Jason Hall’s Five Rules for Opening a Restaurant Anywhere in the World

“Experience the local hospitality scene. You’ve earned it. It’s one of the biggest privileges of international travel. It’s that thing that will get your light bulb to go off.” ~ Jason Hall Opening a restaurant is hard enough when you live around the corner. So what happens when it’s halfway around the world? This week, Jason Hall , Vice President of Culinary at Tao Group and Executive Chef of Cathédrale , joins me to share his Five Rules for Opening a Restaurant Anywhere in the World . We talk about building a team you can trust, doing the work before you board the plane, and understanding the neighborhood before you move into it. There’s also tennis, late-night marketing calls, and a dessert in Rome that found its way onto a menu in New York. A great conversation about what it takes to bring hospitality across borders without losing your footing along the way. Having spent plenty of time traveling for work in the culinary world, I know how quickly the excitement of a new city can turn into another airport, another meeting, and a very confused sleep schedule. What I love about Jason’s approach is that he makes room for the things that keep him feeling like himself, even when everything around him changes. Pack the tennis racket, find a yoga studio, and make time to sit down at someone else’s restaurant and let them take care of you. We’re lucky to work in a world that gives us so many opportunities to eat, explore, and meet people. Finding that balance helps you actually enjoy the life you’re working so hard to build. Photo by Justin Levy Introduction Hello, and welcome to Five Rules for the Good Life. I’m your host, Darin Bresnitz. This week, we grab our passports and travel the globe with Jason Hall, the Vice President of Culinary at the Tao Group and Executive Chef of Cathedral. He’s here to share his five rules for opening a restaurant anywhere in the world. He talks about the importance of making sure that your house is in order and that no matter where you are or what you’re doing, you need to maintain your routine. It is a great conversation for anyone who’s ever wanted to open a business or a restaurant not in their backyard and to understand what it takes to work with an international team of professionals. Please take a moment to rate and subscribe to this podcast wherever you listen. So let’s get into the rules here on HRN. Bringing Food and Entertainment Together Jason, so nice to meet you. Thank you for making the time, especially with your cross-globe travels. Welcome to the show. Thank you. Great to be here. So many people have tried to pair entertainment with food and usually fall short on elevating the cuisine. How are you within the Tao Group able to keep these two disciplines on the same level? One of the things at Tao Group, we have a very deep team in each department when it comes to design, when it comes to service, when it comes to culinary, when it comes to marketing. The secret sauce for us is making sure those elements are consistent across the board. When you have alignment through the vertical and you’re developing a concept, that’s how you can bring that energy to life. Being able to bring this to life has really been prevalent in America’s approach to using restaurants as a night out, not just as a stop on a way to a club, but really mixing the two together. Have you found this to be similar all over the world or is America just catching up? It depends on the place. I