- [Franco] We're not a traditional barbecue place.
- [Nate] The two of us are very much outsiders
to Southern cuisine, but I think it's one of our strengths.
- [Franco] That's why we are sitting in this place
serving the food that we are is because we felt
no need to subscribe to any sort of traditions
in terms of barbecue at all.
We felt like we can do whatever we wanted.
Twelve years ago, my parents got a house in upstate New York
and my brother bought this little smoker
and up until that point, I'd never really had
actual barbecue because I grew up in Manhattan.
We started just messing around on our own
and it blew my mind a little bit
and I was like, wow, this is awesome and then, just from there,
it just became this thing that I became obsessed with.
I wanted to do a barbecue place, but I understood
that I had no real background in it,
but I still wanted to be in this business.
A friend of mine was opening an art gallery
and he had this backyard and he was like,
"Hey, do you wanna help me
do this pit master in residency program?"
And so I got into it with the idea that
this probably won't happen, but worst-case scenario,
I'll get to play around on a massive, 12-foot long smoker.
The feedback was really great and then Nate came by
that first season.
- Yeah, I mean, I stopped by in August or September of 2015.
First bite I took of the,
I think it was the pulled chicken sandwich.
It just, you know, the acid balance, the smoked character...
There's a lot of love that went into a very simple thing.
I don't even like barbecue personally.
And it was the sort of thing for me when I was like,
"This is delicious," and I just texted Franco,
I'm gonna help you out this summer.
- I hadn't even reached out or anything to ask for help,
but he was like, "I wanna help you with your thing,"
and I was like, "OK."
- It was part of my long game the whole time
to just be like, "OK, I'm helping you now."
- I was like, "Let's do it."
The prime rib was a funny thing because Nate was doing
the shopping at Restaurant Depot that day and he was supposed
to buy beef ribs, but by accident he bought an entire rack
of prime rib that's this massive, massive cut of meat.
It's gigantic.
- I had it in my backpack on my Vespa and it's like
it seems heavier than these normally are.
- [Franco] I was like, what the (beep) is that?
I'd never put a prime rib on a smoker,
so I didn't know what to do with it.
So then, I don't know, I did some research online, I threw it
on the smoker, did a simple herb rub, super simple
and put it on there for, like, two hours.
- [Nate] Fat renders out so you end up
with a little bit of this smoked herb jus
with all the herbaceous character.
- It was one of the most delicious things that
we've done all summer and people loved it right away.
It was super smoky, which is not traditionally how you have
prime rib, but people really took to it.
I think it was a really happy mistake.
- Yeah, I only make excellent mistakes.
- [Franco] And for us, this was a statement.
This is a smoky prime rib that's not your average thing
that you'll get at a steakhouse.
It's our version of this timeless traditional thing.
- Well, Franco's got a really picky palate.
He's got what I refer to as a live palate.
He likes acid, he likes spice,
he likes texture and crispiness.
So, I would say the broccoli has been something
we've been playing with.
We do a charred chive cloumage, which warms up the bite
and the vinaigrette we use for the broccoli
has some yuzu kosho, which is a Japanese spicy herb.
So again the spice of the yuzu kosho cut with the acid
of a lemon and the creamy herbaceousness of the cloumage.
- [Franco] The sides in general, I wanted them to all have
those elements where they didn't bog down the meal.
They helped you eat more, stuff that wouldn't make you walk
away feeling like you needed to be wheeled out of here.
The Manhattan Wings are really special to me because
I'm a die-hard Giants fan and those are something
that I started cooking probably three or four years ago
just at home. It's almost religious.
It came about because I used to order from this place
and one weekend they showed up three hours late.
It was a disaster, it was a playoff game, and I was like,
"I'm just gonna make my own wings,"
and that's the way it came about. And Nate's had them
the way I make them at home, which is slightly different--
- So (beep) spicy.
- [Franco] The idea is that the more we suffer
eating the wings, the better the Giants will do.
- [Nate] It's like ritual sacrifice.
- [Franco] Yes, exactly.
- [Nate] It's sadistic.
- [Franco] So obviously, having those on the menu
is something I wanted to have happen.
They're smoked first and then grilled.
They're obviously nowhere near as spicy,
but they get our house rub and then a sauce
that's a buffalo wing sauce essentially.
I mean, they're still absolutely delicious here.
They're not just not gonna (beep) blow your head off.
- You don't get the light halos, the same way you do
when you eat them at Franco's house.
- [Franco] A lot of the food here is technically barbecue.
We have a smoker in the kitchen.
The menu is a really nice mix of some barbecue elements
and a lot of other more traditional restaurant technique
and cooking style.
- [Nate] And in playing with the steakhouse imagery, it does
have a little bit of a "Twilight Zone"-era manipulation
feel and that's something that I think is great because it
takes people out of the mindset of the modern industry
and centers it around more of a new classic style
and that was our big point of departure from our category
of smoked meats.
- For us, it's funny because from a lot of the reviews
and stuff, people are like, "This is such a wild
juxtaposition," but I think for us,
it just totally makes complete sense.