would keep it.

Yeah.

- Definitely.

Absolutely.

- I think that's fantastic.

I believe that America was built on the backs of people who were willing to take a risk, going all the way back to the pilgrims who came to this country and planted the seeds.

And gave God the glory when they had the first harvest.

Hence, we have something called Thanksgiving.

And I do believe that entrepreneurs create jobs and enhance the economic fervor in a community.

And take significant risks.

I mean, it sits on your shoulders, that payroll, that supplies, those external factors you can't control, like climate and weather and issues of that nature.

And yet, you seem to have survived and thrived in spite of all of that.

So Katie Button, I want to honor you for who you are and what you do.

I'm going to buy your cookbook for my wife.

And she likes cookbooks.

And congratulations on your honors.

And may you always experience success in every way.

[upbeat music] ♪ - Funding for "Side by Side with Nido Qubein" is made possible by: - Coca-Cola Consolidated makes and serves over 300 of the world's best brands and flavors to over 65 million consumers across 14 states and the District of Columbia.

With 17,000 purpose-driven teammates, we are Coca-Cola Consolidated.

- The Budd Group has been serving the Southeast for over 60 years.

Specializing in janitorial, landscape, and facility solutions, our trusted staff delivers exceptional customer satisfaction, comprehensive facility support with the Budd Group.

- Truist-- we're here to help people, communities, and businesses thrive in North Carolina and beyond.

The commitment of our teammates makes the difference every day.

Truist-- leaders in banking, unwavering in care.