UNDERSTANDING THE POLITICS OF COOKING

Last month, I was reading about celebrity Chef Jose Andres receiving a waiver to cook with gas for his new restaurant in Palo Alto. It left me scratching my head because as I read my paper everyday in Metro New York, it kept telling me that New York governor Kathy Hochul wanted gas banned for residential cooking.

I’ve always thought of commercial kitchen cooking as anyone competing with my wife or someone’s mother to serve food and beverage. Okay I’ll keep my day job and I know it’s no joke but exactly what is going on with the politics of gas and or versus electric cooking?

At Day & Nite, we service both gas and electric ovens 24/7. As I look at this with that background, I started by searching for the the differences between cooking with gas and cooking with electric? In a word efficiency, with radical differences defining efficiency. Gas stoves have proven to be far more efficient from a culinary perspective, but electric stoves are more energy efficient. Theoretically, we could cut right to the cash, because if you are asking for a dining patron to pay a premium for a great meal which in many cases requires cooking at higher heat, the choice is going to be gas. Why has the industry limited itself to building agendas that just reflect the politics of counties we serve?

Smoking, trans-fats and foam have all been eliminated as the restaurant and foodservice operator listen intently to what their dining public want from them.

We all listened intently as Governor Hochul made the use of gas for cooking an issue especially when it appeared earlier this year that her agenda included commercial/restaurant cooking. However, like many issues in the current political environment, really hard to tell if this is an issue in search of governance or elected officials in search of an issue. What we do know is, starting in 2026, New York will ban the use of gas stoves in new residential buildings.

It’s also vital to look at the politics of Palo Alto. It is considered one of the most environmentally conscious cities in the nation if not world. So much of California’s leading ESG legislation was driven by its citizens, politicians, even resident corporations. Yet Palo Alto also exempted Zaytinya from the gas stove ban. It used to be NIMBY revolts against prisons, power plants and the like. I guess Palo Alto is flipping the equation to Definitely In My Back Yard when it comes to exceptional dining experiences.

Mike Berman is the Chief Operating Officer of New Hyde Park, NY based Day & Nite/All Service. The veteran executive joined the service leader in 2016. He has held leadership positions in his career across a range of business-to-business service sector. Prior to joining Day & Nite he served as Chief Operating Officer of Outside Ventures, LLC, the parent company for several B2B service businesses with a particular concentration in merchant services. As Director and Chief Operating Officer of Meridian Capital Group LLC, he overhauled the corporate structure and enabled the company to achieve a 2006 run rate in excess of $30 billion.

With that, I wonder if Chef Andres in California or any great chef around the world, could get an electric range the necessary temperatures to cook a $75 steak in a restaurant? I would never underestimate the industry’s pure genius, determination and proven ability to figure things out. However unlikely this seems today, commercial foodservice’s entire history is defined by its resiliency, coming up with answers to previously impossible questions. For instance, did we ever think NYC would favorably respond to outdoor dining in the winter?

In all fairness to the industry’s visionary manufacturers, as I tour trade shows there are some truly incredible advances in electric cooking. In many of the major cities on the East Coast that Day & Nite/All Service/Popular Plumbing operates in, it has meant that high end commercial cooking is now a reality without the need and expense of ventilation. Yes, I believe this combines at least a couple of sentiments: (1) efficiency, and (2) resilience. On the one hand, the knock continued on page 104