this is max my sous chef at the
restaurant and he's breaking down our
heritage pork today we get a
rib loin in clean the bones off we use
those for
the jew that we'll put on the pork dish
pork is sort of my ode to barbecue with
some middle eastern flavors which is a
little irreverent because you wouldn't
be eating barbecued pork in the middle
east i love the rib loin because it's
tender especially the part where you
have like bartender loin heart rib loin
and
it kind of has the two-tone meat
so what i'm doing now is basically just
wrapping this pork so i can be able to
portion it
to eight ounce
portions for the tasting menu
and then each person will get four ounce
slice out of it so you're just going to
portion it out and then eat it and grill
it off pulling from my heritage it has a
lot of those spices the baharat spice
mix which is some cinnamon allspice
cloves peppercorns
you know a lot of different flavors that
one marinated on the pork with aleppo
pepper date syrup it has the sweetness
the spice a little heat from the peppers
and then i have really nice squash and
pickled butternut squash ribbons and i
think it brings together this nostalgia
of like sort of a pork barbecue dish
with some side of pickles but for me
with notes that are familiar from my
childhood
i am looking for some mackerel spanish
mackerel spanish crackers i got some new
ones over here this morning four of them
would be great thank you so i'll have
the guys cut it and cut the pin for you
okay thank you all right i try to rotate
the menu fairly seasonally and then just
sometimes i get tired of certain dishes
so i like to just keep the kitchen
exciting and always test new things
mackerel is one of my favorite fish i
haven't used in a little while so i was
thinking of bringing it back early part
of the morning when not a lot of people
are here is when i really like to do my
butchering and production and i'm
testing a new dish i have a halibut on
the menu right now but i've been wanting
to switch to mackerel for the winter i
think a lot of people are sometimes
weary of mackerel because it's just
gotten such a reputation as being sort
of like an oily fishy strong flavored
fish but i find spanish mackerel to be
really nice and mild it works well with
bold flavors like citrus and you know
even curing it a little bit it's just
one of my favorites it's probably a
harder sell than you know a tuna or
salmon i like to live on the edge a
little bit
so i'm just going to go ahead and put a
little salt sugar and citrus cure on
these i'm not curing it like more than
20 minutes or so i just wanted to firm
the flesh make it a little easier to
work with and give it a little bit of a
seasoning the sugar in there will give
it a little sweetness too that i think
will play off some of the citrus i have
which is a little bit tart
here is a lot of our beautiful citrus
citrus season we're kind of really
starting to ramp up this is anna from
natora she has been bringing us samples
by for a while now i feel like every
time she brings something i get really
inspired these are the awarie satsumas
which i know you'd use green before a
bit this is an oro blanco
so heirloom grapefruit everything's
totally unwaxed you're gonna use any of
the aromatics from the skin full of
essential oils and i also brought some
saucy that we're getting in locally
you're not going to see that at a
grocery store right yeah the salsa is
really interesting every time i've ever
had it it's always got the like black
skin on it so i'm interested to see if
it cooks differently or tastes
differently but really lovely winter
root vegetable that i always love like
blanching a little bit and then searing
gives some a little bit of crunch and
texture to the dish
and a little earthiness so i always like
to bring something to my dishes that
it's approachable and people feel like
they're not scared off by it but it
still brings enough interesting uh
components that that they're excited to
come back and have it again makes it
more fun for everyone yeah
all right so that's the timer for
fish
so i'm just gonna rinse the cure off of
the mackerel what you're doing hey nosy
sorry so usually i know
usually i would be like go away what do
you stop looking i'm not there yet you
know i love your mackerel i know you're
the only one i'm really looking to uh
please here i'm gonna pop this back in
the walk-in to let it kind of dry out a
little more before i work with it again
so one of the things we like to do
before everyone gets into the kitchen is
shape the sourdough bread ideally we're
shaping before anyone gets in so that
we're not in everyone's way kumari
typically is making the bread one of my
favorite tasks in the kitchen just go to
autopilot yeah because people start
coming in and like you have to work
around them for this it's it's not fun
if i'm really moving took me like an
hour and a half start to finish you're
doing 60 little loaves when you get the
individual loaf of bread it like feels
like it's made for you
we don't buy our bread we make it with
love
we're always thinking of ways to evolve
the tasting menu and see if we can ever
give anyone a higher end experience so
today i've been working on a dish that's
going to be centered around this scampi
row which is this beautiful vibrant blue
rich shellfish flavor of a row that
comes from langston in australia so i'm
trying to work on that that dish or at
least get a prototype of it see if it
will work all right so i'm going to
start preparing these um blue crystal
prawns that i have for the
tortellini i want to test that once
kamari put the pasta dough together the
scampi row is definitely
a nice high-end product so i want to
make sure
you know it's not outshined by anything
the shellfish will let the road speak
for itself at the end when it's just
garnished
it's just some of the prawn fennel for
some crunch lemon zest olive oil and
salt so i'm just gonna make a pretty
simple shellfish broth with flavors of
fennel some shallot and then the
shellfish adding the uh
heads and shells from the prawns
i'll just cook those out for a minute
and then
add some white wine all right so now
that i got the
prawn stock on the stove i
need to get some ducks butchered i have
some hole ducks that i'm gonna go grab
from the butcher shop across the street
uh i didn't order enough duck today if
you have any
breasts hanging around here i do hold on
this is albanizing meats and poultry jen
runs the shop now and she's a great
neighbor and it's awesome to have her
across the street she's always helped me
out in a pinch the duck is a great dish
it sells pretty well i think people love
it but it's you know
stands apart from being you know your
run-of-the-mill chicken or other poultry
so
got my ducks that i just picked up from
jen across the street
i like to have the duck breasts
sitting out to dry out a little bit just
helps crisp it up
a lot nicer makes the cooking process a
little easier
it's really nice perfectly cooked medium
rare breast with crisp skin i take some
notes from my lebanese heritage with the
lobne zatar sumac a little bit of cherry
sauce that gives a nice tartness so it's
i think a big crowd pleaser
so now we're hitting 3 p.m in our day
which is always sort of go time
everybody's
starting to really feel the pressure we
like to kind of be finishing up by four
so we can start setting up for dinner
service at five
so everybody's kind of finishing the big
production tasks at this point
um and getting things in order so that
we have a smooth night ahead of us
so we're pushing
chef asked me to make pasta so i just
have some double o in here some derm
flour salt keeping it like real basic to
let the filling be the star
in my head so far it should work i mean
it's pretty simple and straightforward
some fennel shellfish lemon and then
this row i didn't want to put any bold
flavors or something that would detract
from the row so hopefully that
shines through and
it's worth it right now i'm stretching
it out and then i'm going to put a fold
in it
to build up the gluten
with your ratio
must get secrets
no 200 grams of double oh and 75 grams
of durum i've been begging chef to put
pasta on the menu
she's getting her christmas wish yeah so
for these i just wanted to be
really fresh the
shellfish because they want to feature
the scampiro and not overpower it with
much so this size i think should be nice
with a little dollop of the row on top
and the shellfish broth
so i'm just going to put the last
touches on this dish and then uh
jennifer and ramon are going to come
taste it and let me know what they think
[Music]
i chose three wines just based off of
the shellfish in the dish to me i think
the gruner worked the best out of the
three of them i think it's delicious i
would love to figure out a better pasta
shape to hold all that beautiful row
love the pairing but i think it's great
i think it's unique great job on the
pasta yeah it's awesome
so i just cleaned the pin bones out of
the center
of this
just making a couple portions for
testing
and i'm gonna just score
i like to when i prepare mackerel i
usually do this when i season and torch
it sort of keep it flat gives it a nice
look
torching the skin a little bit to give
it that char that flavor i'm gonna pop
it in the oven to finish
my plating philosophy i would say is
to not be too precious not too fussy but
still have some elegance to it i never
want to have unnecessary garnish they
all should have somewhat of a meaning or
an importance to the actual harmony of
all the dish i try to keep it light and
easy i just wax poetic about not being
fussy on a plate
this is a little
this was a little bit of the orange
citrus vinaigrette i made i want to
change the halibut dish out and get all
those like kind of bright
citrus flavors of winter coming around i
kind of like the idea of lightening up
going into winter yeah it was awesome
it's beautiful cool thank you
two prefix menus both are vegan but
anchovy butter is okay
yes
it's a go service is fun it's beautiful
challenge every day where you know
everything just lines up perfectly and
it's like a choreographed dance we're
all you know hitting the
same notes the right steps at the same
time and you come out of it feeling
really great about what you did and just
hearing people love their experience
makes it all the more worth it victoria
can you run
thank you t6 sweetbread 1 mayataki 2.
thank you all right order in a bread and
spread tuna tartare and a white truffle
on hold of chicken duck halibut yes for
me i've never been a person that has
responded well to
somebody yelling at me so i've just
never been a person that has had that
energy to
do that to someone else i find people
learn most
and respect you most when you lead with
compassion and leadership and
understanding one pair and yeah is that
it that you all you know no no i'm gonna
and a parsnip
and a parsnip all right
order in vip this is our deer server
sean
fire uh bread and spreads with walnut
not chicken liver three endive and we're
going to send a prawn with that
let's add a duck to that table as well
[Music]
we're nearing the end of our uh
wonderful busy day today and
i think we're going to knock it out of
the park for the rest of the night
confirming you have four halibut on the
board two of them are being yeah so i
have three halibut ready to go
dropping another one right now first all
my ducks arrested and i have a chicken
ready
we got g2 and g6
[Music]
cabbage
looking back on this one day i would
hope that it was
the place where i was really able to
find my voice and establish a presence
hopefully have people you know look up
to me one day or just remembering me as
somebody that they learned a lot from
and they are passing on things i've
taught them and having that little bit
of a legacy carried on so that's my
drive in the kitchen every day
i spent 64 portions yeah and then we had
34 on top
so we're starting right now with like
90s
so we should probably get
six more packs so we have eight total
i'll get quail for the weekend table
nine quail endive yes we do cake orders
for special occasions just give us like
a two days notice
all right we're fired on three truffle
supplements vip and pants
elephant one
[Music]
table 59
yes of course i want the food to be
delicious and as perfect as it can be
but really it's about the team and
putting better people out into the world