This Restaurant Earned a Michelin Star in Just 9 Months | On The Line | Bon Appétit

0:00 Huso is a restaurant at the back of a caviar store in New York City.

0:04 In 9 months we got our first star,

0:07 which is in a tremendous achievement for all of us involved.

0:10 I'm the head chef, therefore my role is making sure the kitchen is running,

0:15 everyone's doing what they're meant to be doing and doing it correctly.

0:18 We change the menu seasonally according to the solstice.

0:21 So we're not even at our 1-year mark and we're on our fifth menu.

0:25 So it's constant R&D, it's constantly a chef coming up with ideas,

0:29 me facilitating how to those ideas come to life.

0:38 Hi, it's 10:00 a.m.

0:40 My name is Lois.

0:41 I'm the head chef here at Huso in Tribeca.

0:43 It's freezing outside, -14° C.

0:46 We're just going to go into our caviar store and sneak into the restaurant.

0:50 This is our caviar store.

0:51 This is where everyone enters through.

0:53 We have a speakeasy vibe, so let me take you through.

0:56 This is our dining room.

0:57 We have 11 tables upstairs.

0:59 The kitchen is downstairs.

1:00 That's where my world is, so let's go down.

1:07 As the first job of my day when I come in, I like to just check one of our most

1:11 valuable deliveries that we get in this restaurant, which is our caviar.

1:15 We have our osetra and we also have our beluga.

1:17 Caviar is eggs from a sturgeon.

1:20 We use it in this restaurant as something to enhance our dishes.

1:23 I think it's a great seasoning as well.

1:26 As you can see visually, they do look quite different.

1:28 This is the beluga.

1:29 It has a gray tone to it and a little bit lighter color.

1:32 And then we have the osetra here, which has a little bit of a green tinge to it.

1:36 And you can definitely see the structure of the egg a lot better.

1:39 Beluga is you can't get it anywhere else

1:42 in the United States of America unless it's from Marky's,

1:45 who is the company that we are associated with.

1:47 It was nearly extinct.

1:49 We took it on and we nurtured that species and brought it back to life.

1:55 And because of that we earned the right to have them under our awning.

2:00 So that's something that we're extremely proud of.

2:01 The fun thing about the name of the restaurant

2:03 is that the scientific name for beluga is Huso Huso.

2:06 So kind of ties everything together.

2:09 You just want to always use a mother-of-pearl

2:10 spoon so you're not damaging any of those eggs.

2:13 So on a metal spoon, the sharpness of the edge can really break all

2:16 the eggs and make all of the inside ooze out.

2:18 The mother-of-pearl spoon is a lot softer and it

2:20 works more with the eggs than against the eggs.

2:23 What I like to do is put it on my hand

2:25 just so I can really inspect in the light each individual egg.

2:29 This seems to all the way down be pretty stunning.

2:32 And then the best part of the job is I get to taste beluga.

2:35 We do osetra here.

2:35 So this is the one that we have on the menu every day

2:38 and it can also be an add-on to extra dishes if the guest wishes.

2:42 Seems like a a really good batch today.

2:46 It's harder to pop them in my mouth

2:48 because they have way more structural integrity,

2:49 which is exactly why we use it on the menu just as our standard caviar.

2:54 It just holds everything up a lot better.

2:56 The flavor definitely on the saltier side this time.

2:59 So we will have to adjust a few

3:01 of our dishes just to make sure that everything's harmonious.

3:05 Now that all this is done, we can move on to the next task.

3:11 Now it's time of the day to do the tuna.

3:13 This is for our first course of the tasting menu.

3:15 It's served cold as a tartar with osetra caviar

3:18 and we also have a smoked sturgeon battarga on top.

3:22 Just to warm people up for their first course of the evening,

3:25 we also serve it with a tuna consommé, which is what I'm about to prep.

3:29 We have our bluefin tuna carcass here.

3:31 As a small restaurant,

3:33 we don't go through a whole tuna throughout the whole week.

3:35 Therefore we do get the piece of tuna and the bones separate.

3:38 It's pretty small, but it does the job for us and it's super super flavorful.

3:46 So the smaller we cut it up into pieces,

3:48 the more surface area we're going to get for the caramelization around

3:51 the outside and that equals more flavor for us in our consommé.

3:56 As you can see, I am ripping the towel,

3:57 but that's a hell of a lot cheaper than ruining my chopping board.

4:02 These towels we actually have a little bit of a a rule

4:05 with the chefs so that they have five towels a day,

4:07 which uh from where I come from, that's very very generous.

4:11 But it's just to make sure that they're more disciplined in their cleaning down

4:14 and a little bit more thoughtful in how

4:16 they get around the jobs with the towels.

4:18 If you need six, you've got to come ask

4:19 me very nicely and hope I'm in a good mood.

4:22 So it's going to go in the oven.

4:23 We're going to put a little bit of oil

4:24 on it to really encourage that matter of reaction.

4:26 Super hot oven about 450° F.

4:29 We are going to get the base ready,

4:31 so we're going to slice up some onions, some fennel.

4:33 So for the charred ones, we just cut those in half.

4:35 They will go straight on the flat top on some foil.

4:38 And these other ones we just slice super thin.

4:40 When you are cooking something so delicate as a fish, especially for a consommé,

4:44 you want everything really finely sliced so everything cooks super super quick.

4:48 That means that you're not going to get that stewed bland flavor.

4:51 You're going to get super light, fresh some tuna consommé.

4:54 I started cooking when I was 15 years old professionally.

4:59 I've been cooking my whole life.

5:01 I told my dad I wanted to be a chef when I was 4 years old

5:04 and that I wanted to own one restaurant

5:06 in London and one restaurant in New York City.

5:08 So we're getting there on the dream.

5:10 I love sports in general as a person.

5:13 I love the competitiveness,

5:16 the drive to succeed at something that may seem somewhat impossible.

5:20 And I'm not that athletic, so cooking is my thing and if you want

5:24 to be in the sports world of cooking, it's in Michelin.

5:27 So I'm just going to put a little bit of oil on here just so it doesn't stick.

5:30 If we don't do that, then you're going to get all

5:32 the great caramelization and flavor is going to stick onto the foil.

5:36 If you were to put it in a pan,

5:38 the heat would have to go from the stove through the pan to the onion.

5:42 It's not going to you're not going to get that dark dark caramelization.

5:46 So if you stick it straight on the flat top,

5:48 this is the called the bullseye of the stove.

5:50 This is where it gets the hottest.

5:51 So I'm just going to move it around until I get the perfect

5:53 color all the way around and that's really going to intensify that flavor.

5:57 There's something to really get that color there as you can see.

6:01 Right now, I'm just going to sweat down these onions.

6:04 Yeah, you got a towel for me?

6:07 Just gave up one of his towels?

6:09 Yeah.

6:11 That's the perks of being a head chef, everything at your disposal.

6:15 I'm going to hand this over to the meat

6:17 chef and he's going to finish it off for me.

6:19 So now it's time to do the cold part of the first course.

6:21 So that is our tuna tartar.

6:23 So we have our akami sakura.

6:25 This is the upper loin of the of the tuna itself.

6:28 This type of tuna is super super lean.

6:30 Going to cut it into quite a thick steak.

6:33 Our dish consists of a pounded little puck on top,

6:36 which is a really lovely presentation side.

6:38 And then we also have the diced at the bottom.

6:40 I lay these out.

6:42 So this is where we get our anger out.

6:45 Very gently start to pound it.

6:48 And when you're pounding,

6:49 you don't want to just press down cuz you're just hitting one part of the fish.

6:52 You want to pound and push out so you're really like encouraging it where to go.

6:59 So we're just going to fold it up like that.

7:03 Going to go put that in our freezer and let

7:05 that freeze up before we punch it into little pucks.

7:07 And now our pucks are ready to punch out, nice and frozen.

7:10 If you cut it too warm,

7:13 your ring punch is not going to go through and have a really lovely perfect cut.

7:17 You're going to have some little rips and tears,

7:18 which is obviously not Michelin worthy.

7:20 I'm going to take the trim here, mince this up so it has a different texture.

7:24 That gives an almost like a chew toy type of feel to the mouth,

7:28 like a fatty texture.

7:30 And then we're going to have the lean diced so

7:32 you have two different textures there when you're biting into it.

7:35 Next we're going to put in our finger limes.

7:37 So these, just like caviar, they pop in your mouth, obviously a lot more acidic.

7:40 Gives a really exciting feel to it.

7:43 It's like cuz every bite you're popping with different acidity levels.

7:47 These are pretty expensive,

7:49 so it's really important that we get every single piece out.

7:51 We get our tweezers and we just pick through.

7:57 Making sure we get every single seed out.

8:00 Go ahead, put that in.

8:02 We also add some chives, smoked and salt.

8:04 It has less of a harsh flavor.

8:06 Black garlic shoyu glaze.

8:08 I would describe it as a similar to an eel sauce.

8:12 As I've been seasoning this, I always keep in the back

8:14 of my mind that this is served with osetra caviar.

8:17 So that's where I need to really take in the fact that it

8:19 doesn't need too much salt right now because we're adding that salt layer then.

8:24 So this is all done.

8:25 Just before service, we start dressing them,

8:27 making them super pretty for the guests.

8:32 Now it's the time of the day that I can go into the office and do my invoices.

8:37 Just have to wade through the jungle.

8:39 Every day the invoices come in.

8:41 I check the prices, I check the quantity, then I just scan them on my phone.

8:47 And then I have to send those to two different places.

8:49 One is to our accounting team in Miami.

8:52 And then also I have to upload it to Toast so it

8:55 can go on my inventory so my uh my food cost is great.

8:59 Also the invoices, the DOH side of things, so that's the Department of Health.

9:03 So we're getting up to 1 year of opening

9:05 this restaurant and we haven't had an inspection yet, so any day it can happen.

9:10 So I'm just going to go to the fridge and the freezer right now,

9:13 just have a look around the kitchen

9:14 as well just to make sure everything's in tip-top.

9:18 What I'm looking for is all of the seafood at the bottom,

9:22 any raw proteins at the bottom as well.

9:24 And then we build it up going from ready-to-eat at the top.

9:28 For example, if I was to move this chicken up next to our English muffins here,

9:33 that would be a huge no-no.

9:34 That would be at least 10 points.

9:36 If you fail an inspection, that is pretty much closed down at the restaurant.

9:41 Just to make sure that I am set myself up for success,

9:45 we do hire someone to come in who is an old inspector.

9:48 She has 20 years experience.

9:50 She comes in, she tells me everything I'm doing wrong.

9:52 She comes back the next month, she tells me everything I'm still doing wrong.

9:55 And then the the goal is after 2-3 months that we're perfect, ready to go.

10:00 My team are pretty well rehearsed in how I like things,

10:02 so we're looking great in here.

10:04 And if we have an inspection, I feel pretty confident about it.

10:10 Now we're going to prep the beef on croup.

10:12 This beef is a teres major cut, so it's known as the petite fillet.

10:16 So there is two pieces in the whole cow,

10:18 which makes it a little bit more desirable to have.

10:20 This is the final savory course before you head into the desserts.

10:24 With it being a beef on croup, it's quite decadent.

10:26 It's also served with a sauce perigueux, which is a truffle sauce.

10:30 We are going to wrap the wagyu in the pancetta.

10:33 Even though it will be wrapped in pastry and no one will see it,

10:37 it's important for us to keep the techniques of everything looking nice.

10:42 So what I am doing is making sure

10:45 that this meat side here is always on the same part,

10:49 because that's going to be my outside.

10:50 So when now when I roll that, it's going

10:52 to be the most beautiful layering on the other side.

10:56 How we encourage the pancetta to stick to the wagyu is that we use a GS,

11:01 which is the chef's term for meat glue.

11:04 Just a very light sprinkle just encourages

11:06 it to make sure everything sticks together.

11:08 Really important that we wrap it super

11:09 tight just to encourage the sticking even more.

11:12 It's easier when you get another piece of cling film to help with the friction.

11:15 And we just roll it and roll it until it's in a perfect cylinder.

11:20 A pet peeve of mine is when people not cutting the little tails off.

11:24 It upsets me immensely.

11:25 We just need to give it some time for the glue to activate.

11:28 In that time we're going to get the pastry ready.

11:30 So we egg wash the inside to make sure that everything

11:32 is one whole structure and nothing's peeling away from each other.

11:36 Our meat that's completely stuck together here.

11:38 So you're going to put that in the pastry.

11:40 And we roll it around until the seams they meet there.

11:43 We egg wash it first.

11:44 We let the the whole of the egg wash dry.

11:46 Whilst we're doing that, we do all of our braids.

11:48 Every single guest gets a braid on each of their portions.

11:52 It's quite labor intensive, but it's pretty striking when it's on the plate,

11:55 so it's definitely worth it.

11:56 Some of the male chefs seem to have a bit of a problem with this task,

11:59 but the female chefs seem to smash it out.

12:01 This is honestly one of my favorite tasks that I've been given in this kitchen.

12:05 A lot of other people can't do it and I

12:07 like to do stuff that other people can't do.

12:09 It's a little bit different to braiding hair.

12:10 You've got to be a little bit more careful with it,

12:13 obviously cuz it rips, but just remaining super tight with the braid itself.

12:18 Since they could unravel in the oven,

12:19 we like to just give them a little press down

12:21 at the end just to make it a little bit more secure.

12:24 Another thing that makes it look a lot nicer is making sure

12:27 that the the grain of the braid is coming the same way every single time.

12:33 So that looks like a pretty great one.

12:35 So we're going to go put that in the freezer

12:36 to firm up before we put it in the oven.

12:41 Uh so now it's the time of the day where I prep the scallops now.

12:44 So these are live in shell scallops.

12:46 This is one of my favorite jobs to do.

12:48 Pretty much throughout my career wherever I go,

12:49 I try and make it my responsibility.

12:52 And in past restaurants where I've worked,

12:53 it's definitely been a bit of a gateway to the more senior members of the team

12:57 of racing who can do it fastest and the most precise and the best.

13:01 We have a flat side of the shell and we have a rounded side.

13:05 The flat side is where I want to keep my knife against.

13:08 That's why I use a flexi knife.

13:09 I'll flex it against there and I'll push down to try and scrape everything out.

13:13 This is what we call the skirt and then we have the row underneath.

13:16 The row is edible.

13:17 We're going to keep it for a later date to use it,

13:20 dry it out and make some powder with it.

13:21 You flip the skirt around.

13:23 You just tease the scallop out with your knife.

13:28 Look it out.

13:28 So this dish is one of the guest favorites at the moment.

13:32 It's a celebration of sunchokes.

13:34 We serve it with a salt baked sunchoke puree.

13:37 We also have pickled and roasted sunchokes.

13:40 And we make our own sunchoke caramel with that.

13:42 So that's something that is really special

13:44 because I learned it through a mistake.

13:46 I over reduced the consommé one day and I made caramel and I decided to keep

13:50 that in my repertoire and try and use it and it's made it onto the menu today.

13:54 When we're packing away scallops, there's a few things to check for.

13:58 Naturally, there is a muscle on the left hand side of the scallop itself.

14:02 As you can see here, we have a flat side to a rounder side.

14:04 We like to put the flat side on the side of the container.

14:08 And then you just match that.

14:10 The flat side on the left.

14:12 Sorry, chef.

14:12 Can I get a taste?

14:13 Yeah.

14:17 Uh you need more salt.

14:18 We.

14:19 I feel like I'm constantly getting spoon-fed all day,

14:22 which is part of the job and not a not a bad part of the job,

14:25 especially with food like this.

14:26 But one of my roles is to taste every

14:28 single thing that is prepped throughout the whole day.

14:30 I make sure it's up to the standard.

14:32 If as long as we go left to left every single time,

14:34 when we they sit up in the fridge, they're going to keep their structure.

14:38 And then that's going to help when we're pan

14:39 searing that they're not going to fall on themselves

14:42 and we're just going to get an immaculate sear

14:44 on the face side rather than also down here.

14:47 I'm going to just finish this up and pack them away.

14:52 We got 30 minutes before service,

14:53 so we're just going to do some tastes right now.

14:55 So I do the tastes just it's my last chance to be able

14:58 to taste what the guest is tasting and I'm the the last line of defense.

15:03 So if there's something wrong right now,

15:05 we fix it straight away and make sure the guest doesn't have to experience that.

15:08 Uh so here we have the first course, the one that we made together earlier.

15:12 So this is the tuna.

15:13 Just going to try it with the bavois.

15:17 So far so good.

15:19 So here we have our beef sauce.

15:20 This is our truffle perigueux sauce.

15:22 Really beautiful chopped up truffles in there.

15:25 You need sherry vinegar in there and some butter.

15:27 A little sherry vinegar.

15:28 Yeah.

15:29 It's just a little bit like flat.

15:31 For sure.

15:31 And there's not a lot of body feel.

15:33 Perfect.

15:36 That's way better.

15:37 So just getting ready for service.

15:38 This is my expo station, so this is where I stand pretty much 99%

15:43 of service unless I'm going to check other sections.

15:45 I have eyes everywhere.

15:46 It's a fantastic place to have a 360 of the kitchen.

15:49 I can look at the garnish, the meat section,

15:51 the pastry and the garde manger all at the same time.

15:53 Just spot things before they go too wrong.

15:56 I get my tickets through here and then I have

15:58 this sheet that is here every single day and that just

16:00 tells me the times people are coming in, any of their allergies

16:03 and then any guest notes if they've been already before,

16:05 when they came and then if there was any anything that happened

16:09 that was something that I need to know from their last visit.

16:14 CHECK ON FOUR TOP.

16:16 WAIT.

16:16 HAVE A GOOD SERVICE.

16:17 WAIT.

16:18 HOW MANY?

16:18 SEVEN.

16:20 THAT MEANS IT'S TIME for you to go.