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JL: What were the first dishes you each remember cooking individually, ever?

GD: When I was four years old, it was a cake out of the Easy-Bake Oven.

JL: How did it turn out?

GD: It turned out great. It was magic. It was magic to me as a child. I put these ingredients together, put them in a pan and put it in a little oven, and it came out and it was hot. I still smell it. That’s when I knew I wanted to be a chef, at four.

GQD: This is not what told me I wanted to be a chef, but I used to come home from school and the snack I would make for myself was always just a microwaved quesadilla – and I don’t know if I still have it – Sizzlean – a really lean bacon. I would just crumble that into the quesadilla.

As far as food that I was proud of, when I was in junior high school, in Home Ec, and they taught us how to make latkes with sour cream, that was the first meal that I took upon myself to cook at home for my mom. I was very proud to present it.

JL: Where was this?

GQD: This was in Manhattan Beach.

JL: What was the first dish that you ever cooked together?

GQD: We met cooking in a professional kitchen in the Napa Valley, so we cooked a lot of things together that we served to other people.

GD: We ate so much food together, it’s hard to really nail that… When we met each other at a restaurant in Napa Valley called Terra, we just got along very well. We cooked well together. At the time, I worked there just part-time because they only needed a couple days a week. I could already feel that when I worked those days, and Gabi was there, I just knew it was going to be an easier, more fun, just great day to cook.

GQD: I think about the time he threw a party at his house, and the theme was foie gras. We obtained a bunch of foie gras at cost through the restaurant. A bunch of people did a bunch of different things. That’s when you realize how much you’re really connecting with someone. The rest of the party kind of fell away when we were sitting at his grill, grilling foie, and then eating it. Even though the whole party is eating it with us, I just remember it personally as something we had together.

JL: Who gets to work at Ox or Superbite? What attributes do those people possess?

GQD: We want them to be nice people. Hospitality is not just for front of the house. At Ox, if you work the grill, you’re in the dining room interacting with guests throughout their whole meal. At Superbite, our cooks are what we call cook/servers. They’re part of the front of the house and run dishes out to the dining room throughout the evening. That’s the first thing. Do we like you? Are you a nice person? Are you good to people around you? After that, skill is important, but teachability is even more important. Somebody that can follow directions and is interested in learning and has a passion for learning, regardless of whether they came from much fancier kitchens than ours, or they’re straight out of cooking school, or maybe have no experience whatsoever and just want to learn. It’s all about the passion for learning and cooking the type of food that we like to cook.

GD: To be successful in our kitchens, or to be someone we’d want to hire, ego really has to be put in check. We’re not really huge fans of hiring people with tons of experience or tons of really great stuff on their resume. Honestly, most of the time that we have, either they have their own agenda or they can’t get past what they used to do and can’t be led. We just really want people who are open to learning. We really like to teach people how we do things. That’s part of my passion, is to teach people. If someone doesn’t want to be taught – it’s crazy to think how many people want to come to a restaurant and get their own stuff on the menu. That’s not how it’s going to work. If you want to be an executive chef, you should have been an executive chef at another restaurant. We just like people who are humble and can be taught. We’ll put the time in. Nothing’s a secret. We’ll teach everything we can.

JL: Which people in the restaurant community continue to inspire you as chefs?

GD: Locally, Gabe Rucker is just one of those people who continues to push himself and push his crew. He just continues to be the best restaurant in Portland at 10 years. He’s having kids, and I don’t know how he does it. He’s a real inspiration. He’s also changed his life from a party boy to a family guy. It’s even improved his food a little more than when he was the wild chef back in the day. He’s a real inspiration. We have some older guard. Vitaley Paley is always pushing himself and is always competitive within the community.

GQD: John Gorham has Toro Bravo, Tasty & Sons, Tasty & Alder, M.E.C., which is Mediterranean Exploration Company, and now Pollo Bravo. I don’t know how he does it. He clearly inspires great loyalty amongst his crew, because he has people who stay with him a long time and really grow with him. He is able to grow the company at exponential rates with great success. Always great flavors. Every concept is different from the last, and yet still excels.

GD: In general, a lot of these younger chefs that are coming up in the Portland community are coming from places like L.A., Chicago, and New York, and are coming to Portland. A lot of these kids are doing food that Portland’s not even ready for yet. Any other city, there would be lines out the door for some of these places. They’re doing high-level, Michelin-starred food.

JL: What’s an example?

GD: Justin Woodward at Castagna, any other city, there would be a three-month, four-month wait to get into the restaurant. Portland, you can probably make a reservation for it at least a couple days out.

GQD: Langbaan is a Thai tasting menu.

GD: We’ve got all these pop-ups that are happening. Maya Lovelace is doing Mae. She used to work for Sean Brock and she’s just bringing a whole slew of Southern heritage cooking to a pop-up situation that people are going nuts for. The city now has to catch up to what these people are putting out.

Nationally, it’s interesting. I look at the most famous people, like Thomas Keller, who seems to continue to push himself to be better. At what stage of life he’s at, you know he’s not behind the stoves any longer, but he pushes the mentorship and is now involved in Bocuse d’Or. It’s truly amazing what that guy does and how inspires himself. He could retire. He’s good. He doesn’t even have to show up anymore, but he does. I’m really inspired by him.

Going through this culinary journey that we’ve had a chance to go through in the past couple years, by being Food & Wine Best New Chefs and getting to the James Beard Awards and stuff like that, we get to know people every year. It’s great to see people you think would be egotistical or not friendly, and they’re completely opposite of that.

JL: What would it take for you to open a restaurant in Los Angeles?

GD: We’d have to have total control and pay nothing, which doesn’t happen. L.A.’s big and we have dogs and we like home.

GQD: For me to ever come back to L.A., I’d have to know that we have a lovely home – it doesn’t have to be a big home – but home has to be my paradise in the middle of a big hustling city, and I’d have to be able to walk to work. That would probably make me consider L.A. again.