Chef Gregory Leon Of Amilinda: 5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Became a Restaurateur

Be prepared for the unexpected. This one seems vague and open-ended, but it is 100% true. I have a long list of things I’ve had to deal with since the restaurant opened that I would have never imagined. From guests passing out in the bathroom and fighting with their dinner companion to customers yelling out incredibly racist and offensive comments and pipes bursting, all of these unexpected events made me more efficient when it comes to thinking on my feet and being a better fast-paced problem solver.

As part of our series about “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Became a Restaurateur”, I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Chef Gregory Leon.

Amilinda is owned and operated by Gregory Leon. Gregory, the executive chef, can be found on the kitchen line cooking every night. Gregory was born in Tulsa, OK, however, at the age of five Gregory’s father decided to move the family to his native country, Venezuela. In ’89 the family came back to the United States and Gregory began his culinary career shortly thereafter. Moving to San Francisco he spent 18 years cooking and consulting in San Francisco restaurants like Poesia, Mirtille and Horatius, with a few stints in Madrid, Spain.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Our readers would love to ‘get to know’ you a bit. Can you share with our readers a story about what inspired you to become a restaurateur?

I don’t think there was one specific moment that inspired me to become a restaurateur. To me, it was just always the logical progression of my career and something that has always been my goal from the start. The thought of owning my own restaurant and being able to bring all these ideas to life without anyone else calling the shots was just always incredibly appealing.

Maybe subconsciously it was something that had been implanted in me from an early age. Growing up in a large family that got together every weekend, and where there was always music and food around, perhaps I wanted to recreate that in my daily life and be able to share that feeling of happiness and joy with the people around me. It’s funny! Often, the people who come to dine at Amilinda tell me they feel like they’re in my home. That is truly one of the greatest compliments anybody can give me.

Do you have a specific type of food that you focus on? What was it that first drew you to cooking that type of food? Can you share a story about that with us?

The food we focus on at Amilinda it’s inspired by the cuisine of the Iberian Peninsula, Spain and Portugal.

When I was 27, I had the opportunity to travel to Spain for the first time to visit an American chef who had a restaurant in Madrid and was looking for a young cook to come work for him and then eventually take over the restaurant. From the moment I arrived in that amazing country, I was hooked on not only the food but also the relationship they have with eating and cooking. Often in the U.S. we view eating as a necessity — something we must do to fuel us so we can continue our daily lives. By contrast, in Spain and Portugal the actual meal is an event, whether it’s just a casual lunch with friends or a family dinner.

Can you share the funniest or most interesting story that happened to you since you became a restaurateur? What was the lesson or take away you took out of that story?

For me, one of the most interesting stories that has come from owning a restaurant happened during the pandemic in 2020. It was a time when I think most restauranteurs and chefs felt like the rest of the world just really didn’t care what was going to happen to us — that we were expendable.

A few weeks after the first round of stimulus checks were sent out to the public by the federal government, we started to receive letters from a lot of our regulars. In the letters, they had included their stimulus checks. Along with the checks were notes stating that they wanted us to take these funds and use them to keep Amilinda open. They wanted to ensure once the pandemic was over, and people were able to leave their home and be social that Amilinda was going to be there for them and they would be able to come back and visit us.

I have never been so touched in my life and honored to think that my little restaurant was such an important part of these people’s lives that they wanted to make sure that we were going to be ok. .

Can you tell us a story about the hard times that you faced when you first started your journey? How did you overcome this obstacle?

In all honestly, I can’t really think of an obstacle or a hard time that we faced when we first opened. Having been a pop-up restaurant for a year before we moved into our permanent space helped us iron out and work through a lot of opening obstacles.

We had been reviewed by the local food critic and the public knew who I was as a chef. The community was familiar with our food and philosophy when the time came to open our doors.

Having been one of the few recurring pop-up restaurants at that time in Milwaukee, the idea of one restauranteur lending another one their space was quite novel at the time and there was a lot of interest in us. Articles had been written about our arrangement with our host. By the time we opened our doors, people were already familiar with us and were ready to join us for a meal.

In your experience, what is the key to creating a dish that customers are crazy about?

For us the key to creating a dish that customers are crazy about encompasses a lot of different moving parts. We first start by taking a close look at what is available to us at that moment. Whether it is produce, seafood or any kind of protein, we try to pick ingredients that are at their peak and in season. Being in Wisconsin, it’s a little more difficult during the winter months when local produce is at a minimum.

We also consider food that we’ve eaten recently. Maybe a flavor profile that we have been thinking about or a certain ingredient that’s been on our mind or that we feel will go well with the weather or season. Diners associate certain flavors and textures/temperatures with the seasons, so we really try to be mindful of that.

At this point, after being open for nine years we look back at some of the dishes we’ve done in the past. We look at combinations that have been incredibly successful and well received and flavor profiles that have worked before for our customers and then we build upon that. We do try not to repeat a lot of dishes on a regular basis. We have a few that have become staples and recipes that we use for them. We also try not to stray too far from what that original concept was. I will say about 90% of the cooking at Amilinda is from the heart and based on instinct. That’s one of the reasons why it’s been very important to me to have a sous chef who I have a very close connection with and who I feel is on the same level as I am when it comes to cooking styles.

Our menu does evolve constantly. Not all 12 dishes change at once though. In one week, I will change two or three starters and then a few entrees the next day. We are always adjusting an ingredient or changing a sauce or seasoning. We are firm believers that things can always be made better. We like to keep things fresh and exciting for our customers and it encourages them to come back sooner than they otherwise would have and keeps us all engaged and excited about what we are working on. I also make a point of welcoming a lot of input from my Sous Chef. By doing so, it gives thim a sense of ownership and pride in the menu.

I will say that at this point we feel a little bit more emboldened to put things on the menu that perhaps we wouldn’t have done six years ago. We have a fantastic customer base that really trusts us. After our third James Beard Nomination, we have a more street credit and are more comfortable with being more playful and using ingredients that are less mainstream.

Personally, what is the perfect meal for you?

The perfect meal for me is a combination of a lot of different things.

Let’s say I’m putting together a dinner party at my house for a casual get together with friends. I first start by thinking about who I’m going to invite and who is going to be spending the evening together. I want to gather with a group of people I know are going to enjoy each other’s company. I like to have an eclectic mix of personalities and interests, which really keeps the evening interesting.

Music to me is incredibly important to the dining experience. Whether it’s at the restaurant or in my home, I want to play something in the background that adds to the ambiance but isn’t going to overpower the evening.

And then there’s the food. I obviously want people to enjoy themselves. When cooking at home, I tend to stay away from extremely elaborate dishes or ingredients that my guests have never tried before while keeping it interesting and engaging. Add some good wine! I’m partial to Spanish or Portuguese reds. Finally, good conversation added makes for a fantastic evening and a perfect meal in my book.

Where does your inspiration for creating come from? Is there something that you turn to for a daily creativity boost?

For me, inspiration comes from a multitude of places. One being thinking about a dish I enjoyed during one of my visits to Spain or Portugal. Another, from an article I read recently. And another source being an old menu I saved from a dinner I went to. It can even come from looking at a photo from a trip or a conversation with my Sous Chef.

There really isn’t one specific thing that I turn to for daily inspiration because I think that would make things a little stale and predictable. I’m constantly keeping my eyes and ears open and trying to draw from a myriad of different experiences and interactions.

One of the most important things for me is having a dialogue with my Sous Chef and listening to where he’s coming from and what he has to say. Being different people and from different generations, we get our information from different sources. I feel by constantly keeping the channels of communication open between us, we are both getting knowledge from sources we wouldn’t necessarily be looking at.

Are you working on any new or exciting projects now? What impact do you think this will have?

Right now, I’m not really working on any new projects. The restaurant really consumes most of my time, so a lot of my focus is on how we make the experience belter for our guests when they come visit.

As far exciting projects currently I am working on Tables Across Borders, It is a dinner series that started in 2019 in conjunction with two other restaurants in the Milwaukee area. It was the brainchild of a dear friend of ours who worked very closely with refugees here in the city. It is a series in which we invite newly relocated refugees to the Milwaukee area to come cook at Amilinda. We sell tickets to the event and the cooking is solely done by our invited guests. They get to prepare the food of their homeland and share that with attendees. All of the ticket proceeds go directly to the people cooking to help them get a little foothold in their new city and hopefully a little financial peace of mind.

It also is incredibly educational! Not only to the people who are attending the dinner, but also for my staff and myself. We get to see how certain ingredients are used in different cuisines and cultures and are exposed to different types of flavor profiles and cooking methods that we might not have encountered before.

What advice would you give to other restaurateurs to thrive and avoid burnout?

Make sure to surround yourself with people who are working towards the same goals, thoae who are positive and bring good energy to the table and surround yourself with people who will always be your biggest cheerleaders and appreciate what you do.

Create a work life balance. In the restaurant industry it can be incredibly difficult. I have found in the nine years that Amilinda has been open, the easiest way is to have people on your team who feel appreciated and whose hard work is recognized and compensated in more ways than one. If you have a team that feels appreciated, it will be easier for you for you to step away and take some time for your own physical and mental health.

I’ve also found that having a hobby completely unrelated to the food world helps a lot when it comes to avoiding burnout.

Thank you for all that. Now we are ready for the main question of the interview. What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me When I First Started as a Restaurateur” and why? Please share a story or an example for each.

1. Always remember that you can’t please everybody. This might seem like a pretty basic idea. Obviously, we want everybody to leave happy after their visit. After all, we’re putting a little bit of ourselves on these plates and we want people to love it. But we also must remember that we’re dealing with humans. Their tastes and likes might vary so I may think something is amazing and somebody else might not really like and enjoy it. We must remember to not take it so personally.
2. Have at least three bank accounts — one for your expenses, one for your taxes and one for your payroll. This is probably one of the best pieces of advice I was given several years after the restaurant opened. If you have three separate accounts label them for different things. Every morning when I come into work, I look at our sales report from the day before. I transfer the credit card tips to my account labeled payroll and transfer the taxes I collected the night before into the account labeled taxes. By doing so, you will have a clearer picture of how much money you can work for with and will help you avoid the financial guessing game.
3. Everyone thinks they are an expert, especially diners. If I had a dime for every time a customer told me this isn’t how they make a certain dish at home, or it is not how they had it during their last trip to Spain and Portugal, I would be able to retire by now. While we appreciate the feedback, it can really grind at you. Remember that often it’s delivered done out of malice. It’s just their way of engaging with you and perhaps they are trying to show you that they too have knowledge of food and cooking.
4. Be prepared for the unexpected. This one seems vague and open-ended, but it is 100% true. I have a long list of things I’ve had to deal with since the restaurant opened that I would have never imagined. From guests passing out in the bathroom and fighting with their dinner companion to customers yelling out incredibly racist and offensive comments and pipes bursting, all of these unexpected events made me more efficient when it comes to thinking on my feet and being a better fast-paced problem solver.
5. Be flexible and willing to change and adapt. When I opened Amilinda, I had a very clear idea of what I wanted it to be. It was something that I thought about for years and was quite sure that I had it all figured out. When we opened, some of those ideas did not quite fit what we were doing or were not received in the manner I expected. That is when I had to be flexible and willing to adapt, change and evolve. It can be hard to not take it personally. After all, sometimes as humans we like to think we have all the answers. It can be difficult to admit we are wrong — especially when it comes to something as personal as our own restaurant. By having an open mind and accepting constructive criticism, we can ensure our business in evolving with the changing market and wants of the dining public.

What’s the one dish people must try if they visit your establishment?

The Chicken Piri Piri or the Pork Carcamusa. Both are very traditional dishes — one from Portugal and one from Spain. They have been on and off our menu since we opened. We know they are some of our patron’s favorites.

The Chicken Piri Piri is cooked in a spicy pepper sauce flavored with Birds Eye Peppers that come from West Africa. This dish is a great example of how Portugal’s expansion and colonialism influenced its cuisine.

The Pork Carcamusa is our take on a traditional Pork Stew from Toledo, Spain. It is made with braised pork shoulder and includes two different sauces — one made from roasted Piquillo Peppers and the other made from tomatoes and roasted onions.

You are a person of enormous influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.

The movement I’d like to see gain some traction, and which I have recently started working on and promoting, would be giving credit and attention to the young Sous Chefs and cooks who execute and really bring our visions to life. There are a lot of incredibly talented and hard-working men and women standing behind us who deserve to be given credit for what they do. I have never been one to take credit for other’s work and it makes me very uncomfortable to see other Chefs do so today. It speaks volumes on someone’s self-esteem when they take credit for a young cook’s or sous chefs’ dish.

I try to talk to as many tables as possible during service. When a customer communicates how much the have enjoyed a dish prepared by my Sous Chef, I tell the customer who created and cook the dish and then I makes sure to let my Sous Chef know what that customer has said to me about their work.

This was really meaningful! Thank you so much for your time.

About the Interviewer: Dina Aletras boasts over 20 years of expertise in the corporate media industry. She possesses an in-depth understanding of growth, strategy, and leadership, having held significant roles at some of the UK’s largest media organizations. At Reach PLC, the UK’s largest tabloid publisher, she served in various director capacities. Additionally, she held leadership roles at The Independent Magazine Group and DMGT. Her extensive knowledge spans editorial, digital, revenue, sales, and advertising. Upon relocating to Switzerland, Dina took on the responsibility of managing and promoting the international section of Corriere del Ticino — CdT.ch pioneering the English page “onthespot.” She also was the Co-Editor of Southern Switzerland’s first official Italian and English bilingual magazine.