0024 - Chef Michael Beltran on cigar pairings, the restaurant biz, lessons from football

Spend enough time around professional chefs, and you’ll find that they are — disproportionately — lovers of premium cigars. Maybe it’s the need to relax after all the long hours in the kitchen or the fact that they have the refied palates to appreciate complex flavors. Whatever it is, it’s been my experience that you’re more likely to find fellow cigar smokers among the chef ranks than most other professions. Recently, our own Erik Calviño got a chance to chat with Michael Beltran, the chef and partner at Ariete, a great new Miami restaurant. They talked about his perspective on food, how it was informed by his leaving Miami for a time, and how dominoes played a role in his developing a passion for cigars. Music in this episode: "BossaBossa" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/