Episode Details

In this episode of Five Rules for the Good Life, I sit down with chef and restaurateur Fermín Núñez to, who shares his Five Rules for a Proper 48 Hour Trip. He talks about traveling with purpose, from taking the earliest flight to packing light to fully disconnecting once you land. We get into why having a clear reason for going, whether it’s a specific restaurant, a soccer game, or a neighborhood you want to understand, changes the entire experience. This is a conversation about using limited time well, finding inspiration through food and place, and returning home sharper than when you left.

What resonates most with me is the idea of traveling with intention and having an anchor. I’ve learned that if I don’t build a trip around one meaningful plan, a reservation, a game, or a person I want to see, the time slips away. But if I overfill the schedule, I miss the magic. The balance is having one strong reason to go and leaving the rest open. That structure creates freedom. It allows you to be present, to wander, to notice something unexpected. That’s when a quick trip stops feeling like an escape and starts feeling like a reset.

Chef Fermín Núñez of Austin’s Suerte and Este teams up with Jorge Gaviria, the founder of Masienda and bestselling author of MASA, to bring their combined time in professional kitchens and on the streets of Mexico to the page in Vitamina T. They understand that these dishes are not static. They evolve. They travel. They adapt. And here, they show you how to cook them with clarity and confidence at home.

Transcript

Introduction

Hello, and welcome to Five Rules for the Good Life.

I’m your host, Darin Bresnitz.

It is always a pleasure to see and sit down with today’s guest, chef and restaurateur Fermín Núñez, whose restaurant and bar in Austin are some of my favorite places to hit when I’m in town. He shares his five rules for a proper 48-hour trip.

We share the same love of getting up early and getting on the road, the key balance to having an anchor for your trip but not filling up all of your time, and how disconnecting on the road allows you to come back home recharged.

It’s a really great conversation for anyone looking for insights about how to travel with intention and how if you have a busy schedule to make getting away matter the most. So let’s get into the rules.

Sitting Down in Austin

Fermín, always so good to see you. Always a pleasure when we get some time to chat. Thank you for sitting down for the show.

Thanks for having me right back at you. Always a pleasure to get to chat a little bit with each other.

Whenever I’ve come to Austin, I’ve had such a great time traveling around, hanging out, eating with you, getting to see the city. And there really is this ideal of what it’s like to travel like a chef or be inside the restaurant world because you have all these access to the hidden gems. How much have you found that to be true in your travels?

It’s super true because that’s the number one reason why I travel. I travel to places that I want to eat. I’m also very lucky to be in a place where I get to do that. When I get a little bit of brain farts of ideas of what to do next, that is one of my favorite ways to do is get out of my own head, see what other people in other states are doing, and then come back and get right after it.

There is that idea of traveling for inspiration. You’ve gone out and you’ve had so many great meals. When do you realize when something’s gone from a really great bite to something that’s inspired you to create something in your own kitchen?

Man, I have a few of those. That’s what I really like to mimic at the restaurant. Recreate what I felt, not what I tasted. A lot of