Angie Mar and Audi Light a Fire to Empower Women in the Hospitality Industry

[busy string music]

[Angie] You know you have these bites of food sometimes

and... they move you.

They move you, they do things to you,

it's an experience like you haven't had ever before,

but maybe at the same time it's nostalgic.

I want people to eat food that is so good

that it just messes with their brain,

and I could have only have done that

if I was cooking food with abandon,

and cooking food for me, not for anybody else.

[music crescendos]

When I first started cooking

it was my first year in New York.

I was in culinary school and then got a job immediately,

like my first week.

It was really formative for me those couple years

because I think there's something to be said

for just being in a kitchen being surrounded by talent.

Pat LaFrieda's probably one of my oldest

friends in the industry

and has been somebody that's just really supported me

and promoted me, you know I think there's probably

a handful of chefs that have their names

in that dry aging room, so I feel very fortunate

to be one of them,

it's definitely one of my favorite places.

The Beatrice is, for those people that don't know it,

it's very much a New York institution.

The building was built in 1871,

it was one of New York's first speakeasies, in the 1920s.

Fitzgerald and Hemingway and Zelda,

they all used to drink here.

When I bought the restaurant in 2016 with my cousin,

we decided then that we really wanted to make

this restaurant a place for the neighborhood.

We wanted to return it to the West Village

because New York has really nurtured me

and that's what I wanted this restaurant to be

for everybody that comes here.

I wanted it to feel like home.

I closed it for a month, and really just kinda sat here

in the walls of this space and said

Okay, what is this restaurant gonna be,

what do we wanna cook?

When I finally came to terms with the fact that

I was not gonna make this restaurant

like everybody else's restaurant,

it was probably one of the most freeing things possible.

As a creative especially,

when we try and be something to everyone,

that's when we're not that great to anyone.

[upbeat instrumental music]

So I'm a very, very Manhattan girl,

and I don't really leave Manhattan.

This is my first time in Pittsburgh

and it has been really fantastic,

everybody has been so welcoming.

Sandra and Ping have been so wonderful to work with.

To have a team here on the ground from Pittsburgh,

that was, you know, ready and willing and game

to just roll up their sleeves

and really adapt to, you know, our style of hospitality.

So the menu that I'm doing here in Pittsburgh

is all food that is tremendously indicative

to who I am as a chef.

You know, my food isn't for everybody,

and I'm 100% okay with that.

[fire roaring]

You know I would much rather be the girl

that was cooking really amazing things

that I was really passionate about

versus the girl that was trying to please everybody,

and to put this really, ridiculously large cut of beef

on a table in front of people,

to light whole animals on fire,

I sometimes forget the wow factor.

[steady guitar riff]

What I think is really important now

about people that are at my level,

at Ping's level, at Sandra's level,

is the ability and the desire to give back.

The scholarship program that Audi will be rolling out

is something that's important

because you don't forget where you come from,

you don't forget who put you there,

you don't forget to pay it forward to the people

that are gonna follow in your footsteps.

Because somewhere along the way, you know,

there was somebody who really invested time in all of us.

If we can have people come to these dinners

every single night

and have something that they've never experienced before,

perhaps change the way that they think about

or viewed food, or viewed a dining experience,

you know, then I've done my job right.

[Audi Heartbeat]