- When all the deliveries walk in the door,
it's all hands on deck.
- It's nice when these orders come in early
because we can process the fish right away.
'Cause, you know, it's so small,
you can't just have like boxes and boxes
laying around. There is no receiving team.
- Two days a week are the market days, and, um
usually two days a week are major butchering days.
You know, there is always like, the nuts and bolts
little things. Like, herbs are picked every day
but, the fact that there's four of us,
you have to compartmentalize your projects
and use the manpower the way that you can.
(funky upbeat music)
- We wanted to test two different fish today
um, we've been using black cod,
we weren't happy with what we've been getting recently.
We brought in Atlantic cod,
- It's good, I mean it's really good.
So this is rock cod. It's coming in locally,
so we figured we'd try it. See how it ends up.
- If we have something at our disposal,
that's local, I'd rather use it.
- So basically, we just take the fillets off
and then I'll cure the fillets.
And then, once they're cured, we'll milk-poach it.
- Today, across the board, like I just butcher cod
all day. Like, that's what I'm doing.
As much as I would love to say, like "Oh,
I get to do this, and that, and this and that".
The reality is like, today I'm the fish butcher.
Today, Randall's the meat butcher.
And tomorrow it'll be totally different.
(funky upbeat music)
- Once I process all these, I'll have the
the bones on one tray,
then I'll save all the innards
on another tray. The feet go in another thing.
Wings in another. Then the rest are processed separately.
(funky upbeat music)
- When we were looking at our menu structure,
we thought, I don't want a menu with a bunch of
short stories. I want to write the menu as one long story.
So, this is our winter menu. As things die in fall,
because everything dies and falls in winter,
it builds layers on the ground. Right?
Things are buried, things are hidden.
And so, the pumpkin seed course is the first one
with this idea that, you know,
all that's left on the ground are like seeds and twigs.
And it's all very dark. You know,
nothing fresh on the dish. The top layer is
burnt parsley and fried pumpkin seeds.
It doesn't look welcoming at all.
And then from there we move into a Wagyu course.
We use the Wagyu as a wrapper and we've filled it.
Basically, everything is hidden. Everything is kind of
tucked away. The general feeling behind the menu
is that you can't see anything.
The beef is hiding everything inside, you know?
It looks kind of underwhelming, almost.
You see the dish it's just like, beef on a plate,
with some garnishes. But all the flavor is
really kind of tucked inside.
And so, all of our menus, every course is something
from the previous dish. And something that
will be in the next dish. With the idea
the course is our link. We have passion fruit
in the Wagyu dish which is in the passion fruit broccolini.
And from that point, we start exploring seaweed.
- Yeah so, this is a side of hamachi.
Uh, we are going to break it down,
for the seaweed and hamachi course.
Uh, we will portion into 25 gram portions.
- And at this time of year the seaweed is awesome.
The water is colder, the seaweed is really lively and crisp.
- We put it on the dish raw, and we do it fried.
The best way to fry these,
because we want them to be bright green
when they come out of the fryer,
is you've got to fry it at 450.
Which is, really high, really hot.
So, it kind of makes this crazy explosion,
but it is the best product you get out of it.
Grab a big handful of it, or a pretty moderate handful.
Just, put (sizzling noises) then you've
got your nice green seaweed dulse.
- Come service we're going to sear it,
really really hot, and just on one side, uh
so we get the nice color, so it has the texture of raw.
- The hamachi is tender enough
to cut with a fork. But, I think,
we probably should give you a knife.
The average person would want a knife with it.
But, we chose not to, because we want them to
fight with the course a little bit.
I think once you get a couple courses in,
you get comfortable. And when you get comfortable
you kind of stop being as aware of what's going on,
and you're just kind of like a little more relaxed.
And, we wanted to have that be the point
where we regain your attention.
We interject a little bit of discomfort.
After that, there is a course served on a spoon,
and that's the yuzu black sesame course.
And the idea with that course is,
now you don't have silverware.
- So, watch the color change all of a sudden.
- So, one of the things that we do, in the menu,
is we'll often play this game of
moving back and forth between savory and sweet.
You know, I think it keeps guests
not really predicting what the menu is.
- Then the sesame. It tricks you a little bit,
because it becomes questionably sweet.
Like, is this a dessert section?
Am I finishing ? Like, this doesn't really make sense.
- Once it's cooled we basically crush it up.
And we end up with this. And then,
that becomes the topping for the spoons. And it gets
yuzu cream and then the Butterfinger over the top.
So, it looks like a spoonful of dirt.
- Now you don't have silverware.
It is served as a bite on a spoon
on the first plate that's shared between two people,
so they, you know, have to go for the spoon.
Ultimately, they end up saying,
"Which one do you want?" You know,
little things like that, that gets diners
reengaging with each other again.
From that you go into preserved corn,
that's cooked in brown butter, and black winter
truffles. Into probably the biggest lightning bolt
dish on our menu, which is the caviar course.
- When I was portioning caviar for a previous menu,
I was drinking a Dunkin' Donuts
french vanilla coffee. I was tasting the caviar,
as well, and the two were awesome together.
The french vanilla coffee, for me, has always been
kind of a cool winter thing.
I grew up playing hockey and my mornings
with my dad, you know going to the game.
And on the way there, we would always stop
and get coffee together. And it is literally, like,
melted coffee vanilla ice cream.
You know, roasted hazelnuts, and then a tea-oil.
It's not like, your traditional combination,
and I think whenever you describe it,
to people, they don't expect it.
But, it's probably my favorite,
one of my favorite dishes, we've ever served here.
(bright classical music)
- There's only three plates on the menu
that are white, and the first of those
is the carrot dish. We slow cooked the carrot
in miso for 8 hours. It sits on the plate with,
peanut and a burnt meyer lemon ponzu.
Fried carrot top and carrot flowers with it.
To the side of that, there is a small bowl
that the diners share with each other.
And it has Midnight Moon cheese
that we basically turned into Cheez Whiz
and then, you get a third bowl behind it,
with little carrot fritters. So, we thought,
well if we force them to share something,
and we don't really tell people how to eat it,
we just say, "We encourage you to explore."
Then they have to talk to each other.
(bright classical music)
- So, the cod. It's cured for about an hour.
See all of the liquid that came out?
I mean, all of that came out of the fish.
It ended up being a really nice texture.
Look at it in the light; it's almost translucent
right now, it's much tougher.
Once it comes up to 65 Celsius,
we let it sit for 7 minutes then pull it.
In short, what we're really looking for,
is for the fish to, sort of flake apart
like this. Get nice big pieces to marinate.
And then this is the lemon vinaigrette
to dress the cooked cod in.
The idea is to not break it up too much.
We let it marinate for 24 hours, and that helps
the protein seize a little more.
(Bright classical music)
- On the bottom, we just took pork belly
smoked it, braised it, and then we make rillette.
On top of that is the milk poached cod
and lemon vinaigrette. This is black radish.
I would say for the most part, all of our dishes
have some kind of raw vegetal aspect to it.
- Then to finish it, olive oil potato foam.
- It's not that we're trying to hide things,
it's that we want each layer to
kind of have its own experience with it.
You know, that sense of discovery.
- We wanted to work with squab.
We really wanted to do the whole bird.
You know, we talked about putting
the whole thing on a plate. We talked about
presenting the whole bird first, then cutting it.
And then, the discussion became, why do we do that?
- Once I have these roasted,
then I'm gonna throw lots of garlic, shallot, and thyme.
So, it's really really flavorful.
- The more we thought about it, the more we thought,
well everyone's doing it right now.
So, maybe we shouldn't do that.
- And once I'm happy with the color, then I'm going
to add 3 pounds of butter. (metal clinking)
- So, we had this thought of, basically,
presenting the entire bird without actually
showing the guests any of it.
- Once it's all melted and bubbling and foaming,
I'm going to add this roasted squab back.
Completely cover it and get the caramelization
we're looking for. It's going to make a very delicious
squab jus at the end.
- Your first course is just served in a wine glass.
And it's a squab and beet consomme
made with the body. And it looks
like a glass of red wine.
- So, this is the second course of
the three part progression. On one side,
squab leg rillete, on the other side braised cabbage
pine nuts and squab liver mousse in the middle.
- I think that there is a duality to winter where,
when you're outside, you know,
it's cold and it's harsh.
- Then it all gets covered.
- It also evokes that feeling of comfort inside,
where people start talking about
sitting around a fire. And, you know, warm food.
And, things like that.
- After that, a course with the
breast and heart. And, the progression of all
of those, ultimately breaks down the entire body,
over matching plates that all, ultimately,
show the guest the whole bird
without showing them any of the bird.
- Just start with a ragout of squab heart,
beets, and preserved cherries.
Over the top of that polenta, squab breast,
and then we have the whole roasting process
of the squab jus. It is finished with
nasturtium pesto, and then we really wanted to,
sort of, reflect the fact that at this point in the menu
winter is kind of coming to a close.
And, in the past, we have always talked about, like,
laying everything on so perfectly, but
it's not really how things fall.
And so instead, it made more sense to just kind of
let them be. So, for the final savory,
it's just coming back to life.
The transition course, after the squab,
into dessert is a salad and it's
all the same greens that are on the squab dish,
but it's all baby versions of those.
Because, the baby wild fennel is sweet,
where the mature wild fennel has a lot of salinity to it.
Moving into the dessert we wanted to continue
with this sort of movement towards a lighter dish.
So we wanted to play off of sweet peas,
and olive oil. Some, roasted Marcona almonds,
a couple freeze-dried peas, and then
this is shortbread. This is an olive oil jam
that we make, and creme fraiche
that we whip.
- Right now at the market, the pea tendrils are amazing.
- The idea, as we move towards spring,
is everything starts growing.
- The sorrel's in it for a couple of reasons:
one, it's growing wild everywhere right now,
but it also adds a really nice vegetal acidity.
- A blend of matcha tea. And powdered peas.
(cheery whimsical music)
- Right around 4 o'clock we clear off all, like,
the table cloths and things on the pass.
And we convert the restaurant into a restaurant.
We start up the music and open the doors at 5:25,
and guests walk in. The story begins.
And that's it. Off to the races.
(appliances whirring)
(people chattering)
- The original idea came from, uh,
the idea of a concept album. You know,
an album has to be played straight through,
in order song 5 meets 4 and 6.
And it was really drawn into this idea that the fact
that things made things better.
It wasn't just a collection, it actually the beat.
So, otherwise, you have favorite, you know
favorite dishes, and then you have the dishes
they'll avoid. The big conversation we've
had now about the spring menu is just this idea of growth.
And so, how do you make the menu look like it's growing?
You build. That's what happens, and it's great.
(people chattering)
- We've made it through, almost through,
the proceeding guests are kind of winding down,
moving into pastry. And then that's it.
That's like, I guess our story.
(Upbeat groovy music)