RJ here in our studio at the Four Seasons, and we have a special guest today. This is Chef Ashley James, who is the executive chef here at the Four Seasons, Los Angeles, at Beverly Hills, my home.

Well, RJ, thank you so much for inviting me.

Thank you for coming. Who knew you were going to bring all this. This might be my favorite interview ever.

Absolutely. I mean, I mean, after I cook for you. Right. We will see each other often. But it's a pleasure to be up here.

And we refer to you as Chef Ashley over here. It's always calling, hey Chef Ashley, I need a knickerbocker.

Exactly. Knickerbockers, so absolutely, I had to bring you the knickerbocker glory upstairs. This is the key of how I stay healthy every day. My my daily knickerbocker.

That's right. Well, you know, sometimes healthy is good. I love being healthy, but you have to be bad as well. So we've got the the new menu. You did the street menu, which is inspired by just different cultures that that you've explored across the world.

That's right, in my sort of, sort of 25 years of experience working around the world, you know. You know, I'm a Brit, but with this accent, it's pretty, pretty easy that I'm a Brit. So I left England at the age of 20, then I went to work in France for five years, then to Spain for three years, and then I joined Four Seasons, uh, 14 years ago in Singapore.

Wow. That's the oddest naming dish ever. But it's amazing. I have it all the time. I remember, you know, I mean, actually RJ, RJ is one of the guinea pigs here at the Four Seasons. We, we, we let him, he gets a preview of these dishes before we even put them on the menu.

That's true, I had this before I came out. That's right. It's called the Singapore Carrot Cake Scramble, right? This, exactly.

So explain carrot cake, where that comes into this.

In Chinese, the the same word for carrot is the same as turnip. It's the same word in Chinese. So we actually make this with daikon, which is a type of turnip.

Oh, I didn't know that. And that's henceforth where the carrot cake I love how Four Seasons does things because normally you get a hot dog and it's like a messy hot dog.

Well, hot dogs. Here we go. I mean, in LA, you know, there's a lot of hot dogs in Los Angeles, but I came up with this hot dog. We're working with a local butcher who's preparing this amazing chicken, chipotle, and cilantro dog. Not your not your typical hot dog, that's for sure.

Not your typical hot dog. It's definitely not one of those you'll see in the shopping cart. Right, I love it. And then this, we, we have to talk about. So I remember I I called you up a few months back and said, we needed to create our our Young Hollywood dish.

That's right. Here it is. Yeah, this hotel is about Hollywood, it really is. Yeah, it's true. Um, we came up with this salad, which has proved to be very popular. It's a lot of ingredients that people love, you know, like the tomatoes. We have great heirloom tomatoes. Um, hemp seed.

Hemp seed. That was the Chef Ashley spin that I like because I never had hemp seed on a salad. That was the spin.

Hemp seed, actually related to the cannabis plant, but totally legal. You can buy it everywhere in the United States. The blueberries, the strawberries, lots of antioxidants, cucumber, local organic muscle and salad, and avocado. Everyone, I think everyone likes avocado.

I love avocado. Yeah. Right here. We gotta we gotta have a bite. Okay, let's try this. Anyone's here in Beverly Hills. Yeah. You have to try the Young Hollywood. So let let's talk a bit about working at the Four Seasons, and I'm sure you've had some crazy requests throughout the years. I mean, you have the who's who that stays here.

You can be guaranteed any awards season, around 11:00 in the morning, the kitchen gets bombarded with salads, with smoothies. I think everyone has a smoothie because they want to get in that dress. They don't want no bulges.

And I love the smoothies you have, like the jet lag smoothie.

The jet lag smoothie, the Acai treat, the antioxidant smoothie. A huge amount of sashimi. People love sashimi, you know, the proteins, sometimes not too many carbs.

Right. And speaking of stars, you might not realize this guy is now a star. You have a TV show. That's right. That's kind of a kind of a big deal.

Well, RJ, not quite a star, but I have a TV show.

You're you're halfway there.

I'm Chef Ashley James. When I'm not catering to the demands of stars in LA, I'm touring the world cooking with culinary geniuses. The Cuisine Culture, PBS.

That's right. You've gone to some really, really cool places. What was like the one highlight of of the show for you so far?

New York was amazing, of course. You know, I had the the huge honor of filming with Daniel Baloo. Daniel Baloo is such an amazing chef. And Israel. Israel, you know, I I I went to Israel, and it was such an exciting journey because I'd never been before. So it was a new country, it was a new experience.

Make sure you check out Cuisine Culture on PBS with this guy right here, the guy we like to call Chef Ashley. And if you're ever in the area, Four Seasons Beverly Hills, you need to come by, check out the street menu, and you have to order the Young Hollywood salad. Absolutely. Chef Ashley, to the Young Hollywood salad, and to Cuisine Culture, and everything you've created.

RJ, thank you so much.

Yeah. Cheers.