Ep. 40 Anna Ugarte-Carral (The Old Fitz)

Roots Hospitality

Anna and I sat down on the same morning the Good Food Guide of 2022 came out. Which was a perfect way to start the conversation. It's an exciting time of year for a lot of chefs, so it was a good way to debrief about the year and some of the exciting projects coming up.
Anna talks about how she got her foot in the hospitality door and all of the hilarious stories that have come with it. If you tune in at the right time, you’ll hear her share how Hugh Allen (Vue De Monde) once borrowed and lost her Palette Knife while working together at Noma. She proceeds to finish the story saying she chased him around the kitchen until he found it, and he did.
We talk about how restaurants have had to pivot over the past year, with degustation and menu changes, the correlation between quantity of chefs and quality of food, and most important of all, how us passionate chefs have had to change our lifestyles to keep our motivation in the kitchen above the water, so to speak.
We’ve all had to take a deep breath and rethink our perception of hospitality and what we’re capable of doing in such a tough industry. So it was a great time to reflect on where we’ve come from in our careers and how we are navigating our path for the future.
Follow @roots_hospitality on Instagram or check out the new Roots Hospitality website over at rootshospitality.com.au for the latest episode trailer and behind the scenes shots.
Music for the podcast by Charlie Fester.
Intermission music: The Funny Bunch by Giulio Fazio