- [Director] When you go like this,
keep in mind if you're hitting the mic.
- Oh.
- [Director] So.
- I tell people not to do that all the time,
and now here I am.
- [Director] That's good.
- Apparently, I can't be in front of the camera.
- Hey guys, I'm Chas, the producer for Eat Seeker.
- I'm Phoebe, the associate producer.
- I've been covering food for two years now,
and every restaurant we've gone to,
or talked to a chef about it,
I've realized that there's more of a story behind it.
And that's really what we wanted to get out of Eat Seeker.
- A lot of times when you go to a restaurant,
you don't actually get a chance to talk to the chef
or hear about their inspiration.
And we felt like we needed to give
them the chance to share their stories.
- Our hope with this show is that anyone watching it
can go to these restaurants,
and get the full intention of the chef.
- Food tells stories, and when you sit down,
and you eat one of their plates,
you finally kind of understand who they are as a person.
You understand their background.
- Food is very therapeutic for all these chefs as well.
Already, through the four restaurants we've covered,
each chef has something that they're trying to work out.
- One of the stories that sticks out to me, personally,
is Brandon's from San Francisco, and how he
was trying to work through his own identity in the kitchen.
- There's Chinese people that tell me
that I'm not Chinese enough.
And then there's Americans that tell me
that I'm not American enough.
I didn't feel like one or the other either.
(soft electronic music)
This whole experience has been trying to find out
the balance between my identity.
I kept thinking about the
role of this restaurant in Chinatown.
I wanted it to be a restaurant that locals
felt like represented San Francisco.
And some of the responsibilities I felt
as a chef in San Francisco, or a chef as a Chinese-American,
is to understand the traditions of what is here.
You know, this restaurant wants to keep celebrating
the success of the Chinese community that
had to endure a lot.
- You also have Alex Stupak, who is trying to
take the taco and really relate it
to the New York City cuisine.
- Everyone loves tacos.
Everyone has an opinion on what a taco is.
So, by tweaking that concept a little bit,
it can piss people off, but it also
can open people's eyes up.
There really isn't such a thing as New York City cuisine.
Problem is that we have everything.
I think the New York mentality is,
"We're gonna do whatever we want."
And we certainly apply that to our tacos.
I mean, it has to be a great taco,
which means it's got a great tortilla,
with a great thing on it, and some great salsa.
But other than that, we pretty much set ourselves free.
So, what would a New York City taco be?
- And then, you have Dessert Bar,
which is a dessert-only tasting menu.
And the chef there is really trying
to reshape what a dessert can be.
- I think traditionally, people skip dessert,
because they have this notion that it's gonna
be so sweet that, you know, if you've had a meal
and you're kind of getting full up,
you can't eat a load of sugar.
It's very important for us that it wasn't
sickly sweet desserts.
So, the ingredients we use, the way we pair it,
we would try and really find that
balance between sweet and savory.
I've wanted to do this dessert bar concept
and dessert tastings for a few years.
And I've kind of, in the back of my head,
I've been sort of writing notes for a few years
about how to do it, and you know, would it work,
and then, when I got this opportunity,
and we had this space, I was just like, "Let's do it.
Let's just try it."
It hasn't really been done before.
It's a big risk in New York City.
You know, there's a lot of competition.
Maybe it doesn't work, but you know,
you've got to try these things.
- Matt Abdoo at Pig Beach, he's totally changed the way
I think about barbecue.
Re-interpreting dishes, and putting his own spin
on them, to reflect his heritage.
- Italian food is always sort of, my heart and soul,
but barbecue has become a very close second
within my life, and I love it.
- I also think not growing up, being so deeply
rooted in barbecue allows us to have more
freedoms with it, and not feeling like I'm doing
any sort of sacrilege by changing traditional,
classical approaches to it, as well.
- [Phoebe] So, they're all trying to figure out
their way through their food.
- We're out already hitting the streets
with tons of great new stories for you guys in 2018.
Here's a little peek.