Joe Rogan Experience #1469 - Adam Perry Lang
Joe Rogan (host), Adam Perry Lang (guest), Narrator
In this episode of The Joe Rogan Experience, featuring Joe Rogan and Adam Perry Lang, Joe Rogan Experience #1469 - Adam Perry Lang explores chef Adam Perry Lang On Surviving COVID, Steakhouses, Knives, Craft Joe Rogan talks with chef and restaurateur Adam Perry Lang about the devastating impact of COVID-19 on restaurants, using Adam’s Hollywood steakhouse APL as a case study. Adam explains how he pivoted from full-service dining to 10–15% capacity takeout and charity cooking for frontline workers while struggling with rent, loans, and staff cuts. They dive deep into the craft and science of dry‑aged beef, steak cooking methods, knife making, and ethical meat sourcing, revealing how much true “art and craft” lives behind a great restaurant. The conversation also ranges into fly-fishing, bowhunting, media’s effect on chef culture, and the difficult ethical balance between public health and economic survival.
Chef Adam Perry Lang On Surviving COVID, Steakhouses, Knives, Craft
Joe Rogan talks with chef and restaurateur Adam Perry Lang about the devastating impact of COVID-19 on restaurants, using Adam’s Hollywood steakhouse APL as a case study. Adam explains how he pivoted from full-service dining to 10–15% capacity takeout and charity cooking for frontline workers while struggling with rent, loans, and staff cuts. They dive deep into the craft and science of dry‑aged beef, steak cooking methods, knife making, and ethical meat sourcing, revealing how much true “art and craft” lives behind a great restaurant. The conversation also ranges into fly-fishing, bowhunting, media’s effect on chef culture, and the difficult ethical balance between public health and economic survival.
Key Takeaways
COVID forced restaurants to pivot fast or die.
Adam went from a full team to 10–15% of normal business with just a handful of staff, shifting to curbside, delivery, and large-batch meals for hospitals, while deferring rent and navigating confusing PPP loan rules.
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Purpose and motion help manage crisis stress.
Instead of freezing in uncertainty, Adam copes by “head down and cook” — focusing on feeding frontline workers and his neighborhood, which sustains his morale and keeps a core team employed.
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Great steak is built in the dry-age room, not just the pan.
Dry-aging relies on tightly controlled air flow, temperature, and humidity plus a “friendly mold” culture Adam carries from room to room, producing unique flavors and tenderness far beyond typical 30–60 day aging.
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Cooking technique must match the meat and desired outcome.
Adam avoids slow-cooking long-aged steaks (they turn livery), prefers extremely high heat for dry-aged crust, treats ultra-aged or Wagyu beef as small, rich tasting portions, and modifies methods for lean wild game vs fatty grain-finished beef.
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Tools, especially knives, are extensions of the chef’s craft.
Adam hand-makes his steak knives with a bladesmith, obsessing over steel, heat treatment, and longevity; he even prices them just above the felony theft threshold as a deterrent, underscoring how much he values his tools.
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Ethical meat starts long before the kitchen.
He works with Niman Ranch and specialist buyers to select genetics, manage stress-free handling and slaughter (influenced by Temple Grandin’s designs), and often prefers beef that’s grain-finished but raised humanely and nutritionally well.
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Culinary excellence comes from hours of unglamorous repetition, not TV fame.
Adam argues that before Food Network, cooks accepted long apprenticeships; now many chase quick celebrity, but the reality is thousands of hours with a knife and heat are still required to cook consistently at a high level.
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Notable Quotes
“For me, it’s just head down and cook, try to help people, and then we’ll figure it out later.”
— Adam Perry Lang
“At the end of the day, people have to eat. The world’s gonna be different, probably not the same at all for my business. But what choice do I have?”
— Adam Perry Lang
“Cooking bounces between art and craft… the art is when you have no boundaries, the craft is when you make it consistent every night.”
— Adam Perry Lang
“There’s a certain number of hours you just cannot avoid. You have to have the knife in your hand for thousands and thousands of hours before you’re really starting to cook.”
— Adam Perry Lang
“What kind of world do we have in front of us the way it’s slated right now? We don’t even know.”
— Adam Perry Lang
Questions Answered in This Episode
How many independent restaurants like APL will realistically survive post‑COVID regulations and reduced capacity?
Joe Rogan talks with chef and restaurateur Adam Perry Lang about the devastating impact of COVID-19 on restaurants, using Adam’s Hollywood steakhouse APL as a case study. ...
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If rapid, accurate COVID testing at the door became feasible, how would that permanently change restaurant design and service?
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Are there scalable ways for more restaurants to adopt Adam’s level of care in dry-aging and ethical sourcing without pricing out most customers?
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How can culinary education better balance teaching media skills with instilling the long-haul craft discipline Adam describes?
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What can diners do, beyond ordering takeout, to meaningfully support restaurants they want to see still standing in five years?
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Transcript Preview
... one. (smashes table) What's happening, brother? How are you?
Good to be here.
Good to have you.
What's happening?
Um, I have enjoyed your restaurant many times. This is my favorite steak restaurant in all of Los Angeles.
Thank you.
And, uh, it's one of the reasons why I wanted to bring you in here because, uh, this is a, uh, really crazy time for restaurants. And, um, I, I mean, that's basically... That, that's the gist of it.
Yeah.
This is a crazy time. I mean-
It's, it's bananas. It's absolutely crazy. I'm trying to just get a handle on it. It's just, uh, overwhelming. So, for me, it's just head down and cook, try to help people, you know, that are in need, and, uh, and then we'll figure it out later. That's-
Well, I know you've been doing a lot of cooking for first responders and for hospitals. And, like, what, what have you been doing with your time now that this is...
Well, it really first started where, um, basically, everything just... Everybody was just staring at each other and saying, "What, what is going on? What's happening?" And I had... I didn't lay off any of my employees and it's all happening. Everybody else is closing up shop and, you know, I'm just overwhelmed as a business owner. What am I gonna do? And I actually had my GM come up to me and, you know... Because I'm trying to figure it out. Everybody's asked, "What's gonna happen?" My GM came up to me and he says, "Hey, listen, you know, we're with you. Um, we know you didn't create the coronavirus. You know, you do what you have to do, and we know your heart's in the right place." And I was just like... I just, like, kind of just let out a breath and I'm like, "Okay, well, I appreciate you saying that." And then I was just head down, get down to business with it. And, uh, um, we had to cut back, um, 90% of the staff. And, uh, we were just like... Just cook. Um, didn't know who were gonna... Who was gonna buy it or anything. It was just crazy.
So we should just tell everybody. It's the, the steakhouse is called APL.
Yeah.
And it's in, uh, LA in wha- what is that? Like, the theater district? What is that called? That, that area?
Yeah, it's in the heart of Hollywood, Hollywood and Vine.
Yeah, yeah.
And it's right, uh, next to the Pantages Theater.
Right.
Which we... And what's ironic was, it was literally when they closed down all the restaurants, it was the, gonna be the night of, uh, Hamilton premiering, which was a big deal for us as a business and, uh, you know, all of a sudden it's like it stops and, um-
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