2015 F&W Best New Chef Katie Button on Being a Restaurant Owner and Parent When You Have a 'Vampire Schedule'

On this episode

By the time you hear this, Katie Button was back at her restaurants in Asheville, North Carolina, but when we recorded, she was away for a few weeks, in residence at Chefs Club in New York City. That's a terrifying thing to do when it's your own business, but Button trusts her staff at Cúrate Tapas Bar and they got to develop some new skills while she's away. It's important to her to invest in her team's development in all different ways — like paying a living wage, offering healthcare, creating incentives for employees who stick around for a certain amount of years — both because she cares, and because it makes her take a good, hard look at the kind of life she'd like for herself. During her tenure in NYC, Button opened up about the importance of therapy, the impact of a "vampire schedule" when you have a family, and the pressures of owning a business.

Meet our guest

Katie Button is the co-founder and executive chef of Katie Button Restaurants, which includes Cúrate Bar de Tapas and La Bodega by Cúrate, as well as the now-shuttered Nightbell and Button and Co. Bagels. Button and husband Felix Meana founded Cúrate Trips in 2016 to connect guests with their experience of Spain, and have led journeys to Catalonia, Andalusia, Madrid, Castile, the Basque Country, Portugal, and Morocco. The duo established Cúrate at Home and the Cúrate Spanish Wine Club as online marketplaces to enhance their guests experiences away from the restaurants. Button was named a 2015 F&W Best New Chef and won the James Beard Foundation Outstanding Hospitality Award for Cúrate in 2022. She hosts From the Source on Magnolia Network and is the author of Cúrate: Authentic Spanish Food from an American Kitchen.

Meet our host

Kat Kinsman is the executive features editor at Food & Wine, author of Hi, Anxiety: Life With a Bad Case of Nerves, host of Food & Wine's podcast Tinfoil Swans, and founder of Chefs With Issues. Previously, she was the senior food & drinks editor at Extra Crispy, editor-in-chief and editor at large at Tasting Table, and the founding editor of CNN Eatocracy. She won a 2020 IACP Award for Personal Essay/Memoir and has had work included in the 2020 and 2016 editions of The Best American Food Writing. She was nominated for a James Beard Broadcast Award in 2013, won a 2011 EPPY Award for Best Food Website with 1 million unique monthly visitors, and was a finalist in 2012 and 2013. She is a sought-after international keynote speaker and moderator on food culture and mental health in the hospitality industry, and is the former vice chair of the James Beard Journalism Committee.

Highlights from the episode

On breaking patterns

"All the restaurant owners and chefs complain about a labor crisis in the restaurant industry. And you think, 'There's a shortage. I can't find anybody. They're leaving.' But then I think, well, of course there's a labor crisis. If you were getting out of whatever, starting your career in your life and you're looking at the options that are open, and you're looking at an industry that has been known for being low paying, zero benefits. Abusive culture, late nights. Family life is really hard. If you ever wanted to have kids, how you juggled childcare. Why would you ever jump into that for a career? That is why I think that this stuff has to change.

The other thing that our HR manager pushed us to do is, we were having our sous-chefs working and assistant managers and managers working 50 hours a week, which isn't wild. She said to me, 'Katie, you really got to get them down to 40. Because for people to be able to have a balanced life, move, have kids, get home, do a normal whatever their life is, and have time to spend with their families and significant others and friends — working more than 40, it's hard to do all that.'"

On addressing mistakes

"Usually in the moment I just fix the problem. It's like, 'OK, do this.' And then after it's fixed, then it's having a conversation about why the mistake happened and the what. There are all different kinds of mistakes. but in the end, I never let things get too out of control in my mind. It's not who I am and it's not how I like to talk to people, because in the end we are just cooking food. It's not life or death. I mean, as long as you're following health department protocols, peoples' life are fine.

So I think understanding that and relaxing a little bit is key. And then, the thing that I also try to make sure my staff knows, is mistakes are OK as long as you learn from them. When mistakes become a problem is when they're repeating. But the first time or even the second time you haven't learned and you make a mistake, it's understandable."

On making the decision to start therapy

"What I'm most proud of was about taking the step to go to therapy. I made this decision the day Felix [Button's husband] left town to go to a four week tour. He was gone for four weeks doing traveling tours in Spain that we do through our trips. It was funny; it was the middle of the afternoon on a Sunday, and I was home with both kids and I said bye to him. He got in the car and drove to the airport. And the minute that I said bye to him and he walked out the door, I felt this overwhelming sense of sadness, and it was in the middle of the afternoon. I'm looking at my kids, I'm like, 'What is going on?' Because I was feeling overwhelmed and alone."

About Tinfoil Swans

Food & Wine has led the conversation around food, drinks, and hospitality in America and around the world since 1978. Tinfoil Swans continues that legacy with a new series of intimate, informative, surprising, and uplifting interviews with the biggest names in the culinary industry, sharing never-before-heard stories about the successes, struggles, and fork-in-the-road moments that made these personalities who they are today.

This season, you'll hear from icons and innovators like Daniel Boulud, Rodney Scott, Asma Khan, Emeril and E.J. Lagasse, Claudia Fleming, Dave Beran and Will Poulter, Dan Giusti, Priya Krishna, Lee Anne Wong, Cody Rigsby, Kevin Gillespie, Pete Wells, David Chang, Christine D'Ercole, Channing Frye, Nick Cho, and other special guests going deep with host Kat Kinsman on their formative experiences; the dishes and meals that made them; their joys, doubts and dreams; and what's on the menu in the future. Tune in for a feast that'll feed your brain and soul — and plenty of wisdom and quotable morsels to savor.

New episodes drop every Tuesday. Listen and follow on: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.