25 Bites in a Tasting Menu with David Kinch | Anthony Bourdain's The Mind of a Chef | Full Episode

0:01 Viewers like you make this program possible.

0:03 Support your local PBS station.

0:05 DAVID KINCH: When three things are on a plate,

0:07 there's symmetry between the three.

0:09 ANTHONY BOURDAIN: A tasting menu is a sequence

0:10 of carefully composed flavors and textures in optimal amounts...

0:15 intended to get from there to here.

0:19 The experience should be incremental, cumulative, balanced.

0:24 KINCH: Do the foies after the bonita!

0:26 BOURDAIN: Bound together by location, season...

0:29 KINCH: To me this is what gives it the flavor.

0:31 BOURDAIN: Ingredient.

0:32 25 bites.

0:35 They have to be perfect.

0:36 Better than perfect.

0:37 Together, they need to say something the diner didn't know they needed to hear.

0:44 Enter The Mind of a Chef.

0:45 KINCH: You can actually taste the sun.

0:46 I don't know how we're going to top that one.

0:49 This is the fun part in cooking.

0:50 Cheers.

1:03 (sniffing) KINCH: Part of the beauty

1:10 of the power of food is it creates memories.

1:14 Very important.

1:16 When a dish is set down in front of someone, what is a dish supposed to do?

1:20 Pique interest?

1:23 Surprise?

1:24 You can go in with really great expectations.

1:27 Our job is to understand what they are, and not only to meet but to exceed.

1:37 25 bites.

1:40 I would be lying if I didn't say that the progression

1:43 of a Japanese menu has a great influence on the Manresa menu.

1:48 Things start off with relatively unadorned, simple bites, pleasing to the eye.

1:55 The idea of bitterness early in a meal.

1:58 Something raw.

2:00 There's soup, perhaps something braised.

2:04 There's a diversity of courses, different tastes and textures being presented.

2:09 We want things to be three bites long.

2:11 One bite is the big surprise.

2:13 The second bite's kind of like a confirmation.

2:15 And the third bite is to finish it off and be ready to try the next sensation.

2:27 When someone comes in, the first thing they get are the petit fours,

2:30 an item most people associate with the very end of a meal.

2:34 We've actually had people say,

2:35 "There must be some sort of mistake." They look sweet but they are savory.

2:40 Red pepper, olives.

2:44 This period ends with a larger portion dish, perhaps a savory panna cotta.

2:49 Currently, we do salmon roe and peas.

2:52 Got transitional period,

2:53 just denotes that you're going to move into the savory part of the menu,

2:57 and the first dish of substance.

2:59 Into the vegetable garden,

3:01 and all its bitter elements to stimulate the appetite.

3:05 After that, a raw dish, fish or shellfish.

3:09 Simply presented.

3:10 I think something served raw, especially early, there is no place to hide.

3:16 You know, what you're really showcasing

3:18 is the pristine quality of the ingredient.

3:21 The beauty of it, the skill, is in the cuts.

3:28 This salad is very Californian,

3:30 almost Central American in its theme, with a chili and avocado.

3:34 The fish is Japanese style,

3:36 but I think once it all comes together, it's almost ceviche-like.

3:40 The first thing I'm going to do, prepare the cucumber for the salad.

3:43 So, bias cuts.

3:45 Attractive, bite-size pieces.

3:49 Cucumbers have a lot of water in them.

3:51 Salt is going to draw out the moisture.

3:54 A lot of that water is a little bit bitter tasting,

3:56 so I'll take out a little bit of the bitterness.

4:00 This is jalapeño, I mean, it's spicy,

4:02 but in the grand scheme of the pepper world, it's not that hot.

4:06 This is just going to add a little picante.

4:09 Get to the heart of the matter.

4:11 And this is where the fun part comes in.

4:18 Throw in a dash of rice vinegar, pinch of salt,

4:21 ahumado in extra-virgin olive oil that had tangerines thrown into the press.

4:27 Lot of bitterness in it because of the pith in the peel, but we like that.

4:32 You don't just mash it in.

4:33 Stir it, let it break down a little bit, we'll do some other things,

4:36 come back to it and keep stirring it,

4:38 until the avocado comes into this half-creamy, half-chunky state.

4:43 Now, sea bream.

4:44 Like a gentle snowstorm, the salt rains down out of the sky.

4:49 With a little cure for eight minutes.

4:52 Wash the fish.

4:54 It's made the skin just a little bit translucent,

4:56 gets rid of a little bit of the flabbiness.

5:00 Cut against the grain.

5:02 See how shiny that is?

5:03 Most of that is because of the quality of my left-handed blue steel,

5:07 and the confidence of the stroke.

5:09 Sushi guy can tell if it's been sliced confidently or not.

5:13 With some great citrus: Meyer lemon...

5:18 and one of my favorites of all, the wekiwa tangelo.

5:22 I like it so much I even just like saying it.

5:24 Acidity...

5:25 keeps things fresh and lively.

5:29 A couple drops each of both the wekiwa tangelo juice and the Meyer lemon juice.

5:38 The avocado is still chunky, but it's starting to get really shiny,

5:41 and it's coating everything really nicely.

5:43 It's the exact consistency that I've been patient and waiting for.

5:47 Lastly, some toasted black sesame seeds.

5:53 Plate the dish.

5:55 The raw onions have wilted.

5:59 My three pieces of fish.

6:02 Juiced cucumbers, marinated with jalapeño, mint, and basil.

6:08 My citrus segments, wekiwa, Meyer lemon.

6:14 Little balls of cucumber, pickled in rice vinegar and white wine.

6:19 Couple of drops of tangerine-flavored oil to pearl on the surface,

6:24 effectively making a vinaigrette.

6:28 Bachelor button flowers, tie the dish in with the blueness of the bowl.

6:32 Sea bream with spicy cucumber and avocado, citrus.

6:40 You have to start with something great to make something great.

6:48 FARMER: David, you got to come try this red shadow.

6:51 Smell the bottom.

6:52 KINCH: Okay, looks like a pear.

6:53 Oh!

6:54 FARMER: Vanilla flavor.

6:55 KINCH: Does it taste like vanilla?

6:57 No.

7:00 All right, let's go find the finger limes.

7:02 KINCH: Gene Lester is a cranky, cantankerous old guy.

7:05 ...There's some clementinas left...

7:07 KINCH: I wouldn't describe Gene as a farmer, he's like a fruit hobbyist.

7:10 This one is Yosemite Gold.

7:12 KINCH: He's just got these amazing trees.

7:15 First thing I asked Gene was if he had yuzu.

7:17 He says, "yes, I do, but I got many other things,

7:22 too." He's got a whole ridge, there's a whole ridge up there.

7:25 Each tree is a different fruit.

7:27 It's just amazing.

7:28 250 different kinds of acidity.

7:31 There it is.

7:32 This variety is a little bitter, sort of like a grapefruit.

7:36 KINCH: I think there's a little bit of vanilla in the flesh, too.

7:39 Could be.

7:40 KINCH: You could put vanilla with this.

7:41 You could.

7:41 KINCH: Spiny lobster.

7:43 We can go up there, and taste something and be really inspired by it.

7:48 Mmm!

7:49 And have it on the menu the next day.

7:52 Here we are at the finger limes.

7:53 KINCH: Look how many of them there are.

7:55 Looks like they, somebody scotch taped 'em on.

7:58 KINCH: I knew what a grapefruit was.

8:00 The grounders are probably the best...

8:01 KINCH: But this whole world just opened up walking around,

8:05 pulling things off trees and tasting it.

8:07 And him explaining...

8:08 Now you ready for this?

8:09 Caviar.

8:10 KINCH: You can eat the skin on this, and this one doesn't have seeds,

8:12 but this one has the best acid-to-sugar ratio,

8:14 but it's really difficult to peel,

8:15 so you're going to have to figure out a way to peel it,

8:18 you know, and just like boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

8:20 It's better to cut down to the flesh and then tear.

8:24 KINCH: His love and passion for what he does

8:26 is a big guiding principle in what we do.

8:40 After that raw dish, we usually do a vegetable centric dish.

8:45 Something very delicate.

8:51 The chawanmushi, which is a Japanese-style custard that is steamed,

8:56 and a very light broth that has been infused with a spring garlic.

9:02 Very pungent, very aromatic.

9:04 Green garlic is an iconic California ingredient.

9:08 It is fresh garlic in the springtime, before it actually starts to bulb.

9:14 And I mince finely, mostly just the white.

9:17 The white tends to be more delicate and as I

9:21 cut this, it becomes very obvious to everyone around you,

9:24 that is in fact not a leek, but garlic, because of the smell.

9:29 Buerre noisette.

9:30 Add half the garlic.

9:32 We just want it to soften.

9:33 We're not going to put any color on the green garlic.

9:36 That would make it too strong.

9:38 Vegetable broth, classic mirepoix, has fennel in it.

9:43 The weird things I like to add to it is a pinch of sugar, and a star anise.

9:48 Just as it's coming to a simmer,

9:50 I'm going to add the last bit of the raw garlic,

9:53 hopefully adding some complexity from the two

9:55 different states of the garlic, softened and raw.

10:03 It's delicious.

10:05 Most "egg-cellent." I've strained the broth.

10:10 Put it on low.

10:11 I am not trying to incorporate air into it.

10:15 I'm going to add the eggs one at a time.

10:21 You can see that the custard is very, very light.

10:25 Shirodashi, white soy sauce that had

10:28 katsuobushi as part of the fermentation process.

10:31 One of our secret weapons here.

10:37 I'm going to just kiss the surface of each one to get rid of the air bubbles,

10:43 but not enough to cook it.

10:47 Time to steam the custards.

10:49 We're going to use broccoli to top the custard,

10:52 and all I'm trying to get are those little florets.

10:56 Basically just giving the broccoli a trim.

10:59 Supercuts.

11:14 Seaweed vinegar is going to add the acidic element to the dish,

11:17 along with a really good, strong dose of umami.

11:21 Sake.

11:23 Rice wine vinegar.

11:23 Sugar.

11:24 Soy sauce.

11:26 Little bit of water.

11:28 Simmer.

11:32 Bonito flakes...

11:35 Pretty.

11:37 And then three different kinds of seaweed: fresh nori, kombu,

11:42 and laitue de mer, sea lettuce, a very common dried seaweed on the Pacific.

11:51 And then I'll wrap it and let it cool 'till it's infused.

11:56 It's time to plate the custard.

11:59 Some fusion, it's completely cool.

12:04 Lovely smell, it's like a tisane.

12:07 We will strain this off.

12:08 Put it on very delicate, just a little bit sweet.

12:12 The stems from the broccoli, that have been blanched.

12:20 The fried florets from the broccoli, hiding the custard and the stems,

12:26 but you can see the little bits of the color poking out.

12:29 Some beautiful broccoli flowers, yet more broccoli to the dish,

12:33 and the color mimicking the color of the bowl.

12:38 Broccoli flowers do taste of the plant, of broccoli.

12:41 And this completes the dish:

12:43 green garlic custard with seaweed vinegar, broccoli.

12:52 Of course one eats with the eyes.

12:56 All five senses are involved.

12:58 The fifth sense, of course, being umami.

13:00 The sense that is an intangible, you can't quite put your finger on what it is,

13:05 that is the job of the chef making that happen.

13:07 Warm salmon with saffron and potato.

13:10 And now, the menu is advancing, now it's going from lighter to heavier.

13:16 A more substantial fish dish, sometimes it will involve grilling.

13:20 Much more centered on the protein than the previous dish.

13:27 After that, we do a rice dish, which is really the first sort of carbs, heavier.

13:36 This is a great time for us to introduce people to abalone.

13:39 Rice porridge has abalone and emulsified with chicken fat.

13:43 After this, we do red meat.

13:48 Lately we've been doing spring lamb.

14:03 What we're trying to project with Manresa is coastal California.

14:09 So we are, in a food sense,

14:11 a reflection not only of how it's made but where it's from.

14:18 Oh, my God, he's massive!

14:23 KINCH: The obvious answer would be that you use local products.

14:31 Or use a purveyor and a source that an area's famed for.

14:39 Monterey abalone.

14:42 Jo at Dirty Girl.

14:44 You know, Castroville artichokes.

14:46 So, people who've eaten artichokes all their life,

14:48 when they have it at the restaurant,

14:49 they realize the specialness of what they're tasting.

14:55 These are called negi onions.

14:56 It's a Japanese cultivar.

14:58 People will come to the garden and I'll show them something weird or different,

15:03 and they'll ask me, "Well, what does David do with it?" And I'll say,

15:07 "Anything he wants." KINCH:

15:13 We have this exclusive relationship with Love Apple Farms.

15:15 We work in collaboration with them.

15:18 And I'm always trying to pique his interest and add something new,

15:23 whether it's a new variety of tomato, a new variety of bean nobody else has.

15:27 KINCH: When I decided that I wanted to have a garden,

15:30 I thought that I was going to do this myself.

15:32 I don't know what I was thinking.

15:34 Cynthia Sandberg is a champion tomato grower.

15:36 She said, "Well, I'll do it." I said, "Well,

15:40 I'm not just talking about tomatoes." And she goes,

15:42 "Neither am I."- These are cape gooseberries, and the flavor is phenomenal.

15:46 It's got a really wonderful acid, sweet balance to it.

15:49 He can do a lot with this.

15:51 KINCH: She gave up life as a successful lawyer.

15:54 She dug up her lawn.

15:55 She dug up her swimming pool.

15:57 These are lychee tomatoes.

15:58 I got these from the gardener for Alain Passard in Paris,

16:02 and I didn't speak any French and he didn't speak any English,

16:04 but I could tell the seed was in the tomato family,

16:07 so I cultivated it the same way and it thrived.

16:11 David loves it.

16:13 KINCH: The stuff that grows at Love Apple has been fine-tuned over the years,

16:17 specifically for the needs of the restaurant.

16:20 We had the opportunity to plant different cultivars of the same vegetable,

16:23 so you can have a dish that is four different types of eggplant,

16:27 four different types of tomatoes.

16:28 The complexity of the dish is in the diversity of cultivars.

16:32 That was a great tool to have.

16:36 Sometimes I will come across something that I think is unique and unusual,

16:40 and I try to keep it a secret from him until we have it ready for him to taste.

16:45 He'll go, "that's fabulous, give me 100 more of them next week." And I go...

16:50 I can't do that, chef, 'cause I only put in a little test plot for you,

16:53 so, next year we'll give you a lot more of those.

16:58 That's the fun part.

17:12 KINCH: We use a various assortment of alliums, onions from the farm,

17:16 for this broth, because there is an inherent sweetness to them.

17:20 It's a transitional course that helps, perhaps,

17:24 settle the stomach and let the system know

17:26 that you're going to be transitioning into sweets.

17:39 A white globe onion.

17:41 The bulb from a red torpedo onion.

17:43 And I think there might be a white torpedo in there as well.

17:48 Now we're going to make some dashi, which is the basis of the soup.

17:51 I have Rishiri-Kombu.

17:53 It's from an island called Rishiri off the north coast of Hokkaido.

17:58 It's considered the grand cru,

18:00 the Domaine de la Romanée-Conti of kombus because of the elegance of flavor,

18:04 the depth, the subtlety.

18:07 Research has shown that the glutomatic properties that makes dashi such

18:11 an umami bomb and the basis and the foundation of all Japanese cuisine,

18:16 that the greatest extraction happens at 60 degrees.

18:19 So it's going to hold it there for one hour.

18:21 Never coming to a boil.

18:24 When it reaches 60, we're going to use dried shiitakes.

18:28 Shiitakes have tremendous amounts of natural umami,

18:31 and when they're dried, they're really amplified.

18:35 Three different kinds of lentils: green, orange,

18:38 and the classic du Puy lentils, black-green, incredibly flavorful.

18:42 I soak these overnight.

18:44 Starts the germination process.

18:46 We'll toss 'em together.

18:47 Put 'em in a cool, dark, humid place.

18:50 In our case, it's the wine cellar.

18:52 Let them sit around from 24 to 36 hours,

18:55 and we'll get these beautiful sprouted lentils.

18:59 Palatable and tender.

19:01 A little bit of a crunch.

19:03 You would be amazed that they're not cooked.

19:08 We have some beautiful pickled ramps.

19:10 Cut it into a nice mix about the white and the dark.

19:19 You can really smell how fabulous that kombu is.

19:21 Smell it.

19:22 So I'm going to strain it.

19:27 Now I'm going to add the onions.

19:28 It's going to be an infusion, just like we're making tea.

19:31 Now I'm going to start to season it.

19:33 It's always soy with a little bit of salt,

19:35 and I think the synergy between the two, to balance out the onion flavor.

19:40 And the mirin.

19:43 I'm trying to find this right balance of aroma.

19:48 Sweet from the onion and the mirin.

19:52 And salt.

19:58 Exactly where I want it.

19:59 Strain off the onions, and now we're ready to play.

20:02 So the sprouting lentils, we add for color.

20:06 Puffed buckwheat, which adds a really great kind of cereal crunch to it,

20:11 almost got the crunch of popcorn.

20:13 Some of our pickled ramps.

20:16 Some of our seasoned broth.

20:19 Two or three sips at the most.

20:22 Rendered beef wagyu fat, the secret ingredient on this particular dish.

20:26 It pearls, adds a certain richness.

20:29 We strongly encourage the guests to pick it up and just sip it.

20:32 And when they're close of course, they'll get the great fragrance.

20:36 I have raw, I have pickled, and I have hot, I have cooked, I have crunch.

20:41 Hopefully, this will be a nice backing away from the rich

20:44 course that came before it in preparation for dessert.

20:51 Moving into desserts, we will do something really refreshing.

20:55 It will involve raw fruit of really great quality that we want to showcase.

20:59 There won't be a lot of added sugar.

21:02 There might be savory elements, such as herbs, chervil, basil, anise hyssop.

21:08 An arc from the savory to the sweet.

21:12 Rhubarb with fennel frond and Pernod.

21:15 The second dessert will be more substantial.

21:19 It will involve much more technique, more of a showy dessert,

21:24 because you're nearing the end of the meal.

21:28 At this point there's going to be a lot of mignardises.

21:31 COOK: Coconut and passion fruit, Meyer lemon, vanilla bean.

21:34 KINCH: Macaroon.

21:37 Chocolates— someone has to have chocolate, like myself.

21:42 Finally, you will get the original petit four.

21:45 It will mimic the petit fours that you had

21:48 at the beginning of the meal, but this time,

21:50 you're original assumption would be correct,

21:52 it would be sweet, in this case strawberry and chocolate.

21:55 We come around full circle during the course of your meal.

22:07 We don't cook for more than 60 people on any given night.

22:11 I don't know how responsible a business model that is,

22:14 but I like to know the faces of the people

22:17 I'm cooking for, as opposed to just table numbers.

22:20 I've always viewed cooking on a very personal level.

22:26 I don't do it by myself.

22:27 (to chefs) Thank you, everyone, thank you, thank you, that's it.

22:32 When a night goes smoothly, there's an intense feeling of accomplishment.

22:38 You feel alive.

22:41 Now you're walking on air.

22:43 (sniffing)