Hello and welcome to Cooking Issues. This is Dave Arnold, your host of Cooking Issues coming to you live from the heart of Manhattan Rockefeller Center, New York City, News Stance Studios. Joined as usual with John behind me. How you doing, John? Doing great, thanks.
Everything good? Got Joe Hazen rocking the panels. What's up? Hey, great to see everyone here. Yeah, yeah.
And uh we got a full house over there in the upper left. We got Quinn. How are you doing, Quinn? Feeling better? Yeah, I'm good.
Awesome, awesome. Uh down there in the Los Angeles area, we got Nastasia the Hammer Lopez. How you doing? I'm good. Good, good, good.
And Jackie Molecules, right? Yo, I'm here. Love it. Love it. And uh today's special guest, actually first time, first time ever on the show, although I have been to your new restaurant, so we could talk about it, is uh Chef's Chef Mads Wrestling, uh now of Illis, but uh formerly of uh what, Acme and then NOMA.
Call in your questions to uh 917-410-1507. That's 917-410-1507. If you are a member of the Patreon, you can do that. And John, why don't you tell them uh what they get? You get access to a well through the different levels of membership.
We got access to things like our Discord, uh discounts with uh some of the great people we work with, like Matt at Kitchen Arts and Letters and the rest of the team there. Um Edwards HMeats, you know, we've worked with them in the past, Glass Vin, you know, just a bunch of great things. Um patreon.com slash cooking issues. And uh Quinn, were you able to get Kitchen Arts and Letters to give the uh Patreon discount on uh Chef's book or no? Yes, yeah, that can't that went up yesterday.
Uh uh, nice. So if you're a member of the Patreon, you can uh log on to Kitchen Arts and Letters and pick up uh Chef uh Wrestling's book, Scraps, Wilt and Weeds, which we can talk about uh later. Actually, that's very early in the uh cookbooks on using you know using things that might otherwise get thrown away. We'll talk about later. You just like uh I mean you were taking a very huge interest in that.
You wrote the book in 2017, which means you were thinking about it probably for five years before that. Yeah, very early. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And actually, well, uh, so now's the portion of the show where we talk about anything interesting that's uh happened, usually culinarily, not always. Sometimes it could be a concert, right?
It could be anything, but you know, try to keep it cooking related over the past week. Anyone got anything? I got things. All right, what do you got? Oh boy, I've been uh I've been a busy little bee.
So I finished uh curing my well a cured gooseb that I applied my guancholy recipe to. And so I made a porkless carbonura for one of my caregivers that doesn't eat pork. All right. Well, that's nice. Now let me ask you this.
What is the difference in the end result once it's cured between goose, which is usually in the US not so well, you're not in the US, you're in Canada, but usually not so great, versus duck, which is easier to get. Like, were you like, oh, now I know what goose tastes like when it's cured into like uh well, goose prosciutto style thing, goosebreast versus duck, any actual gooseness to it. Um I don't know if I've had I haven't had a cured duck recently. I thought it would be fattier, but it actually wasn't. So I think next time I will go for either duck or goose leg, actually.
I think that will be a better fat to read. That's probably gonna be tough tough as all get out, though. It's gonna be like the toughest thing you've e to cure. Yeah, but once you cure it and what you cure in Egypt? I think that'd be okay.
I mean, like pork cheek is tough. I don't know, man. I don't maybe. I don't know. You know, things it depends on how long you cure it.
Things break down, protein breaks down. At some point, yeah. Yeah. So uh Chefy, you know, you're Scandinavian folks, they love goose. I'm sure your goose is better than our goose though, right?
I don't think they're better, but uh maybe they're better fed and had a better life and somehow. But uh I think goose here are pretty good as well. Yeah, I just don't ever get them. They're so Yeah, they're difficult to find, but when you get them it's good. Do the Danes do that like Christmas gooseblood soup thing that the Swedes do?
No, it's it's not a traditional no. Yeah. Not so much. We do the sorties, but um no. Yeah, yeah.
It's more pork with it's it's focused about pork and and duck. Well, uh Kevin Kevin Jung from uh Noma and Noma Projects gave me f uh gave me a couple of weeks ago one of the scorers so I can do the Danish style score skin. What's the name of that thing? That tool? I don't know what it calls.
We use it for eel right now. Oh, really? Yeah. Oh, that's what you use for your eel? Yeah, for the corn cob eel.
So we basically just score the eel skin so it gets crispy. So whose job is it to sharpen that thing? You you don't sharpen it at all. Ever it's just like No, you have to get a new one. It's almost like a razor one time razor.
Just razor f razor fish. It is razor plates, be basically these razor blades. Oh, I I kept it I keep it in the box in my house because I don't some want someone just going into the drawer and being like, What's this? 'Cause it looks it looks like it's not gonna be so harmful. Yeah.
Yeah, it is. You can cut yourself. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I imagine. I imagine.
Uh what about you guys, California folks? Anything? You guys got anything this week? I'm going to New Orleans tomorrow. So if anybody in Discord has anything exciting and new there.
Well, what's new? I mean, New Orleans not really about the new, right? I guess that's true. I've done like most of the classic stuff. So I don't know.
Maybe off the beaten path and not new. Like what? Like what stuff's the cla like. So you've done like the Willie Mays, the Dukey Chase, the all of that kind of stuff. Oh yeah.
I mean, what's the name of that sandwich place that got a beard award? I went there last time. You need to talk to you need to see whether uh Turge is doing anything, the specialty Turkish coffee. The best Turkish coffee, like a world champion Barista Turge is down there in New Orleans, and I want everyone to have Turkish coffee the way he makes it, but he's never going to open a shop. He has a uh a place and he roasts his own stuff, and he does specialty Turkish coffee, and I have to say, I love it.
I think it's great. I'm not good at it. But you know, maybe check that out. There you go. That's a good tip.
Yeah. Yeah. All right, what about you, Stas? Um real cooking stuff. Yeah, yeah.
Well, okay, this is not cooking. This is not cooking, but here's what I here's what I did. I've always wanted to do this, and I have a lot of stuff that I'm behind on. So instead of doing that, I was like, hey, you remember when I made that the jigger and we were considering making a jigger for Booker and Dax, and we're like, no, we're never gonna make any money making a jigger. Never gonna make any money, not even one dime.
So there's no point. If you're not gonna make anything at all, if you're gonna lose money doing something, maybe don't. You know what I mean? Uh so but I realized that my program to write it is completely parametric. So I can just write whatever I want.
So I made I made a uh a jigger that is scaled such that a whole 750 of liquor is uh the two ounce portion of the jigger. So it's like I can I can make like 12 and a half drink, it's a 12 and a half drink jigger that just works like a regular jigger, but it's 12 and a half drinks, and then a mini one that goes with it that is for bar spoons and dashes, but in units of 12 and a half, so you can like mix with whole bottles. So that's all I got. What about you, John? Anything?
I've just been dealing with I was telling everyone before you showed up. Um that's a dig on me being late. Love it. Um, I've got an upstairs neighbor who's been uh complaining about the noise, even though we've been doing the same thing for three years and it's getting incredibly frustrated. At the restaurant?
Yeah. When did they move in? I don't know. Um, I would think recently, but it's like, what do you expect living right above a restaurant in the West Village in a 100-year-old building? I hate people so much.
They honestly called to ask us to turn the music off during service. You're like, no. No. Yeah. Here's something.
Here's something. No. Yep. And as a corollary to that, no. Yes, exactly.
You know what I mean? Yeah. I've been to your restaurant. It's not like it's you know what I mean. It's not, you're not like Yeah.
It's not one of those kind of places. It's not. Maybe uh see. What kind of music are we playing? Leave it up to the front of house staff to decide, but usually, I don't know, like Volfpe, I don't know.
Whatever radio stations on Spotify, but nothing like super intense. It's a wine bar. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. It like it's a place that you can speak to people when you're there.
Yeah. You know, you know who I'm you know who I'm talking about, where I can't talk when I'm at your places. But you know what I mean? It's like it's you know, it's not, it's not crazy. People are people are whatever.
Yeah. Oh, you know, well, I want to live in the village where everything's happening. Exactly. But I just don't want it happening in my building. Exactly.
You know, and they're like, oh, we we're getting such a good deal on this second floor apartment. Idiot. Yes. You know what I mean? You know what I mean?
Like God. God. You know, it's like 100%. Dave, are you going to Primus? When is it?
I don't know when it is. This Saturday? Probably not. I'd like to. I'll look at it.
I'll look at it. I gotta see what I'm doing. Stasia. I am falling apart. I got so much to do.
Anyway, or hold on, hold on. Uh so uh chef, you uh doing anything new at the restaurant? Anything interesting this week that's new? We just got 200 pounds of white asparagus from California now. How big are they?
They are pretty good. But it's a second hand, it's like the second sort, so it's not it's the ugly ones we took. Oh, I know you like the ugly. Yeah, I like the to find beauty in the ugly things, the things we normally throw out. Now, when they ship that from California, because I've never really actually bought it from uh like a supplier like that.
I just buy it like a jerk in the store. But like uh do they wrap something wet around the base? No, we're getting it in a loose box. I don't like when things are wrapped in things, and I I just like when it's loose. But does it stay moist enough?
It doesn't dry out of the tip. Oh, okay, okay. So it's not like getting all don't you hate it when you see them and the bottom is like yeah, yeah. And then they wrinkles. I hate when you go to the farmer's market and you get these rattles or herbs and they have like elastic around it, and you it gets smoosed together and it's kind of destroyed when you get it to the restaurant.
So I always try to when I go when I go to the market, I always take the elastic off or the metal band around. I take it off, and everyone gets mad at me. But I like to uh I like to pre-bruise mine and then use the back of my knife to cut it. Just kidding, just kidding. Uh you know, you also had we just last week, the last couple of weeks, we had magnolia.
Was it 100 pounds? No, eighty pounds of magnolia we are solding and curing. The flowers? Flowers, yeah. Magnolia.
So many different kinds of magnolia. Do you find you have like a forager who's getting like the one that has the right smoke? Yeah, we have a couple. And but we have Tama who I wrote the book with. Um, she's bringing most of our things to the restaurant.
And then a lot of of uh our team members like to go out and forage themselves as well. Yeah, what's your favorite New York City foraging thing? I know mine, but you don't want to blow up your unless they say it's blow up your spot. But the spot, I don't have there's not such a thing as a wild spot in New York. Everything's private owned, so you have to have permits from someone.
Well, you we don't feel bad, like you don't steal from city trees. I steal from city trees all the time. Yeah, we don't. But uh Linden blossoms, shad berries, yeah, so magos. Yeah, yeah, you can you can do that, but for a restaurant, I think it's too risky.
Yeah, I think it's private. You know, we don't have to stay in the thing here, but but private is a different story. It also costs a lot because we used to pay people on our staff to go, and then you're paying that's people going to the central uh, you know, the big park, and then and take things from that central park, but it's not really legal. Yeah, you have to be careful what you do. People have yelled at me once I was um I was in Riverside Park, which is like way upper upper west, and they have a lot of berry trees up there, like a lot of like different mulberry hybrids and uh a lot of you know shad bush, June berry stuff.
And uh I'm picking mulberries, you know, because you know how every tree, what this tree sucks, that tree's good, blah blah blah. So I'm like picking a bunch of mulberries. I find a tree I like. The guy's like, you can't do that. I'm like, absolutely yes, I can, absolutely I can.
And he's like, he's like, what do you? He's like, what? I'm like, show me where I can't do this. Yeah, and he's like, uh. Because like I don't feel bad about it.
So I guess that's the thing. I like I'm not gonna feel it's fallen to the ground anyway, and rotten. So it's like you should take it, but nobody likes stepping on mulberries. No, no one. No one.
Do you do ginkgos? You forge ginkgo nuts here? I know where there's some good ginkgo trees. Yeah, for sure. You can't take from the unfortunately the one that you can't take from is the New York Botanical Garden, because they have some sick stuff that falls.
I just was there last week. My mom was visiting from Denmark, and we went to Botanic Garden in in Brooklyn. So beautiful. Oh, it's great. It's absolutely stunning.
Yeah, both of our gardens, both of our botanic gardens are great. I also really like the one in uh in Copenhagen, though. You guys have a lot of it. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah, you guys have.
I remember comparing the the Danish in Copenhagen, the botanic garden there to go. Oh, in Denmark, we have this and this and this. She said it all the time when we but she gets very stressed about too many people. So this is a bad place to visit if you get to it. It was one of these days where the sun was out.
Oh, we're the worst. As soon as the sun comes out, everyone's out. It's it's like uh it's like they melt, like we melt out into the streets, and it's uh we're uh we get glued to the concrete, yeah. Yeah, you know, nostasi always you right. You always used to say you hated that uh you hated that New Yorkers like suddenly start doing stuff when the weather's nice, like do stuff when the weather's not nice, right?
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, don't be so weak. Like you don't have to worry about that out here. Yeah, because the the weather's always quote unquote nice. Yeah, but you don't and you don't have to deal with like the frenzy, you know.
Uh well, because no one's walking anywhere. That's not true. Oh, yeah? Okay. I mean, the I mean, like, okay, maybe it's better.
I don't know. Maybe it's better. The last couple times I went to LA, I tried to get walking directions and they were like, you can't. Like it literally Google was like, no, what do you mean? The walking directions are you get in the car and you drive there, hand it to the valet and walk in the front door.
Like they wouldn't even give me walking directions. Is it you're saying it's better now? It's getting better. I don't know. I have to do it.
Yeah, yeah. Um all right. So let's talk about Illis. So this restaurant, first of all, this place is huge. It's in Greenpoint, New York, which is for those of you that don't know New York, is like it's the upper.
So if you cr it's it's like upper, upper across the how would you describe Green Point? It's like it's the it's the north part of Williamsburg. Like it's just just before you go into I like into uh Long Island, you know. Yeah, and you know, 30 years ago when I was a m doing metal work for a living and uh my job was in Greenpoint, you went there and there was nothing there. It was like, you know, Polish diners, uh industrial shops, little old ladies sitting on the street, like soaking up the fumes from the industrial plant next door, and you know, like it's uh it's it's a new hot spot in a way in in in the in Brooklyn.
Yeah, you can't touch it. It used to be it it was hard to get to because only the G train went there, but now for the past fifteen years I'd say people who live in Greenpoint, they don't even want to leave Greenpoint. They don't need to. It's it's okay. It's its own community, yeah.
I really like it. I you know, we signed the lease three years ago, so and I at that time I couldn't see it. I was like, Where's what is this place? It was like I I didn't I had been to Green Point one time before before I signed the lease. Really?
That's kind of baller. Yeah, it's like it was just, you know, it was I had no clue what was this neighbors what was about. So I'm not saying you smoke, I imagine you being like, who cares where it is? No, no, no. I I went there, I went there and did some research, and and I of course I didn't want to sign anything before I really knew a little bit about it.
So I signed the lease when I had started in the neighborhood. But I put my feet there one time or two times before I actually signed the lease. And then I moved there, and then now I'm not living there anymore. But I moved there for a year to just to see it. And but it's impossible to find a good lease there.
So Yeah, everything's crazy in this freaking city. Yeah, it's it's it's very difficult with with uh leasing and and renting, yeah. So by the way, this isn't like for those of you that don't know the restaurant, look it look it up. It's not uh it's not let's say scrappy Green Point. This is a giant cavernous space that used to be like a taxi, like a like rubber factory, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, and then like but like huge, like almost like a garage-like giant envelope, like big. And uh, you know, you had the lease for three years before you opened, you built out this crazy, like uh how hard was the permitting for like because you have open fire cooking. So the whole thing started actually eight years ago in my head. I had this crazy dream about not building a restaurant but building a kitchen with a kitchen, uh sorry, with a restaurant and a bar inside of the kitchen. So basically eating inside of the kitchen.
And um this space we found could allow us to do that. And it's 4800 square feet, and basically what you do is you see everything when you come in. There's no back of house, meaning there's no this only front of house. So back of house or front of house becomes one house. And most restaurants in the city have a basement or have something that's hidden behind what you don't see.
But basically you we are completely naked in that way. Yes, for those of you that can't picture what's happening. So imagine you walk in and it's a kind of a giant center island kitchen, and then on the back wall instead of in the basement are like the walk-ins. You know what I mean? Yeah, I mean we have we have uh all the walk-ins are on the wall, you can see it.
We open up the fridges, you can see the fridges. There's nothing that we can hide. The dishwasher can see it, and we can see everything. The only thing you have privacy is basically the toilets. That's it.
But um the restaurant is is very open. And I I I wanted that feeling of of I could stand we could stand anywhere in the restaurant and see everyone. Because I don't want anyone to hide. So it was kind of a feeling of being transparent and and just show this is what we what we got and this is what we want to showcase for you. So nothing is hidden in the way of when we cook, there's not we could you could see everything get good.
And it's not because we're dropping something to the floor and and we pick it up, and then you know the five second rule is like it's not happening because it's more of a three-second rule. I'm kidding. It's not happening at all. It's like we just have to be completely transparent. Well, also, you uh I mean like you're you like you make the cooks go out and do the service.
Is that actually like how's that going? Because sometimes cooks don't want to talk to people. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But but basically we didn't hire any waiters. It was it was just cooks.
We have 35 cooks in in in the restaurant. And the whole idea with that is that it's the tipping. The whole thing about tipping in New York is kind of weird for me as a foreigner. But uh I wanted to make sure that everyone was paid more money. And I thought that why not if you cannot share the tip pool, you can't you can, but it's kind of not happy.
It's it's difficult. Yeah. Um so we thought, okay, why not just hire everyone as as as cooks and then the people who serve the food is actually the cooks. So we we do like this one three weeks, every three weeks we rotate the cooks. So some is on the floor and some is in is in the kitchen.
I know uh Bobby Murphy, who was uh our beverage director at My Place Existing Conditions, formerly Alinea and Aviary and all this other stuff, is your uh bar bar director, but do you also then have people rotating through his stations to do the drink execution or are they separate crew? There's a separate crew right now, but we have people that is rotating into uh his station or his bar. We will have that program up and running because I I feel everything is connected. And also the bar is connected to the kitchen, it's a part of the kitchen. So yeah, I think this is almost like a cooking school in a way you go through the whole thing of becoming a restaurateur one day because basically you you touch every if the department of the restaurant.
Yeah, I mean, like on honestly, when I went, I was like 'cause ev well, I'm I never tire of being completely wrong a hundred percent of the time. But like if you had asked me a couple of years ago, I thought that like the ability to kind of do a project like this was something in New York City in the past, just because New York City is such a pain to deal with permitting money, leases, staff. That's why it took this why it took for years. Right. But I mean like you kinda can't believe it.
There's like uh there's like mi like I don't want to say there's like millions of dollars in art on the walls. You know what I mean? Like you're lucky we had a very good neighbor, uh the Fowl School gallery um have put all the art some of the art they have in our space. So we're very lucky to have them. Have you been John yet?
No not yet. I need to go. So John, aside from being a chef, is also uh an art historian and conservationist, right? Or Historian or more both they're like more historian but d have dabbled in conservation. Well for the museum you get conservation.
So like they have like like a Baselitz like painting up there and but they're cooking with open fire in the restaurant. So it's like you're like wow how does it even yeah but like they have this huge like kind of like cloud hood thing over the center to try to but it's just like that's what I'm saying. It's like not something that you would have like uh you know like uh whatever like you know fifteen, twenty years ago you go into a restaurant, they have a giant schnabel on the wall and you're like Of course this is New York. You know what I mean? Of course they do.
You know what I mean? Cause Schnabel comes in here to he's like keep it on the wall and blah blah blah whatever. You know what I mean? F for me it's not about what of course it's important what is on the wall, but the price doesn't really matter for me. What it could be drawings from a kindergarten and and as long as I feel it's connecting to the room, I think that's important.
Right, but it's not though. It's not. Because it's also like I Weiway on the other. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's absolutely an amazing artist, you know, he he's a very big foodies owner also.
So really? Yeah, he he was in and eating. He really actually wants to come in and cook with us in the kitchen. That's so funny. Yeah.
Like what uh what does he like to eat? What kind of guest is he? I love hearing stories. He was he was, you know, had his whole family, whole Chinese family, and was there were 12 people, and it would that was so cool, so sweet. Oh man, that's nice.
Yeah, an amazing person. Really amazing person. I like they know it's his story. So next time he's on, but like uh there's only one person, there's only a couple people that why my brother in law Wiley Dufresne, like uh one of his regulars at WD was Lou Reed. So I always was like, what was Lou Reed like as a guest?
You know what I mean? Like I love, yeah, he's an amazing artist. Yeah. Anyway, so he apparently was the only guy that Wiley would make salad for regularly. Because he would, everyone's like, Wiley, you gotta make a salad.
And he's like, I'm not making a salad. Now he makes salad, but like back then, you know, he was younger, so he's like, um, no salads. Yeah what I mean? Yeah. I know.
We are very proud of us, yeah, yeah. Yeah, the older you get, the less you care about that. You still care about stuff you care about. Well, you know, we I know we cannot please everyone. It's it's it's difficult to please everyone.
But a salad, if you have sat on your house, just yeah, make it. All right. So uh I uh but I I I went for friends and family, had a fantastic time, haven't been back since. But so you now it's completely changed. Well, except for you still have the BDSM clam, right?
Yeah, yeah, we have we have a lot of yeah, we have some things as still on the menu, but we just refine it and make it better and better. Yeah, so they for those of you that don't know, this is giant like surf clam. Yeah, I mean, but it's bigger than even than a cohog. It's big. It's it's big, it's big.
It's like it makes you feel like a small child when you hold it. It's big. And and it's like sealed with wax and tied like bondage style with a with a with a flash. So it's a flask. We make a flask out of it and we fill it up with a with a drink inside of you.
You drink it. Yeah, out of the clam. And it's uh I don't know, there's something there's something sexual about it. I can't really describe why, but it's it's because it's it's because it's tied up. Yeah, I mean it's got like the wax kiss on the top.
Yeah, exactly. You have a sumac kiss on the top, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know exactly where you have to put your lips. Let's just say like that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But that I mean, like I I had a great time with that, but that's getting a lot of place. And now that's probably like a noose around not a new, but uh uh an anchor around your neck, you probably can't get rid of it now. Because everyone's like, the clam, the clam. Yeah, everyone wants that clam.
That's true. Um, but there's some things that's good to just leave for the moment. We will take it off at some point. I I don't believe you have to stick to the past always. I think you always have to constantly push yourself to be better and better.
So it will stay on for a little bit. Right now we change the seasoning of of on the on the top of the clam, so it's like spruce chips now with the powder instead of sumac. So I saw that you got you guys got your sumac locally, right? Yeah. Yeah.
You know what soup okay, I hate to say this. I've never bought sumac that I liked. No. Every sumac that I've ever bought, I've hated. Yeah, yeah.
Why is it always so bad? What do they do? I know they salt it, which ruins it, or maybe they I don't it's just terrible. The sumac that you buy is just not good. Yeah, I don't know what they do.
They do some kind of process we I think the wild sumac is the best for sure. Everything you find wild is is kind of bad. But like I think I like look, I love I like I like this. I like sumac. I don't know, we'll put it on you know, the the commercial stuff.
You put it on French fries or whatever, it's good, it's got a little bit of acidity. But if you go get it, then all of a sudden you can use it to make teas, you can use it to make drinks. It's just so much brighter. Have anyone give you wild sumac and you liked it, or is it just when you forge it yourself? Because there's also something about a memory and something about the process of finding it yourself.
That makes it better. Nastasi brought me some and it was good, right, Stars? Remember that? But to me, it you're right. It brings it brings back the memory of doing it.
But yeah, that stuff you brought me was really delicious, but it brings back, it just brings back memories of doing it. You know what I hate though? You know how sometimes sumac is not good? Like you have to taste the you have to taste the the actual tree before you take it, because some of it's tasteless. Yeah, for sure.
You know? Here we get mainly staghorn. Is that the one that you get the furry one? Yeah, we mainly game that. What about in Denmark?
What do they have? Is it the smoother one or the furry one? I don't remember. I haven't been there. I haven't forgotted for for like 14 years now.
Sumac's one of my favorite. The other thing you mentioned actually in the book, which I didn't see a recipe for it, but I really like is spice bush, Lindera Benzle. But you could use the whole thing there, also the bread. The leaves, yeah, yeah. It's very aromatic.
Like I used to make it when you walk through the wood, you just grab some spice, crinkle it up and smell it as you walk in. Yeah, but it's very aromatic and then very strong. Yeah, it's related to it. But you have to be careful with it because you can really overpile. Yeah.
You know what the other thing I found? I was gonna ask you about it when I saw that you used it, is um I like it better fresh. I haven't I I tried drying it once and it it lost something. It got almost like uh fresh is the best way, but they also be pickling it. Oh, that's a good idea.
I didn't like it dried so much. We don't dry it. We uh we're pickling and curing it. We also smoked it, and yeah, we've done a lot of things with it. For those of you that don't know, it's it's you search it out.
If you live in the East Coast and you live in a in a place kind of with bad soil, a lot of water, like uh I used to get it. There was a lot of like uh hickory oak oak birch kind of area, low-lying, a lot of sassafras and lendera benzuin, which is the spice bush. Look for it. It's great. It's absolutely great.
Once you see it, you're gonna see it everywhere. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. It's like almost like not wheat. Yeah, exactly.
And if my memory serves me, like the leaves uh uh the uh if my memory serves me that there's male and female trees, but I can't remember, so you have to look to make sure you get the ones with the with the berries on them. But the leaves are also good. And the smell is the branch is is is amazing. Yeah. Making oil out of that, it's great.
Oh, you know what? We're telling us like uh so Kevin from Gnome was saying, so he you've done it with the spice bush and it's good. Same thing, like overnight in steam with bullion oil. Mm-hmm. And you split it or do you chum it?
Do you have to be a little bit more? We try it. We almost like put it through a grounder, and it's like get into powder and we put it into not pounded, but into small pieces, and then we put it into the oil. And we toast it a little bit and we put in oil and steam it overnight. Are you using first-year shoots or any any part of it?
Young shoots is the best. Which is good because it's a scraggly little tree and you know, shrub tree, and like it's got a lot of new shoots every year. So it's good. And you're not hurting it really. You know what I mean?
It's gonna come back. Uh I used to love those. I love those things. Like uh, I miss that place that I used to have with all that stuff. Anyway, um another question.
I saw in a recipe that you did a thing uh in the book where you toasted the wood chips. I'm gonna say it was apple because I don't remember, and then used that uh as a steep in the broth and strain out later. So how hard are you toasting that? Does it really get like a smoky no-not? Because I've I've obviously depends what wood you're using.
Right now we have oak, uh like an aerated oak mousse on the menu. We're basically taking it off very soon. But it's uh it's a sweet dessert we're making out of oak wood. And um we toast that in the oven. What is it?
I don't know the scent. I always do the the Scandinavian way of so it's like a hundred and seventy-five uh degrees. It's like three fifty or so? Something like that, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And we toast it there, and and then after that we steep it into cream and we make this aerated mousse. And you're using the wood or the bark or both? Just wood. Wood chips we get we're buying. Yeah, but I noticed in the book you called out shag bark hickory, uh, which is the bark is fantastic.
Yeah, yeah, hickory is amazing. Yeah, yeah, it's a great product. Uh the nuts are such a pain in the butt though. Do you ever you're gonna use no, no, no, we don't use that. It's such a pain.
It's it's too difficult. It's too much work. Although you know what they used to do locally, um, like uh, you know, pre pre uh colonial is they would just smash they would smash the hickory nuts and then make the hickory milk and then strain the strain out the the what's it? It tastes delicious, but it's a lot of manpowers and labor in in i it's very it's what kills uh restaurant business. Yeah, I know.
Hickory is God's nut though. It really is. Oh, speaking of I was gonna ask you, because I know you like uh like local stuff. You're gonna do shad? Yeah, we probably would.
You gotta find you gotta train someone to do the magic fillet. Yeah. Have you seen the magic fillets? Incredible. Yeah.
Yeah. I mean, like no, and no one does it. No. They're amazing. You know what I mean?
You pick up the shad and it it's weird, falls apart. You gotta do it. Yeah, it could be. But like uh that's super local. I don't know anyone who sells it commercially, who sells it commercially, though.
I only know how to get it from Connecticut Fisher people. I don't know who would do that. Maybe we are working with these guys. Uh Dr. Dish from uh Montauk, amazing.
Maybe they could do it. Or maybe they could find someone because it's a ri it's a that's the thing. It's like it's it goes in the river, that's when you get it, and it's like it's just a good fish. It just tastes so good. Yeah, yeah.
You know, everyone's like, oh, this the row, the row, the row's good. You would use it all according to the book. You'd use the whole day. Yeah. But I like the meat.
Uh all right. So uh what am I missing? What am I not asking you about? Uh oh, you know what I've never had that you also mentioned in the book is, and I've said this on this air a billion times. I've never had a pawpaw.
This guy behind me, John, was like, they're selling pawpaws at the at the at the uh farmer's market in Brooklyn. I was like, did you buy it? He's like, no. No. Jerk.
Papau is amazing, but it's also very time limit. It's only for two weeks. I think I went on a Wednesday, Dave, and I wasn't gonna see him until Tuesday. Uh-huh. Yeah, and then uh I like papa, but it's not my favorite fruit, but it's kind of crazy this grows in in New York.
It's it's a mix between a mango and banana almost. That's what I hear. Yeah, it is. A very strong perfume. The the most tropical fruit that I've ever grown on like area around here is uh may apple.
Yeah, may apple, okay, yeah. But of course it's poisonous until it's ripe. So people get people get and then animals eat the hell out of it as soon as it gets ripe animals. I think papao is more like tropical in a way. It's not tropical because it's growing here, but it feels like it's a tropical fruit.
Yeah. Yeah. May Apple, I guess, is a little guava-y, yeah, yeah, it is. Yeah, yeah. But delicious.
Yeah, I loved it. But you can't get it. That one I've never seen anyone uh oh also. I noticed in your book, you refrigerate your fancy oil. That's smart.
I wish I had room in my refrigerator. Refrigerates is walnut oil and whatnot. Walnut oil, every nut oil will be refrigerated. Why don't you do that? Because I don't have space in my fridge.
I do that too. No, at the restaurant we have this nut press, you know, we'll be getting we're squeezing oil oils, every no oil or seed oil, we're doing that every day. The little one, the the one that in also does sesame. Is it any good? It's great.
Invest in in a good one. It's it's between 500 and a thousand dollars. It's it's absolute amazing. Like how much can you do a day? Oh, you could do a lot.
Like we produce what is maybe 300 milliliters of every kind of oil every day. Yeah, you know, because like some some oils are never ever good when you buy them. No, no, for sure not. Like, no offense, pumpkin seed oil people, but it's always already rancid by the time I get it. You know what I mean?
It will change your your life. It's it's really night and day. Yeah. Now I have FOMO. Now you're giving me FOMO, Chef.
I hate FOMO, and you know what my wife hates more than my FOMO is equipment. Yeah, there's nothing better than just fresh like a haze nut oil. It's just absolutely amazing. Yeah, yeah. Do you uh do you always do raw or do you pre-toast?
It depends what what dish we're using for, but uh right now is it's toasted. You know what I've never figured out and I've asked Harold McGee. Hazelnuts are the weirdest. By the way, I don't think there's a difference between a filbert and hazelnut. I think it's the same damn nut.
I think so too, yeah. Yeah. But when you toast a when you toast one, the inside gets darker than the outside. And I don't know why. No one can tell me why.
There's something on that very you know how the center, that little center hole. That's true, yeah. It's weird, right? It's like you don't know you've overtoasted the hazelnut until you break it and you look at the center and you're like, I overtoasted it. Yeah, yeah, you're right.
That's weird. That's weird. Yeah. Strange stuff. Who knows?
Who knows? Uh all right. Here's one of the questions looking at your book. Uh what vegetables do you think Americ I know what I think Americans should use more, but as someone who came here and you and now you have to deal with New York, although you say you like New York produce. What do you think we should use more?
I wish there was better white asparagus. Yeah, it's it's it's expensive to produce white asparagus. But now I found this growing in in LA, and uh uh it's absolutely amazing, but it's still in LA and it's almost the same as taking them from Denmark, but it's still in this country. So I feel it's okay. But uh white asparagus for sure, that's one of my favorite vegetables.
How much do you have to peel off of the ones you get? You take basically half of it off. Yeah, yeah. Because it's woody in the end, so you have to you peel it and you take the old school snap. I can't bear my I can't bear to do it.
I just keep cutting until it's not until I know you know if I throw away even a top, I guess you're not, you're using it for something else. No, we right now we're preserving it. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Uh and wait.
So you were in the book you also say, you know, again, I don't I don't deal with leaks because triggering, but like you fry the the roots on a leek and they're good. They're great, yeah. They're good. Yeah. And uh in the tops, if you cook them enough, they get soft, they don't stay stringy forever.
No, no, no, they would get completely soft. Uh all right. I don't cook with them because uh I don't know, like I say, I love them the taste of them. I love the taste of them. Basically, the whole book was I came to New York in 2012.
And um and I just saw all this food waste. There was so much people throwing out. So I thought, okay, let's find a way of maybe. It's I feel like as chef, you have to, it's your you have a responsibility to to teach from you. If I know something you don't know, I feel like somehow I need to get this knowledge to someone else.
So we wrote this book about all these pieces that we were throwing about. It's always like what a fish got or fish eyes or anything on the fish. In you know, in the more like in China and all the other places in the world, they don't throw things out. So why not try to teach their other people how they do? They have a bloodline recipe.
Yeah, for sure. But it was like all the roots of vegetables. Yeah, let's let's use that, or the scales on the fish, let's use that. And but it you know, it it started also back in the day at Noma, you know, he was doing all the trash cooking also that way. So it was inspiration also that came from that time.
But in in Denmark, we just didn't throw things out the same way as we've thrown out in the United States. Well, you think it's like a winter mentality, is what you wrote in the book. It's like, you know, gotta shore up for winter, can't throw this stuff away. Yeah, yeah, for sure. But uh, you know what else I like about the book is you include testers' notes, like what the tester said about the recipe was like which is kind of interesting.
I don't know if I've ever seen that before. Like like an input from the testers uh back in the recipe. Yeah, I think you know it was my first real book, so it was like it was kind of cool doing that, but it I didn't even know that someone had to taste test my recipes after I did it. So you're like, I did it. Why do I need someone to test it?
Yeah, but um it was kind of necessary, and I think it was good. Yeah, I mean why not? The recipes I'm gonna try out of that book are and by the way, like Bobby Murphy's doing your stuff now, but then on the cocktails in the book, he worked with Reynolds, who was that booker in Dax back in the day. So, like a lot a lot of connections there. Yeah, yeah, he's a cool guy, yeah.
Uh, that's down in my neighborhood. The uh oh, also, yeah, before I get into the thing, I was actually gonna say, so we always have this problem. Whenever I have a bar, we go through a lot of bananas, and we can't buy bananas that are ripe, right? So we buy them when they're green, and then we stick them in our boiler room, which we're not supposed to do until the flies come, and then and then we process them, right? Because otherwise you're you're being dumb.
I don't know. You know what I mean? Like for what we're doing. We need the flavor of a ripe banana. So in the book, you say that you went into a shop, right?
And I just can't even believe this. And you're like, first of all, like kudos to walk up to a manager and be like, what the hell? Don't you have a banana that's worth anything here? I don't want to wait a week. I'm cooking today.
I'm not cooking in a week. You know what I mean? It's like uh, you know, now you can buy avocados almost all the time that are ready at all different levels of avocado. But bananas, you cannot buy a ripe banana anywhere in this city ever. So you walk in and you're like, what the hell?
And he takes you in back. They take you in back, and it's like stacks of of ripe bananas, and you're like, what the hell? Good thing you said they're not throwing them away, they're sending them to a food bank or whatever, but like I wish they would just have like like a little container up front of like ready to go bananas. You know what I mean? That's a crazy story.
You think that a lot of supermarkets are like that? I can go be like, give me the good ones, give me the ones that work. I think there's a lot of supermarkets doing that for sure. They always keep the good stuff anyway. Because like, you know, and also like whenever you do a demo, like I don't do that demo away because I know that the bananas are gonna be garbage.
I know I'm gonna show up and the banana's gonna be flavorless, starchy, you know. Oh, nightmare. Uh all right, so uh you have a lot of recipes for wheat brand. I have so much wheat brand in my house. So my question is on the wheat brand ice cream.
So with most of these things, you're toasting the wheat brand and then using them as a steep. So you, I don't know whether you did this with Reynolds or not, but like you do a wheat wheat brand whiskey, which I'm gonna try. I tried making a wheat brand syrup. I think he came up with that recipe. I don't remember the recipe.
Yeah. I did a wheat branch syrup and I didn't get enough wheat bran in. But I think if I had done it in the liquor, so you're getting a two-ounce pour instead of like a half ounce or a three-eighths. Because I I was doing a wheat bran syrup, so then obviously the tea, the wheat brand tea, is only like 0.615% of the syrup, and then you're only using like three-eighths of an ounce of that into a two-ounce pourer for an old-fashioned. So it's not enough bran.
But putting it in the whiskey is maybe smarter. Maybe I'll try it. I have so much bran in my house. Yeah. I'm constantly sifting flour, and I have like, you know.
Use it for a nucleopod. I did it, and it with wheat, because I only have wheat bran, uh some rye. But like uh it uh it is great for like five, six weeks, like maybe, and then it goes bad on me. I don't know why I have to do it. Yeah, but it's you know Effine, that's the living, you know, you can keep on feeding it and and change it and just make sure you have basically you have to feed it with bacteria on your hands.
That's really the the recipe, but in in here we cannot do that. We have to use gloves and all this. So at home, you can feed it with your just make sure you have clean hands, of course, but use it, use uh your hands. And I think my temperature in my kitchen maybe is too high. That could be, yeah.
That could be one of the reasons. You know, like I gotta I don't know, see what the optimum temperature is and do it. Because I want to I want to do that again because I have literally like I I hate to say it. I for a while I would save it, I would have gallon bags, like gallon bags of brand. You know what I mean?
Yeah, do the nougat pot. That that would be great. And you can keep all your root vegetables in it. Yeah, you know what tastes bad is trying to just make a cereal out of just the brand. You know, like onto that.
Yeah, online, they're like, Go, you could just put some honey into it and like it make no. It's terrible. It's the driest thing you're doing. Yeah, you don't want to do that. No.
Yeah, how's the wheat brand ice cream? That's the one I want to try. Quinn, you might have to be. It's great. You toast it, yeah.
It's good. It's uh it's toasty good. If you haven't tasted wheat brand before, it's it's it's difficult to explain, but it's you have. So it's kind of a toasty good taste, yeah. Yeah, and for those of you that don't know, the brand and the germ are different, although when I have bran, it has germ in it because I can't I'm not separating.
So when you commercially mill a flour on rollers, they pop the germ off separately, and the brand comes off in flakes and they go into two streams. But if you mill your own stuff, the germ and the bran and a little bit of the endosperm are part of the brand fraction. So it's the commercial stuff is a little bit different from the stuff you make yourself. What do you got, Quinn? What are you saying?
I was gonna say so is the recipe just like a steep of the bran in the milk or the dairy rather. I believe, yes, I believe it's in the cream. Uh uh, I wrote it down here, but I can't read it because the type is too small and my glasses aren't on. But yeah, yeah. Yeah, basically just steep it into any dairy you can imagine.
Well, it could also be into water and you can make a soul out of it, but it it's just to get the flavor out of it. Yeah, I would say you need to press the ever loving out of it though, right? Because it absorbs a lot. A lot, yeah. Yeah, so you have to just press the ever loving snot out of the stuff.
Yeah, with with with the homemade brand, would you have to like bring it up to a certain temperature to gelatinize like the trace tender sperm, or would you want to avoid that? Why would you want to gelatinize the starch into it? Wouldn't you want to avoid that? We warm up. We warm up the the milk all to get it out.
And then we press it after. You know what's a godsend? Nut milk bags. Yeah. They're so good and they're so cheap now.
Uh they're so good. Yeah. You know what I mean? Because you can just be so rough with them. You know what I'm saying?
It's great. You know? My only issue is that I I wear uh, you know, the old school. Yeah, yeah. Well, but do you spend the well you probably spend we have a lot of them, yeah.
But you buy the real ones, I buy the cheap ones because I'm cheap. No, we we buy the real ones. Yeah, you're more like uh you're more like uh boardwalk. I'm more like I I'm not Baltic Avenue, I'm like Connecticut Avenue, but I'm trying to be like Case Place. It's just it lasts longer.
Yeah. I don't care about the brand, but it's it's more just when you some I think when you buy quality is like it will stay for a longer time. The to me, the downfall of the cheap ones that I get that I buy is uh the sewing lines on the edge. There's little holes and sometimes they goes out. Yeah, yeah.
That's the main to me. They don't seal the they don't tape seal the edges. But you can do if you just leave it in the bag and just strip if you have plenty of time. Yeah, then you can Chef, come on. You could use that.
If you have to go fast, you have to probably get some Do I seem like someone with that kind of patience to you? Uh another recipe I want to try, by the way. So like when this book came out when 2017, a while ago, yeah. Yeah, so in that time, actually a little bit before that, maybe 2015 was like the era of I know you like beets. Nastasi and I are a little bit triggered by beats because we used to go to a restaurant that served us giant chunks of undercooked beets.
Remember that, Stas? Yeah, horrible. Horrible. Yeah. I like beets, but like sometimes I have issues with them.
But do you remember? I don't want to say it's so like 2014, I like beets, but like the par dehydrated beet, which are delicious. I first had it uh at like the 10th anniversary WD 50. I don't know who came up with the idea originally. I really don't.
It wasn't me or anyone that I know. But like they're delicious, the par dehydrated beets. So you have a lot of these par dehydrated things like ones that I hadn't known, like carrot raisins. How hard how so you say to reconstitute them, but when you dehydrate a carrot, are you taking it down so I can still eat it like a la minute or if it's getting too hot, if you dehydrate it too much, you could just always put it into some kind of liquid. Any kinds of being becoming moist again at all, chew like chewy.
We want the chewy flavor, like that feeling of uh what I don't know what you call it, uh uh wine gum. Yeah, yeah. Oh, wine gums are delicious, man. Good call out of maintenance wine gums. Yeah, yeah.
You kind of want that feeling. Uh I think we also had carrots uh chewy carrots before we take them and dehydrate them. Um but the beets uh uh absolutely amazing when you you dehydrate them into this kind of a raisin. Yeah, they're a better product. Yeah, yeah.
I think. And then uh so but the carrots, you're doing a quick parboil in uh sugar water, right? Until it's like just and then you pull it and you you have them in like uh like you call them logs and they're I don't know what that is. You cut them out in small dices. And then uh you take them down and then they're semi stable.
Yeah. And yeah, you you dehydrate them into a raisin into the go into the half size. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I like that idea. Uh all right, let's see.
See, uh, I'm sure some of our let's get to some user, some listener questions, which you might have some. What? Uh I I had a question. What's up? Yeah, it's for med, you know, there's a lot of like trend of fine dining restaurants, but also incorporate you know live fire cooking.
When you're imagining a dish or a menu, are you trying to like balance old techniques with more modern techniques? Or in your mind, is it more just like all one toolbox? So illis means fire and ice in Danish. So it's a combination of these two words, ill and is so that's that's the whole name of the restaurant. So basically when we we don't think about dishes in in we think about ingredients, and it's also how you are choosing your menu at it is so every ingredients we have on the menu, I always think about a fire dish and a raw dish.
So asparagus right now, for example, green asparagus, we have a raw asparagus dish with fresh cheese, and then we have a grilled asparagus dish on. So it's always I always think it can go both ways. What do you what do you think of that purple asparagus worth anything or just a gimmick? Yeah. I like purple uh asparagus, but it's doesn't taste better than a green one.
I don't think it does either. I think but you also eat with your eyes. So if you but if you're colorblind anyway, so it doesn't it doesn't matter what color it is. So I think a purple asparagus, yeah, it tastes great, but uh greensburgers tastes as as good. I mean they try to pretend that it's sweeter, but I don't think it is.
Yeah, I don't feel it is no, you know, don't taste a different really. The only different is white and green. I feel like that's the that's the difference, really a big difference. Oh, another thing I think it's funny in the book is you say like you're you include like uh which things to take home from restaurants and which not to take over from restaurants and like to repurpose, which I thought was funny, and you list out like a pretty basic pantry of stuff you have for go to. I think every cookbook, of course I'm not gonna do it, but I think everyone should just list like here's the stuff that I always have on hand so that I can bam cook, you know what I mean?
And it's not it's super crazy extensive, you know what I mean? Something something reasonable. Here's a question uh from Math Man, longtime uh listener writes in that chef, maybe you have some opinions on. I'd love some advice on what to do with 30 pounds of white fish, unstated white fish. White fish.
So I'm assuming like when someone just says white fish, what do they mean? It can be so many different things. Yeah, they mean flatfish or they mean like a chub, like a mackerel. No, that's not a I I think it's more flat fish, like more like fluke, that type of halibut easy. It could also be sea bass, for example.
Yeah, fluke. Um anyway. I started out with about 50 pounds from a fishing trip. Yeah, fishing trip. So it's flat, definitely probably a flat fish.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I started out with about 50 pounds from a fishing trip, and I'm sick of breaded, baked, fried, broiled, and steamed. What are some ways I can use this fish in more flavorful ways? So you have a lot of fish to start with. Um either you you cannot use it all at the same time, of course, or you have to have a big dinner party.
But um I will split it out in different ways, of course. You can salt it, cure it, so you have that, and you can smoke it. Of course, freeze it and you can take it out of the freezer when you need it later on. But for me, I I will probably cure it and so and and and smoke. I have never cured my own fish.
How stinky is it? Oh, so we had a very have a very I've cured like locks, but I've never done like I know, but I can see we are eating fish in the restaurant. So we have a tuna on the menu right now. Um basically we just took it off, it cops on again. But we when we open up the restaurant, we for Friends of Family, for example, we got so much tuna in to the restaurant.
We couldn't use it. So we cured it with uh seaweed and salt, and we start using it here the last past month. So we actually had a fish that was like five to six months old. It was almost like the tuna was almost like two it's like ham. Huh.
So we had that on for a while. So but so is it mean that you can only that it's like it's delicious, but you can only tolerate like a little bit of it? Like it's like salt. It's it's almost like a yeah, like a a ham, like uh cured Ibeago ham, black foot ham. So it's like you don't want to eat tons of it, but you can you can every bite you want actually a little bit more because like umami is so s so amazing.
Yeah, do you uh I there are tuna things like that where I'm like I like it a lot, but like I like I can't imagine having infinity of it, like tuna heart. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. But right now, you know, I think this becomes became a a signature thing for us. Now right now we just got what was it, five tuna in into the restaurant? That's a lot.
Yeah, five big tuners, but it was we're using a whole loin for a week. So we have to be ahead of our game. How many covers a night? Right now, we're doing around Tuesday and Wednesday, we're doing around 60 to 70. And then Thursday, Friday and Saturday, we do around 80 to 100 people.
Yeah, so it's a lot of tuna. That's a lot of tuna. It's a lot of tuna, yeah. Yeah. So what I'm curious because, like, you know, look, there's obviously so much experimentation going on from uh, you know, ingredient coming, different ingredients coming in, using ingredients, like you know, the cooks running the, you know, running the service, like all of these, you know, the all this live fire stuff, like it's a lot of like pushing envelope going on.
What is it, and whenever you do that, some things you're gonna do, you're gonna be like, oh no, that that that was a mistake. And then change it as you go. Like, what have you found has been the biggest changes you've had to make? I think we have been we've been sticking to the idea of of creating this one house uh feeling. Um what we have changed, yeah, in the in the so it's not a set menu.
Everyone had like an idea, I will move this fine dining restaurant that was like one set menu only. Um and uh it's just not the way I I like to eat anymore. So I really just want to do a card where it becomes more like you choose your own set menu. So you have the choices into creating your own set menu. So we we we basically have a big cart, like a big uh tray of food that comes in in front of you, and that's uh 12 ingredients, and you can every every ingredient can go two to three different ways, and you choose your own adventure from there.
Do you have those books growing up? Yeah, yeah but in the beginning also the snacks was not a part of that so you chose your thing you you your venture and after that a snack card came up and uh because sometimes I just don't want snacks I didn't want this little clam and you know the flask it's not little but yes yeah it's big but but but but I didn't want you know sometimes I just don't want these things so I wanted to give everyone a choice for that when but it was kind of we cannot just give that away so it have to be you have to pay extra for that so we took that away there was a one one of the things that we really liked was was that whole like hard snack appetizers thing uh we were was running around in the the dining room but we could just not do it because it was too much work there was like three people every day that had to set up this card and then and run it around and and and charge extra it was like it felt wrong. So we took that away and now now it's just a part of of uh the menu so everyone that comes in there it will get that experience and just get all the snacks. And so the problem with charging extra was it felt like too much commerce happening during the service part yeah and it was yeah it was too much it took just too long and also of course labor was like a big big issue. And a lot of these things all these snacks in the end of service we had so much things it was if you didn't sell it we have to throw it out because it was pre made so we lost a lot of ingredients so we just had to change and a shift people like that.
So it's also a rule that is everyone knows whether it's serving because they have tasted it. So yeah, definitely everyone knew about the the snacks. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So uh and is it still like so in friends and family, like so we choose your own adventure, you go in, there's ingredients, but like it was when I went like two sides of the menu, like the hot side and the cold side, and you had to go change also. Oh, yeah, yeah.
Now we have two menus. We have one, like let's cook for you, it's the field guide. So it's between 10 and 14 dishes, depends on what is on the market. Um, and that's basically if you don't want to choose, and just let us choose. And then we have the market menu, and that's four sections, four selections from you, and you have to choose your own four ingredients, and then you can add on to it, and each ingredient costs $25 extra.
And that includes four choices from you, and then free, no, was it free appetizer, free snacks, and then two desserts. So basically it's a seven course menu somehow. But you choose if you want to just go fish or vegetables or or meat. And what percentage of people do the 50-50. Yeah.
5050. Hey John, get this. You ready for this? Ready. So they sign the lease in, I guess 2020, 2020.
And immediately start putting down uh preserves and veg. So you have like two, three years of like starting stock. So yeah, right. Yeah. But the plan is what we but we didn't we didn't plan it to have to take three years to open up the restaurant.
It was like I had this dream for so long. And but then we signed the lease and it thought, okay, it will take a year or something, you know. No, yeah. But then COVID hit and all this happened, and everything just became more expensive. Two more minutes.
We could go, yeah. So after that, it just took two more years than they planned. And so we just start pr preserving and start building up a lab. So, like, had you already how much of your staff we could you like? It's so hard to lock in staff when you're doing like a three-year problem.
You know what I mean? It's like almost impossible. We had all the managers, so but also we were very clever in a way of saying, okay, we cannot fully hire you before we know okay, this will happen in half a year. Because talk about lighting money on fire, hiring your staff too early. You know what I mean?
It's like yeah. But we we did like two months of friends of family and then private events and all this. We did that. So it was not just because all the waiters was thrown in front, all the cooks was thrown in front of the dining room, and then you know they had some some training. Oh, I'm sure.
No, it's it's uh it's quite an experience. Like I say, it's like uh I hadn't expected someone could open as high concept a place as this these days just because there's so many barriers. Like we didn't you didn't really like the permitting for the open fire must have just been a complete nightmare. It's very, very difficult. Oh, the whole the whole open kitchen have been you know an issue because I just wanted to make people feel they're part of the dining experience.
So as someone who uh someone who is like you know, uh adopting us as a home in New Yorker, when you come in there and you're trying to do this, and then like a New York City inspector comes in and just has the New York City, yeah. Very difficult, yeah. It's very difficult, yeah. Because you're like, don't he's like, I don't care, man. I don't care.
Where's the answer? You're like, well, you know what I mean? Like, you know what I mean? It's like it's difficult. Yeah, we're it's very difficult to have this kind of restaurant in New York.
I imagine it's impossible. So you should stop by uh Illis. You should uh get the book, which is scraps, wilt, and weeds from Kitchen Arts and Letters with a Patreon discount. Also, going back, we still have the uh discount code uh for Glass Fan. Glass fan, yeah.
You guys have your own glasses that you're made by a local artisan here in Brooklyn, right? It's amazing, yeah. Very fancy. Uh 10% off, and then Patreon gets more if you go on. Uh Chef Mads Wrestling, thank you so much for coming on.
Uh come back anytime. Yeah. Cooking issues. Thank you.
Timestamps may be off due to dynamic ad insertion.