(upbeat music)
Welcome Rachael, to Restaurant Daniel,
and let me show you around.
I'm Chef Daniel Boulud,
and we are here at Restaurant Daniel.
Restaurant Daniel is definitely the quintessential,
New York, French restaurant.
And here, we're in the bar and lounge.
This is our main entrance
and our majestic bar.
All the lighting fixture that's been done by Lalique,
one of the finest, French, glass maker.
I think it create a very beautiful mood
to a perfect evening at Daniel.
And the dining room has always been like this,
with the arches and the first 10 years,
it was more Byzantine.
I remember we had red velvet
and we had beautiful golden curtains.
It felt like you were in Venice.
10 years later, we refresh it a little bit.
In 2021, we, after Covid,
we wanted to do a full refresh as well,
put some new artwork, lighting.
Our 30 years anniversary of Restaurant Daniel
is coming up this year, so it's a very exciting time.
Between New York City and out of New York, out of the US,
we have about 20 restaurants.
Voila!
Here, we are in the kitchen of Daniel.
This restaurant is very special
because it is the first restaurant open.
I was a young chef in New York.
I was ambitious.
I risked everything.
I borrow a lot of money to be able
to achieve my goal, my dream.
And my dream still give me pleasure every day.
(upbeat music continues)
The kitchen is made of many stations.
Here, we start the warm station, the warm appetizer,
where we have the soup, the pasta.
The whole stove is electric here,
and then it goes into the fish station.
And then here, we have the rotisserie
and the frying station.
And here, we have the meat station,
where we do all the roasting of the meat.
We use all the copper pans.
Here at Daniel, we want the customer to be surprised,
embracing the season, embracing creativity and technique
that is really current and combination also of flavor.
Our menu at Daniel is very seasonal.
In the seafood representation,
there is always the local seafood,
and then the seafood that is rare and unique,
and we always have beef.
Right now, we have bison from the High Plain.
The bison is with truffle, right now,
because black truffle is in season.
There's always a lot of vegetable.
And of course, chicken is very often,
I will say, almost all the time,
the poultry of choice on the menu.
We have a beautiful rotisserie here at Restaurant Daniel.
And the chicken are roasted there in the rotisserie,
but they are prepared and finished in a different way
than the way I do it at home.
And up there, there's the sky box is my office,
is my meeting table, here with my team.
But it's also a dining table in the evening,
when we are all working.
This is the best view of the kitchen from here.
I am very proud to say that as a New Yorker,
I try to really embrace our city here,
but also embrace our community.
For the last 25 years, I've been doing a gala
for City Meal on Wheel,
and we will be doing this gala again.
It is oversold and we're gonna be raising a lot of money
for City Meal on Wheel.
That to me, it make me proud.
Not only what I have achieved with Daniel,
but what Daniel has achieved here in this city.
(upbeat music ending)
(symbol music ending)