Here's to the local restaurants, to the chefs, owner operators, the staff.

The ones who love being in the weeds night after night.

When we go to work each morning, that's who we have in mind from where we source our food to how we deliver it.

Here's to them, the ones who are out there cooking for us every day.

Restaurants are the heart of everything we do.

We are Performance Food Service Proudly supporting Food is Love.

Support for Food is Love is provided by Wild Alaska Salmon and Seafood 100% fisherman family owned Independent seafood sourcing, ca tching, processing and delivering seafood directly to the consumer's front door From caught to bought, wild salmon direct from the fisherma.

Information at WildAlaskaSalmoneandSeafood.com To be in the restaurant industry, especially today, you've got to be tough.

That's a fact.

You need to have the stamina that's required to take a beating at any given moment, and it can come from any direction.

Short staffed on a Saturday night, Broken mixer, supply chain problems.

It helps to be tough.. but make no mistake, the kind of tough I'm talking about is not the same as the quote unquote tough chefs on reality TV.

In my opinion, it doesn't make you tough to yell at or degrade someone.

And I'm not an advocate of treating people harshly in the kitchen.

The kind of tough I'm referencing is mostly mental, the self discipline to stay positive despite what's going wrong in the moment.

But even knowing all of that, that's a human knot!

I'm having a tough time understanding what any of this has to do with cooking.

As a chef, I need to stay curious in order to evolve.

For me, that means looking beyond a good meal to learn more about who made it and what inspires them to cook.

Every great city has great food.

I'm going on a journey around the world right here in St. Louis.

I'm on a quest to find passionate chefs who cooks from the heart.

"I think its the best" To prove that food is love.

"It's going to be delicious."

Food is love.

Love your Food Today I'm in the Fox Park neighborhood of St. Louis to meet Chef Logan Ely.

Logan is the chef and owner of Lucky Accomplice.

And if you haven't already heard of this place, you will.

They call it modern American bar food or elevated, locally driven fare.

But whatever you want to call it is really secondary to the experience here.

Hopefully we'll get to that later.

For now, Logan has asked me to meet him here at WreSTL, a gym located in Fox Park, just around the corner from his restaurant.

When he's not working in the kitchen, Logan practices jujitsu with some of his staff, both as an exercise in team building and personal development.

This is where you get all your aggressions out, of all the problems we have in the restaurant business.

In a way, yeah.

I think Jujitsu is fairly new to me.

I've only been doing it a couple of years, but it's definitely been a huge part of me as a person impacted me as a person and as a chef and just therapeutic.

In a way, I don't think for me it's not as much about getting aggressions out, but as it's more..

Discipline?

Not even that really classes, especially Not even that really, classes especially for me, since I'm new are very uncomfortable.

And I think it's almost like that self prescribed, being comfortable with being uncomfortable.

It's like cooking, to be a pretty good cook, you got to cook for a good decade, right?

So I'm very new.

I think it's calmed me down a lot.

I will admit I used to have a pretty good temper.

Like most chefs do.

It's been therapeutic, I think physically and mentally and just kind of taking care of myself in that way has been positive for sure.

But do you have to be in great shape or?

No anybody can do it.

You look like you're in shape.

I mean, I have the dad bod.

Yeah, I think that works.

All we're doing is wrestling in pajamas so For me what struck me about the gym that I go to, and I think martial arts in general probably is just there's so much patience and kindness and everybody is helping each other and everybody's welcoming and hospitable.

And that is often not the case in kitchens.

There's a lot of times not a lot of patients in kitchens, and either you get it or you don't, and we're moving on and all that.

But the dynamic at the gym I go to is very different, and it's made me a better chef and leader I think just like learning how to cultivate that culture of people caring and people being patient and people like, helping one another and respect and all that stuff.

And like I said, I think I lost a lot of my temper once I started doing this, because I wanted that.

I wanted my kitchens, and I wanted my restaurants to be a place where it's kind and people are helping.

And it's this awesome culture of patience and hospitality, like real hospitality.

After hearing all the ways, Jiujitsu has been a positive force for Logan as a person, and in the kitchen.

I'm eager to see if it's a tool I can use.

Maybe I can level up my own mental stamina.

I mean, we should never stop improving ourselves, right?

My dad was a wrestling champion in Denmark, like Roman Greco.

Yeah?

And when I was growing up, there was that one time where I was strong, and I thought I could take him.

And he said, okay, let's do it.

And I can't remember but he put me in some kind of chokehold and swung me around, and I never questioned whether or not he could take me after that.

But I remember him, I think he hurt something in the back because he was hurting, too for a long time, but, I mean, it was just a lovable thing, but I had no idea how good he was.

So what's going to happen to me today?

What are we doing?

Yeah, we're going to put some fashionable pajamas on you like we did.

And then me and the guys will roll a little bit, I think.

And then maybe we'll choke you a little bit with your pajamas and toss you around, maybe just slightly and keep it playful.

I think that's what it's all about.

All right.

Almost immediately, I'm seeing this is going in a direction I didn't anticipate.

How did I get into this position?

Literally.

Better yet, how am I going to get out?

This isn't what I had imagined.

Obviously, knowing nothing about jujitsu.

I assumed I was going to be learning a couple of arm grabs, maybe some kind of little foot move to trip an opponent, something more flashy, maybe a little less chokey.

You okay?

Yeah, I'm fine.

That's a good one, too, because you're kind of getting stretched back.

I like the stretching part.

It was the choking part I wasn't crazy about.

..But as the blood is being cut off from my brain and my ribs teeter on the edge of being separated, I'm reminded of what they say about assuming.

But still, I'm trying to understand the value in this.

Okay, I've seen enough.

I'm pretty much getting it now, and I'm tapping out.

At least you can say I tried.

I'm happy you take ownership for some of those violent outburst and tempers because us European chefs, We've always been blamed for that, throwing pots and pans and all that stuff.

I think when I was younger, even I personally looked up to them.

And I was also encouraged to be like, crack the whip and keep the tensions high and all that kind of stuff.

This is much more than a gym, right?

Absolutely.

Okay.

This is Sarah Levin.

She runs the day to day operation here at Wrestle.

They have created a program to use wrestling as a way to mentor youth.

Tell me about that.

Wrestler is a nonprofit youth wrestling club.

We were founded in 2015, opened in 2016 in a different location.

We focus a lot on the mentorship of the sport and what wrestling brings to kids.

So we're trying to reach kids through sport and give them character traits like discipline, resilience and commitment and respect through the sport of wrestling.

It's nice to see other people using their influence for positive.

I'd love to stay longer, but after what just happened to me here, I think I need a drink.

A big Fox Park cheerleader.

Logan knows a place down the street to get us a good smoothie.

That was a fun little jujitsu.

It's a good way for you to bond with your employees, too.

I mean, you've got them involved?

Yeah, I just saw how beneficial it is, and I tried to talk everybody into it, and I got a few people to come, so that's good.

I think that's a very healthy exercise.

It's also good to give people the chance and ability to have time outside of the restaurant to pursue, whether it's jiujitsu or whatever.

My generation didn't do much at trying to get people to exercise and be healthy.

Oh, yeah.

It was more like let's go and have a drink.

Yeah.

So this is Fox Park Smoothie and Juice Bar.

I'll do a Shenandoah Sunrise.

I think that's what I had last time.

Or we can have cake, too.

It's a great way to start the day.

There's a lot of Fox Park that is like this big building up here, is vacant.

There's a few of those.

But there's also it seems like every few months there's new stuff like this popping up.

I also think it's really cool, like RUNG right here and then WreSTL, which we were just at.

They're both nonprofits, helping groups of people that are in need.

And that's pretty awesome, I think.

Awesome.

Thank you, sir.

Little umbrella, gigantic straw.

Tell me, how did you get into the restaurant business?

Where did it all start?

Lack of options after high school, I didn't have money for college really or a big University.

I wasn't interested in taking out giant student debt, and I really didn't know what I wanted to do anyway.

Somebody had suggested Forest Park.

They have a great culinary program.

I just decided to do it, and I just kind of got sucked into the regiment.

That is the kitchen.

What I think the word is, you fall in love with it.

Yeah, you could say that.

Oh, my God.

Look at this.

Here's your dessert.

I'm not going to eat all of that, am I?

That is hilarious.

You get a fork, one fork.

Oh, my God.

I was always around cooks in my family.

Everybody cooked and just decided to give it a shot and immediately fell in love with it.

And everything from there was just me trying to find.

I wanted to be the dumbest person in the room, which isn't hard to do when you first start cooking.

So I just was traveling and trying to find cooks and chefs better and better and better and better and trying to learn as much as I could.

So have you been outside the United States?

Yeah.

I was in Hong Kong for a little bit.

I was in Copenhagen for a little bit.

Copenhagen.

Now we're talking.

What is it about St. Louis that brought you back here?

I think first of all, St.Louis is my home.

And I wanted to help kind of continue the already great trajectory of St.Louis restaurants.

I think that when I was younger, it's like maybe you thought you had to open a restaurant in New York or in Chicago or a big city like that.

And now I think more and more cooks are realizing that that's not the case really.

There's great restaurants in smaller cities all over the US.

And I think that that's really cool to see just like this great food trends and great communities of chefs kind of banding together and creating their own culture within their hometowns.

And I think that's really awesome.

And I think St. Louis is an amazing chef culture and camaraderie and all that.

And so I'm humbled to be a part of it really.

You're not having any cake, am I the only one?

Oh, wow.

I didn't even realize that you dug a hole over here.

That's good.

I'm really liking Jujitsu now if this is how we refuel, cake and smoothie.

Yeah, that's how we do it.

Smoothies and cake after jujitsu.

That's hilarious.

This place was a real surprise.

There's a pretty good chance I'll be back again.

Maybe for the cake, maybe for a smoothie, maybe both.

It's not double dipping if we are working on a separate hole, right?

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

We're only another quick stroll through the neighborhood from the Lucky Accomplice, and Logan shows us a shortcut through the garden of Rung.

And this garden is like crazy.

talk about community service in this area here down here, huh?

Yeah.

Don't mind us.

Just a couple of guys carrying a half eaten cake through the neighborhood.

There's a metaphor there, which I haven't figured out yet.

What are these guys?

Peppers.

Yeah.

There's a lot of vacant spots around here, which to me, it's opportunity.

Yeah.

It means potential and opportunity.

You heard the term a cakewalk.

Yeah.

This is the epitome of a cakewalk right here.

Fox Park man, its a cake walk.

Yeah.

Finally, this is what I came for in the first place.

The aesthetic of this relatively intimate space is upscale, but hip and a little humorous with a clear rabbit motif echoing the name and maybe the philosophy of the restaurant.

But what's in a name, exactly?

When we came in, there's a rabbit and you have a rabbit on your t-shirt.

The bunny thing kind of started with the lucky rabbit foot, right.

And in most of these Bunny paintings and murals, there's like stitches on the paw, the Bunny.

Or, in one instance, the Bunny has a human foot for luck around its neck.

And so it's kind of like switching that narrative of, like humans going out and cutting off little bunny feet for luck.

No, that's not how this works.

The dishes at Lucky Accomplice is an impressive display of savvy, beautiful colors, sauces, glazes, and fermented concoctions all used to accentuate food that Logan sources locally when you're getting your goods in the local market.

That means the menu can change with the seasons.

It also presents its own kind of challenges.

It's like you're constantly what I say freestyling in a way you're like shooting from the hip a bit, which I think is just good to keep you sharp and to kind of keep innovating and force creativity if eggplant is really, they're everywhere right now, It's like we need to figure out something with eggplant guys we have to figure this out because the farm has a lot.

We want to support the farm.

We want to buy all this stuff.

So that's the idea.

It's creativity based around using the product that the farmers have.

Instead of trying to think of something that is cool or show stopping or trendy or whatever.

We try to have this section of mis en place that's shelf stable or a larder you might say.

that we can just pick and choose from it's like this is a mushroom shoyu that we made from really nice wheat.

We cultured it with Koji and different mushrooms and aged it at a certain temperature.

And now we have this to pull from and to add salt to something without adding salt or add acid to something without adding vinegar or lemon juice or citrus or something like that.

So we try to have this kind of, like, back pocket thing.

I think that comes with a little bit of just having to shoot from the hip and kind of freestyle the menu so often.

So this is a paste of white beans and yeast.

We use either dry yeast that we toast and fry and just to add some, umami, and this will be the base.

This is our pasta shape that we extruded here.

We make it with black trumpet mushrooms.

There's some roasted mushrooms in here, too, with Swiss char.

We glaze it with the mushroom shoyu and mushroom stock and just kind of place this on here.

The creativity and the complexity behind these dishes is incredible.

Watching the plating, knowing what's going into the components, I have to say, I can't wait to sit down and try it myself, but at the same time, I'm completely hypnotized waiting to see what wonderful dish happens next.

We take fresh yeast and dry it and then fry it in oil and it's kind of cool It stays crunchy, and we'll add some, umami to the dish as well, just like roasted up oysters or whatever our mushroom grower has at the time and just top it with some herbs.

Try to keep it simple, so it looks nice.

Looks delicious.

This is actually grits that we puree and then charge.

Sometimes this explodes.

It's light, still tastes like corn, but also just light and airy.

These are mytaki mushrooms that we confit and then roast, and then we glaze in this mixture of molten soy.

We usually finish this one with seaweed, too, because why not?

Seaweed is a little bit like our pepper.

Okay, everybody puts salt and pepper on everything, which is fine.

We put pepper on some stuff, too, but it's like salt and, umami.

It's super simple.

There are two components, something that doesn't necessarily need to be over complicated.

Of course, the food is unbelievable.

Well, if martial arts has anything to do with what you did today.

It's doing good for you.

It's very good.

It's very disciplined.

Wow.

It's beautiful.

I appreciate that.

We try to keep things simple.

It's very optimistic what you're doing, because the stress level working in the restaurant business is really something that is damaging for our health.

We got to do something about that.

Yeah.

It's not balanced and it's not sustainable for sure.

And I think it's important to relay that to your cooks because as a young cook, you're also never really taught about the financial aspect of running a business.

Like, what kind of money do you expect to make when you are a cook or a chef or run your own business and how to become financially stable and free if possible and to be a good business person and become a good entrepreneur, that's not talked about.

And your health isn't really talked about, your mental health, too, and physical health and all that stuff.

And so it's important to do that.

I like the whole idea about how you are conscientious about what you cook and conscientious about preserving mother nature.

And it speaks to that food is love.

Yeah.

But all the ingredients that goes into that love needs to be loved, too.

Yeah.

It's an interesting you're right.

Exactly.

Food is love, like sharing culture and joining in a meal with people and all that stuff is great.

And I love it.

I think we need to pay a little bit more attention to what the food is that we're using.

Like, how are the animals being treated?

What fish are you using?

How is it being fished?

Did a boat have to trawl the bottom of the ocean and ruin the ocean for you to get that piece of fish on your plate?

If so, then that's not really food is love, right.

If your cooks are getting paid minimum wage and working 100 hours a week and are stressed out and like coping with alcohol and drugs and stuff that's not love, you know what I mean?

So I think we need to look at it as a way more holistic thing.

As one.

We got to live in harmony not only with each other, but also with nature.

Yeah, absolutely.

At first, I found it a little hard to see how jiujitsu would have any positive effect on a chef's mindset.

True, it takes discipline to run a restaurant and leadership skills, quick thinking, the ability to navigate less than ideal situations, but surely there's other less painful ways to learning those things.

Admittedly, though, after spending some time with Logan, watching him Cook, seeing how he's mindful about food sourcing,..

I can't help but think it's like the Greek Stoic philosopher Epictetus said, "The circumstances don't make the man, They only reveal him to himself."

Logan's philosophy about responsible food sourcing, creating his dishes with whatever is in season hasn't inhibited his creativity.

In fact, you can argue that its sharpened it When Larry Forgion had a restaurant in St. Louis.

That was one of the things that struck me.

He said that as a cook, you have to go to the market or go to the farm and then write a menu.

You don't write a menu and then go to the market or farm because you're just using what's available.

And so I always tried to seek out restaurants that had that similar philosophy.

It's encouraging to see how as a chef, Logan is using his position as a platform to mentor, develop, and inspire the next wave of St. Louis restaurantuers.

I learned hospitality in a place where violence is taught, and I learned my temper in a way, in a place where hospitality is taught, it's a very interesting kind of thing that I realized that I'm continuing to look at.

There's no longer room for an aggressive kitchen culture in today's world.

The kind of culture Logan is cultivating in his restaurant is a good example on how we should be doing things going forward.

One of the things that really inspired me about Logan was how he put vegetables on the center stage.

We made some beet chips, there's a little blue cheese arugula, Orange slices, and then we've made a blue cheese sauce.

So this is just a little appetizer Because in more than one way, Food is love jujitsu.

I'm not so sure about.

This is a token from Fox Park Smoothie we give fruit to everybody passing if they purchase or not, because it's one thing that everybody has in common.

We must eat.

Weather they have the money or not.

We hand it out to the people that's in the neighborhood, because that's part of the neighborhood that brings the neighborhood together, eating together and sharing it in the community.

Here's to the local restaurants, to the chefs, owner operators, the staff, the ones who love being in the weeds night after night, when we go to work each morning, That's who we have in mind, from where we source our food to how we deliver it Here's to them, the ones who are out there cooking for us every day.

Restaurants are the heart of everything we do.

We are a Performance Food Service.

Proudly supporting Food is Love.

Support for Food is Love is provided by Wild Alaska Salmon and Seafood 100% fisherman family owned independent seafood sourcing catching, processing and delivering seafood directly to the consumer's front door.

From caught to bought wild salmon direct from the fishermen.

Information at wildalaskasalmonandseafood.com