Davin Waite of Wrench & Rodent and The Whet Noodle: 5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Became a Chef
There’re many different keys, but one fail safe is to do something fun with comfort food. If you tie it back to comfort food or tickle some sense of childhood nostalgia. You ask people what they’re going to eat for their last supper and it’s generally something Grandma made — or their mother or father made. COVID-19 just proved that. If you do what people can do at home, it’s not exciting. Put your own spin on it with the best ingredients available.
As part of our series about the lessons from influential ‘TasteMakers’, I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Davin Waite, chef-owner of Wrench and Rodent and The Whet Noodle: unorthodox sushi and Japanese cuisine focused on total utilization and driven by a punk rock spirit and rebellious nature. Emphasis is on local and respect for culinary discipline. Also, chef-owner of The Plot, serving badass plant-based food with a zero-waste ethos, focused on the culinary evolution.
Davin Waite began his career as a sushi chef at Ichiban in Santa Barbara under the instruction of Chef Hiro, a local legend and master of sushi as well as French and Italian Cuisine. Back in North San Diego County Davin continued on to Cafe Japengo, and in 2003 he returned to his hometown of Oceanside to co-found The Fish Joint. With his next project Davin created a restaurant in his own image; scrappy, irreverent and constantly pushing boundaries. Wrench & Rodent Seabasstropub began as a pop-up but quickly became a destination for those who appreciated Waite’s creative and delicious approach to minimizing waste and celebrating local and sustainably sourced products. Davin is now working with his wife and partner Jessica to co-found a chain of plant-based restaurants called The Plot. The Waites will continue their journey as conscientious restaurateurs as they work to create business models that minimize impact while maximizing flavor.
Waite aims to stay in a state of consistent innovation and creation in order to teach and inspire. Davin has taught sustainable cooking techniques to elementary students, culinary students and city officials. He has spoken on panels on topics including using underutilized species and sourcing from local farmers. In 2017 Davin was a keynote speaker at the California Resource and Recovery Conference, where he broke down a whole fish on stage to demonstrate how each part can be used to make delicious menu items, down to the ribs, skin and marrow. Waite’s menus reflect his values as he continues to evolve as a chef and as an advocate.
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 or chef?
It’s a hard one for me because I think I was born with it. I was born loving food and, soon after, cooking. The first night I hopped into a restaurant, I loved everything about it. I felt like I’d just joined the circus or a pirate ship.. I felt immediately at home. The five things I wish I knew could turn into a WHAAAA-fest, but we knew what we were signing up for. Maybe we chose not to believe it or just didn’t care, but I sure as hell didn’t care and knew what I was put here to do and have had the same profession ever since. The way I see this, I’m lucky to be doing this. After two decades, I’m lucky to be making a living doing this, because it wasn’t always that way.
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?
I’m all over the place. First job happened to be at a Japanese restaurant and it was a culture that couldn’t be more different than my own. I’ve always been interested in people and travel and it all kind of brings it together. Food is the gateway drug to learn more about different cultures. You take the time to learn more about different cultures, you meet people and the world isn’t this scary place — it gets smaller. Food’s one thing we all have in common.
I’m Japanese-trained with French experience and influence coming from all over the place. I’m a product of my California environment, too. Definitely elements of growing up in the summertime in England, too, because that puts me closer to Europe. There’s two food centers of the universe: Europe and Asian, but South America and Mexico are insanely wonderful, too. At this point in the game, if it’s something I don’t know, I’m intrigued and want to learn about it.
The first time that I saw a giant clam and didn’t know what it was, I thought somebody was messing with me in the walk-in refrigerator. I brushed against it and it moved and I screamed like a little kid, then realized it wasn’t attached to anybody, but rather something people ate. But for a split second, I was convinced it was attached to somebody and the funniest thing: I didn’t run away.
I’m catalyzed by adventures while traveling and cool things I fall into.
Can you share the funniest or most interesting story that happened to you since you became a chef or restaurateur? What was the lesson or take away you took out of that story?
There was one time when me and Keith at Festivities Catering and their sales team — back when I ran The Fish Joint — I thought it would be cool to cook them jellyfish sushi with a little bit of plum paste, which tastes like a fruit roll-up. To kill the neurotoxin, you have to cook it to a certain temperature for a certain amount of time. I was doing it on the fly when The Fish Joint was one of the only restaurants around in Oceanside. Thought it would be a good idea to spike the water I was cooking the jellyfish in with plum wine. It was enough to change the temperature so it didn’t kill the neurotoxin. It’s the last time I got high: off of jellyfish. Poor motor skills, slightly slurred speech and you kind of see trails, like coming off of an acid trip. My largest catering account was all high. I was trying to make my hands work shucking oysters and laughing the whole time. The lesson? Slow down. Pay attention to what you’re doing. I’m probably the last person this side of the Pacific Ocean to get stoned off of jellyfish.
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?
At one point I had a family of four: two step kids and two of my own biological kids. The hardest part of the journey is cooks never make enough. People like to say “those greedy restaurant owners’ or what have you, but it’s the simple fact that everybody’s working incredibly hard and anybody choosing to spend money at your establishment — it’s a deep compliment. It was definitely a struggle when the kids were young. The slim margins are real. But it pushes you to be inventive and come up with creative solutions and the flip-side of the struggle is the challenge, which dares you to keep struggling. And it’s not a struggle if you love it. It’s something you were born to do. The only thing worse than struggling is not doing what you want to do. I struggled more between jobs — when there was no work, not when there was too much work. During COVID-19, there was a point where we were going to lose everything — or what society says is everything. But that’s all stuff. You accumulate stuff once, you can do it again. I was preparing for this with my early challenges. How long does a doctor go to medical school? When a doctor’s in medical school, they’re paying for it. We may have worked at places that paid us minimum wage and skimped on overtime, but that was my education. That’s how I paid for my education. I really view it that way.
In your experience, what is the key to creating a dish that customers are crazy about?
There’re many different keys, but one fail safe is to do something fun with comfort food. If you tie it back to comfort food or tickle some sense of childhood nostalgia. You ask people what they’re going to eat for their last supper and it’s generally something Grandma made — or their mother or father made. COVID-19 just proved that. If you do what people can do at home, it’s not exciting. Put your own spin on it with the best ingredients available.
Personally, what is the ‘perfect meal for you’?
It’s always changing. Just something exciting: something that pokes at me. Something that hasn’t been done before. Sometimes it’s just something good — comforting and nurturing.
Where does your inspiration for creating come from? Is there something that you turn to for a daily creativity boost?
Being out in the garden or at a farm. You can pull that inspiration from ingredients, from your team. Pull it from travel. But we don’t always have the luxury of hopping on a plane now. Sometimes you pull it from music — from different art forms. If you surround yourself with really creative people, they will inspire you.
Are you working on any new or exciting projects now? What impact do you think this will have?
The most exciting thing is The Plot, which is a barely new project, paused by COVID on its climb. At The Plot, we serve badass plant-based food with a zero-waste ethos, focused on the culinary evolution. It’s located in Oceanside, where our other two restaurants are, in San Diego’s North County. For me the most new, exciting thing is to take the time to study every piece of what I’ve done so far and put it back together to make it awesome. On a daily basis, I’m constantly looking for improvement. Whatever I improve that day is the most exciting thing. You have good things and bad things and sometimes don’t make a lot of ground, but it’s always exciting. Continuing to grow The Plot is going to be one. Wrench and Rodent has a great cult appeal, which appeals to my personality, while The Plot appeals to my activism. Opening people’s minds to something huge. I think, The Plot can be something where, if we stay true, it can have an insanely positive social impact and will hopefully change some minds about how we eat and what we eat.
What advice would you give to other chefs or restaurateurs to thrive and avoid burnout?
It’s gotta be fun. You’ve gotta keep it fun. I mean, Chris Logan, my partner at The PLot, saw me burned out one day. I was lying to him, “I’m fine. Leave me alone.” It’s hits everybody. He said, “Look. Everybody thinks you have to work less when you’re burned out. When you’re burned out, you’ve gotta work more. You get this new level of excitement and get the spark for it.” Be healthy, eat well, don’t go out drinking all the time. When you’re in the second half of your career, on your feet 16–18 hours per day in a career that asks a lot of you, remind yourself you’re there because you want to be.
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 or Chef” and why? Please share a story or an example for each.
1. Keep a journal. Now we have camera phones, where you can take pictures, too; but, no matter what, bring a pen and notebook and write everything down
2. Never stop learning. Surround yourself with people that make you better.
3. Don’t let your first sushi knife get stolen.
4. Someday you’ll be able to use your platform for good.
5. Love your job but love your people more; you’ll always have your job, but people don’t last forever. No matter how busy you think you are, take time for them; they are just as much a part of us as our career.
What’s the one dish people have to try if they visit your establishment?
It’s always changing. That’s what I love about it; it’s never one dish. I never wanted to be a one-hit wonder. From day to day, food, fish — whatever it is — my mood — it changes. I’ve been really lucky to be in a restaurant where it’s flexible. As soon as one idea has been actualized, I’m already thinking of the next idea. The chickën and waffles at The Plot is cool, but I’m already thinking five menu items down the road — that’s what’s exciting about it. I might not be the best person to ask. I might just feed you jellyfish.
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.
I would definitely like to see people taking better care of each other and the planet, which begins with taking better care of yourself. If mankind wasn’t living in such a world of fear — the last couple of decades were about living in fear. We’re the generation where there’s been wars where sons and daughters are fighting the same war their parents were in. This is the generation that came home from school and watched the Berlin Wall come down. It doesn’t matter who’s right or wrong; get over it people. Wherever you go in the world, people are pretty fuckin’ cool. Get out of your little bubble and make some fuckin’ friends for a change, goddamit. I’m just the guy who’s making your dinner, though; who am I to say?
Thank you so much for these insights. This was very inspirational!
