so this is the first dish this is the
opening dish on the menu december's
gonna break it down and kind of show you
exactly how we do it
so we start the meal with our flu course
it's five preparations of fluke
for us i wanted to start the meal on a
real high note and the amount of work
that goes into it is really intense but
i think
i think it's worth it
we all wear really really nice kicks
just say yes please just to be uh
straight that chef told me to wear
something really good so i'm like okay
but he normally rocks heat so this is
extra heat
so this is like not a traditional way to
break down a fluke it looks like a
little tomahawk chop
so basically the goal here is to keep
those bones intact
yeah this is like one of the ways uh
we used to debone like rabbits and stuff
and we just learned from there and we
just got like
just enough meat
hanging on over here so we can make a
chop out of it and then we clean up the
bones so now we're gonna take
this piece to run on the bandsaw
i'm going to take this shot of the
center cut upstairs and and clean it and
max will take care of rest of the fluke
this is the citrus cure so we're not
like packing it in the carrot really
we're just like lightly seasoning it a
little bit on both sides so it doesn't
get over salted because it sits for 24
hours
this is the kombu cured fluke
so we take the combo and the fluke
fillet we lay it in there in the kombu
dry because as it sits overnight it's
going to draw the moisture out of the
fish and make it easier to pound and
roll the team is going to cure fish for
tomorrow morning so when they walk in
they have the kombu cure they have a
citrus cure
this is the kombu cure
so like you can see like some of the
moisture like seeped into the the
seaweed it's actually wet it's gonna be
really easy to pound really easy to work
with this is the last thing we do
downstairs so now everything's gonna be
brought up
so this is the uh the saga walk-in
and everything starts down here okay so
there's really only one way to get
things upstairs we just need to be
really smart and efficient about how we
travel through this building
or else we just lose all our time we're
rolling all this stuff upstairs to the
63rd floor
to start getting saga going
[Applause]
yo this is the first elevator on the
ride to the top so this elevator can
only be called from the front desk you
can't call it from the seller so if the
door closes the door is closed you're
screwed you have to start over again
there's no cell service down here so you
can't even call the front desk you have
to find like interesting ways to get
your information up there maybe there's
a handyman with a wagitaki yeah and i'm
like yo walk you talk to the front desk
this is our dedicated uh elevator
and this is really like one of the
essential challenges of this restaurant
all right second elevator on our trip up
top everybody food every guest
comes in and out of this elevator food
goes up it comes down either in a
garbage or someone's stomach
we're just gonna clean up and make the
chops now from here to here works as
like you see all the bones are like nice
and big and we can get the chops out of
here it's like we're gonna take the spot
off so we would just take it off right
now
so now you see like start to look like
more of like a traditional rack of lamb
or like a like the bones gonna be like a
chop now i'm gonna go ahead and start
pushing it
so it's like one bone is a portion
a perfect blowing on it and there's the
bone which we need to clean it's like
the most tedious thing and also like
very delicate because
like i could rush this and i can break
all the bones and we have nothing left
for service tonight so
it's a lot of technique and a lot of
patience here so like basically when we
first conceptualized the dish
we started with the chop and then
basically built the dish around
the other elements so this is the
kokombu food we pounded out into 10
pieces so that we can roll it up
okay so here we have batons of
cucumber compressed and mint
these are pickled and marinated golden
beets this is granny smith apple so
basically we put these pieces here
make a little pyramid essentially
and then wrap them
yeah oh that was a race
it's always a race so nick is
responsible for let's not shoot all
things on the fluke so this project
takes a long time but like it's just
such a small piece and such a big
overall picture that once it finally
hits the plate and you see it
you're just like
really proud and you hear someone say
like wow that's one of the best bites
i've ever had like that's the moment
where you're like all right
rolling fluke for two hours just
a little bit worth it so this is the
compressed cucumber ball for the fluke
we are basically using this parisian
peeler as a melon baller
and scooping out the center of the
cucumber and then taking this ball and
scooping out the center of that we take
this cucumber ball and we compress it in
mint oil and then stuff it with
marinated look
and then cap it with the conversation
takes some time to pick up but
once you got it
[Music]
when this hits the table i just want
people to understand
the like playfulness of this restaurant
it's not a traditional start to the
meal this is julius julius working on
tamago which is this delicious cake sort
of pudding which goes on the bottom of
the caviar it's a recipe you have to be
very careful with it looks really easy
but it's honestly we have messed this
dish up more than anything it's
definitely one of those dishes that's
like easy to learn but really difficult
to master you know yeah it's like making
souffle to be honest have you ever got
like we made a double batch and it's
like one one sheet raised good and one's
bad oh yeah
they're
yeah
all right so
now uh we're gonna wrap
the tamago
real nice and tight and then we're gonna
take this into our rationale oven and
we're gonna go and steam this
it kind of gives you these same kind of
feelings and elements and emotions
as a traditional cavity course but there
are some twists to it you know there's
vinegar fried potato chips we throw that
on to add some texture you know we're
trying to
you know think about it differently
[Music]
it's 12 o'clock right now in the main
kitchen
it's mellow it's chill we're just
starting to get them going
and this is how we start the day up here
at saga
we are setting up the mushroom veil the
mushroom and truffle veil for our
custard course yo calvin is our
heartland sous chef and he's gonna
like we're gonna build this we need to
do this every day
it's like tedious work
but i think something that's really
pretty and and uh adds a lot to this
dish yeah it's beautiful i mean it's
definitely a very labor intensive
project like the effort is worth it the
juice is worth the squeeze the juice is
worth the squeeze which is this is a
term we use around here we do a lot of
things that are really tough but we
think that the final product is worth
this effort
this takes probably like an hour of your
day like what does this really take
start to finish you i mean an hour hour
and a half the mushroom guy i'm a real
fun guy
[Laughter]
please don't edit that out no that's
going in i've been waiting my whole life
to say that this is
one of the two that i do every day but
again i've never been happier with my
life
this project
has
filled me with so much joy and purpose
and i truly didn't know what life was
about until i met
the second of mine
we started just with black truffles
we're like oh let's just shave black
truffles and put on top i'm like the
contrast wasn't there there wasn't this
negative space it just wasn't enough i'm
like we need to add a little bit more to
it everything needs to make sense you
know and there's a lot of stuff in
fondant restaurants where
it's just tradition and they do it a
certain way and for me i want to kind of
break spread some of these things
but i think this is really pretty and i
think it's worth it at certain points
you have to show technique and there's
other moments like wow this is just
really delicious
i think it's it's that balance with this
restaurant the goal was
what are the things with fine dining we
wanted to really like embrace what are
the things that we wanted to change
and i think this is clearly a fine
dining moment
in the traditional sense i think these
restaurants need to be more fun i think
that's what we're trying to do here
people need restaurants like this they
need to have moments where they like
forget about things
sit down at a table and just focus on
delicious food and be taken care of
and we're clearly trying to do that
like look how beautiful this is like
this is when you see all the hard work
all the all the like torture that this
guy goes through to like make this
really nice
i think it's all worth it this one is
not that nice
unacceptable that was not good yeah get
out of here that's not a good one beat
it nerves
so this is crown chai this was our first
restaurant that we opened in this
building and this allows us to work
upstairs but without this restaurant and
kitchen we wouldn't be able to do
upstairs so we're going to start by
breaking down these ribs
and it's a huge project and it takes
days for us to do so it's something that
we always need to be in front of this is
one of the crash shot dishes we're never
going to change and it's something that
we love and we and we worked on for like
a year before we opened the restaurant
so it's like okay how do we find things
that we love that that can tie into
upstairs
if you had this upstairs you wouldn't
necessarily know the downstairs rib
because we treat it differently here we
kind of serve it more like a piece of
medium roasted piece of rib
upstairs it's a secondary cut from our
entree yeah for me i think it's like
great for both restaurants just to share
products it makes our day a little bit
smoother we're gonna cook it really hard
we're gonna really char it
it doesn't cook the protein because it's
cold it's really straight out of the
fridge
so it can take
some extra heat without really
overcooking the protein
so from here these will get back they
get dropped in a bath for for 48 hours
so these guys have just came out of the
bath from here they will get portioned
up for service down here and then some
of them will get portioned to go
upstairs it looks like it's hammered it
looks like it's overcooked you cut it
open you have this beautiful croissant
look at this
this beautiful piece of like pink rose
medium piece of meat so this right here
is what you're going to get when you eat
a crown shot and then this piece right
here is going to get cooked in a glaze
and go on the rib set upstairs down here
we use this as a service piece we take
this bone we boil it we clean all the
trim off of it
the rib gets portioned and gets served
on it
like a piece of steak
entrees for me they are let down in in
restaurants in of all different stripes
and like here i want to finish on a
strong note on the savory side so this
is the centerpiece for upstairs
this is the decal this is the ribeye cap
it goes around the eye of the rib eye
it's traditionally like super super
marbled really delicious
these are one of those things you don't
need to do much to make it really great
we just you know like literally like
take the silver skin off
and serve it my name is jamal james kent
the first time i ever used james i put
jay james kent on my resume it was the
summer after 9 11.
new york was this crazy place and i just
wanted to get a job and i thought that
that it would like i would have issues i
was raised
in an islamic home my father was born
here in new york and my grandfather when
they were infants took him from his
younger siblings to north africa and my
father grew up in tangiers he speaks
arabic he's muslim
so i've like hidden behind my my first
name my whole life
sadly i have the ability to tell
authentic stories that are my own i
don't need to hide behind things anymore
i'm trying not to
and that means cooking food that's
important to me so what i wanted to do
for the last course is to really
represent
my father's culture and we're doing a
tagine with cinnamon bread which is a
traditional moroccan flatbread the short
rib that we glazed i feel like when that
hits the table
you can't not be happy
so it's like 5 15 right now 5 30 we're
going to get the service going
everyone just come back from their break
at like around five o'clock so now we're
like setting up and getting ready for
tasting
so we have a checklist over here which
we go through i don't necessarily have
to taste every single thing on the list
but i will put my eyes on every single
thing on the list just to check and just
to make sure we are ready for service
this is the combo cute fluke
very good candied pistachios for our
ponder salad again and i like to taste
things separately because
once they're together
you might miss a component
pretty good check check it's a truffle
puree i need to just test that's the
last thing for for this station to check
good hey hotline let's get let's get
your things sorted out over there please
all right brandon
it's too salty brother i'm sorry it's
too solid we're gonna make it again well
it's like 5 45 now so we started at 5
15. it's already been half an hour i'm
still tasting you know
yeah and he's like more more off like
the cherry vinegar too and like more
like more orange juice in it too please
sure it's just not sweet enough they
have everything ready to go you know
so now we're gonna go over there and
start expediting for the service
tastings i think i think it's the
biggest thing you can't go assuming you
have everything right you know you gotta
you gotta make sure you know you saw how
much time we spent all day
and we still have some mistakes and i
think that's the last chance to get your
mistakes right
[Music]
that's a go time sir
[Music]
so it's around 6 30 service has started
starting it's starting to move and shake
a little bit
hotline we fire on all the entrees on 22
23 12. so the seafood course you know
for me it's it's it's a base essentially
it's it's a seafood disc
but the sauce is this is this rich umami
spicy a little bit of acid this balanced
broth that i think really really comes
together
orange two top
rasheed fart two salads two ribeye
salads finish the sandwiches and fire
two more duck salads please you know
this restaurant is for our generation of
diners
like i'm 42 i'm the demographic of diner
i grew up in the 90s i listened to
bhutan i did graffiti i'm like i'm i'm a
different diner than the diners of 20
years ago
[Music]
i'm not the chefs that i've worked for
i have different experiences i come from
different places
and for me like i'd love to figure out
what
fine dining in new york feels like for
the next 10 years and for me
it feels a little more casual you know
like the linens are off the table it
feels like i think less stuffy service
is still bumping and grooving it's been
a long day jeff's working overtime bro
clearly nine o'clock in the morning bro
my goal is that the team that works with
me eventually
they go on to do amazing things because
the team is the most important part of
this equation like you can't
inspire with fear i want to inspire by
having these guys understand that this
is
an important thing that we do guests
come here they spend a lot of money
they come and enjoy our restaurant we
need to like respect that
and take pride like take pride in your
skill set