“Every second that I am breathing inside of this restaurant, I need to come up with new dishes.” Bon Appétit spends a day on the line with chef Kane William Sorrells, Chef of Research and Development at Ilis in NYC–the new brainchild of Noma co-founder, Mads Refslund.
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00:00 Every second that I am breathing inside of this restaurant,
00:03 I need to come up with new dishes.
00:06 I'm the chef for research and development.
00:08 In order to be able to change the menu
00:09 as frequently as we do,
00:11 we need to have one person whose job it is
00:12 to find these things to create preservation, fermentation.
00:17 My typical day starts at buying produce
00:19 from the farmer's market and creating a dish by 5 p.m.
00:23 Chef Mads Resselin is the owner
00:25 and he was one of the original chefs
00:27 who founded Noma in Copenhagen.
00:29 So the dishes we create are expected to be perfect
00:32 and the service level has to be perfect.
00:34 Yo, what's up guys?
00:39 My name's Kane.
00:40 I'm the chef of research and development at Illes
00:42 here at Union Square Farmer's Market.
00:44 It's the bloodline of the restaurant.
00:46 It's how we get everything to be inspired.
00:48 All the flavor starts here.
00:50 Last night, we decided we wanna change a bunch of stuff.
00:52 So we need to come up with some stuff
00:53 before service day around 5 p.m.
00:55 So let's hit it.
00:56 We gotta go get all these vegetables.
00:57 Time's ticking.
00:58 [laughs]
01:00 Halal pastures, they're an incredible source for us.
01:03 They grow in the black soil,
01:04 so a lot of their root vegetables,
01:06 things that have higher sulfur contents,
01:08 very spicy, rooty things, are very great for them.
01:11 What up, Willie?
01:12 - Morning.
01:12 - How's it going?
01:13 Willie is a very talented cook at the restaurant.
01:16 He kinda takes care of the daily grind
01:18 of things we already have established.
01:20 I would say that 80% of what we're getting
01:23 is gonna be for dishes that already exist
01:25 and then the other 20% are things
01:26 that are working that are new.
01:28 We have an idea, so I need to pick something
01:31 that can fall into that idea
01:33 that I've already kind of started in my head.
01:35 Or Mads, specifically, has started in his head.
01:38 He was the chef who started NOMO.
01:39 To me, he's the most creative chef in the world.
01:41 He can see the sunchoke a million times,
01:43 but he sees it today,
01:44 and it's like the first time he's looked at it,
01:45 and he starts to conceptualize
01:46 and just break things down in his head visually.
01:49 Everything is always going to change just based on today.
01:51 So this is something that is gonna change.
01:53 Now I'm already thinking about it.
01:55 Let's grab some carrots, chef.
01:57 We're changing the snacks for the short menu,
01:59 and this is what I'm gonna be working on today.
02:00 These vegetables are gonna be a representation
02:02 of things that are now.
02:03 It's about 14 or 15 different preparations.
02:05 Some of them are inspired by today.
02:07 Some of them started a year ago.
02:09 We do a lot of fermentation.
02:10 It's a big part of my job as a research
02:12 and development chef to be able to preserve these things.
02:14 We're done shopping here at Halal Pastures.
02:16 - Thank you for stopping by.
02:17 - Yeah, no worries, thank you.
02:18 And we're gonna move on to Norwich Farms.
02:21 They're doing this on a scientific level.
02:23 Their ability to actually produce new seeds and new flavor,
02:26 it's where we can meet, right?
02:28 It's where we see eye to eye.
02:29 What is this?
02:30 This is--
02:31 - It's called maraschi.
02:32 - So beautiful.
02:33 - It's a cauliflower.
02:34 It's a Japanese variety, so it tends to be very sweet.
02:38 - These are so beautiful.
02:39 Everything about these we need.
02:41 We will grab some peppers.
02:42 We're gonna grab some aji dulces, which are sweet,
02:44 but having a very tropical flavor.
02:46 Norwich for me grows the best peppers.
02:48 I've always naturally been curious
02:52 about what goes on in the farming side of things.
02:54 This is where it always starts,
02:55 and it will end with me as far as cooking goes.
02:58 It's the single most important thing for me
02:59 as an R&D chef for Ilus.
03:01 So today we have about 150 pounds of stuff.
03:04 It's very much a light haul for us.
03:06 Should probably spend about $400 to $500 in produce
03:09 outside of the pumpkin seeds.
03:11 We're going back to the restaurant, guys.
03:13 We gotta start pruning all this stuff up.
03:14 We got dishes to make by 5 p.m.
03:16 We gotta go!
03:17 (upbeat music)
03:21 (upbeat music)
03:23 I'm gonna bring you guys into the kitchen.
03:25 We're gonna kind of disperse these vegetables
03:27 to some of my friends
03:29 who will be joining us in the kitchen soon.
03:31 When you come into Ilus,
03:32 you guys are dining inside the kitchen.
03:33 You're not dining inside of a restaurant.
03:35 Our cooks are servers.
03:36 Our servers are cooks,
03:37 and just offer a different style of dining
03:40 and bringing the cooks to the table.
03:41 So I'm taking all this stuff out.
03:43 We get a good idea of what needs to get done for today.
03:47 I'm gonna get changed, and then we're gonna come down here
03:48 and start cooking over the fire,
03:50 getting some stuff prepared for tonight.
03:52 You guys ready to run?
03:54 You got your running shoes on?
03:55 I'm not holding back now.
03:56 I gotta cook.
03:57 I haven't been cooking.
03:58 Ready?
03:59 Let's go.
04:00 We're gonna take these carrots.
04:00 We're gonna dehydrate over the fire.
04:02 We use about three different types of wood here.
04:04 Just a mixture of different fruit woods
04:06 that grow along the Hudson.
04:08 So, walnut, oak, different types of cherries and apples,
04:12 all forged trees that are actually dying,
04:14 so we're not killing any trees.
04:16 It creates an interesting element for cooking
04:18 'cause the woods all burn differently.
04:20 We're gonna dip them in the sauce that we made.
04:21 The sauce is gonna be made from a vinegar from parsnips.
04:24 It's kind of white counterpart, right?
04:26 These are overwintered parsnips from last year we juiced,
04:29 and then we made alcohol of them.
04:30 From that alcohol, we turn into a vinegar.
04:32 So we're just gonna dip them, hang them,
04:34 dip them, hang them, take them over the fire.
04:36 It's gonna highlight the sweetness
04:37 by using some honey in there.
04:40 So beautiful to be able to have this
04:42 as an element for us to prepare food.
04:44 Some things like, okay,
04:45 this is normally something we throw away.
04:46 We just hang it and then just dry it above the fire,
04:48 make a powder, make a vinegar, make an oil, anything.
04:51 It just helps expand our flavor vocabulary,
04:54 continuing to compound flavors into it.
04:56 It is always our priority to constantly evolve
04:59 and paying attention to things
05:01 throughout its micro seasons, right?
05:03 Restaurants thrive on consistency,
05:04 but for us, the constant change
05:06 is just better for Matt's and I to create.
05:08 He told me one day that I like to salt things,
05:10 blend them, and ferment them, and that's what I'm good at.
05:12 So that's what we're gonna do now.
05:16 We're gonna go ahead and get these sunchokes processed.
05:19 Sunchokes, super sweet, will tend really, really well
05:22 to the fermentation process of using koji.
05:25 Koji's an active fungus that you use
05:27 to break down starches and proteins into flavor, umami.
05:31 Sunchokes are full of starch, full of sugar,
05:34 so it's gonna lend to a very beautiful miso in the end.
05:37 So it's a vessel for us to maintain certain seasons
05:40 that might not be as long as we want them to be.
05:42 This is a huge part of my role
05:44 as the chef of research and development
05:45 because our larder is what defines the flavor
05:48 here at the restaurant.
05:49 These guys are gonna get smoked until they're tender,
05:51 and then we're going to put them through a meat grinder,
05:53 mix them with our koji, put them at a certain temperature,
05:56 and just forget that they're there
05:57 'cause I'm really impatient.
05:59 Right now, I'm just stoking the fire.
06:04 We want, like, a nice smoking temperature.
06:06 I grew up in Texas, the land of barbecue,
06:08 and I think barbecue can extend beyond meat,
06:11 but smoking is such a beautiful tool.
06:14 We like to indirectly cook things over the heat,
06:15 not just grill them.
06:17 The idea is for us to kind of dehydrate them,
06:19 pull some of the sugars out,
06:20 and then we can incorporate more water later.
06:22 And we want to keep this nice and low and slow,
06:23 so I'm gonna close this guy.
06:24 We want it to smoke at about 140 Celsius, 150 Celsius,
06:28 until the sunchokes are nice.
06:30 I'm gonna start some grits.
06:31 It's gonna be an added level of starch and protein
06:34 for our miso.
06:35 We have a spice wall here.
06:36 It's a representation of past, present, and future works,
06:39 a beautiful way to display it, get inspired,
06:41 and just see what we have in house.
06:43 It's a flavor library. Exactly, exactly.
06:45 These are pencil grits coming from Anson Mills.
06:47 All of our grains that we actually make the koji with,
06:50 we inoculate on Anson Mills grains.
06:53 So while we're getting these sunchokes ready,
06:55 I'm gonna get these fermentations from downstairs.
06:57 These are all our vinegars that we're taking off today.
07:00 It's all been fermenting for a very long time.
07:03 Alcohol is what vinegar is made from.
07:05 So we started with a yeast.
07:06 Takes about a month in order for us
07:09 to produce, like, sufficient enough alcohol.
07:11 And we'll add sugar.
07:12 We'll taste things. About the 6 to 8-wheat mark,
07:15 the natural yeast will dissolve all the alcohol
07:17 and produce acid, and that's what vinegar is.
07:19 This one is a vinegar made from berries and roses.
07:22 This is a vinegar that we made from wild cherries
07:26 that I foraged from Maine.
07:28 And then this last one is from feral apples.
07:30 So I'm just tasting for acidity right now,
07:32 making sure that all the alcohol is metabolized.
07:35 Should be acidic and not alcoholic, right?
07:41 These all need more sugar,
07:42 and it just needs to go for a little bit longer.
07:44 So this is sugar from Japan.
07:46 The unrefined sugar just has a higher level
07:49 of, like, umami and earthiness to it.
07:53 The sugar will help feed the yeast,
07:54 and it will produce a higher level of acidity.
07:59 This one is for sure done.
08:01 This is the fig vinegar.
08:01 We took figs, we pectinized them,
08:04 and then added Okinawa brown sugar to it.
08:06 So we're gonna strain this one off,
08:07 and then let's see if we can use it
08:09 for something for service tonight.
08:10 What's coming out right now, it's called a scoby.
08:13 That scoby is actually where the yeast lives
08:15 whenever it's inside of the vinegar.
08:17 I took a red wine vinegar scoby
08:19 that I've had for about 10 years,
08:20 and I used that as the mother for this one.
08:22 All of these, like, starters and cultures you have,
08:25 the more you use them,
08:26 the more you're actually gonna have these deeper flavors.
08:28 So it's really fun to be able to keep something alive
08:30 for 10, 15 years.
08:32 It's like a sourdough starter,
08:33 but with vinegars and kojis.
08:34 This is actually a garum that we made from wild boar.
08:38 Garum is the oldest way of making fish sauce.
08:42 In Rome, they would take all the fish from the boats,
08:45 and then they would salt them,
08:46 whole guts, everything in there,
08:48 and those enzymes from the guts
08:49 would help break down the fish
08:51 and produce this very umami-like sauce.
08:54 It's great.
08:57 Tastes like Parmesan, plums, and smoked meat.
09:01 So this is the man, the legend, Mads Refslins.
09:05 Chef, I don't know what to say about you.
09:07 You're one of the best people I've ever met in my entire life.
09:09 -I think the same about you.
09:10 [ Laughter ]
09:12 -I [bleep] love this guy so much.
09:14 We get in the kitchen, and we just...
09:15 -Big brother from around the world.
09:16 Very fast.
09:17 -So this is the actual roasted, like, garum garum.
09:20 It needs to get strained.
09:21 And this is the actual miso product.
09:26 -I love it.
09:29 -Big vinegar.
09:32 -Chef, do you get too bad offers?
09:35 [ Laughter ]
09:37 -It's every single day.
09:39 -All right, this is gonna come off.
09:40 We're gonna go strain this in the back.
09:41 I'm gonna give it to my boy, Nate.
09:43 So this is made from bison,
09:45 so we're gonna do a bison tartare
09:46 with the garum sauce that we produced.
09:48 We just decided right now.
09:49 So that's how fast the menu can change.
09:52 We're gonna take the liquid,
09:53 and that becomes an actual true, like, fish-sauce-style liquid.
09:57 Press the paste through a wine press
09:59 to get as much liquid extracted out of it as possible.
10:01 And then all of the paste is also edible,
10:03 so we're not gonna throw anything away.
10:05 All right, so we're gonna start grinding
10:06 some of our components for the miso-making process.
10:09 Take these guys out.
10:11 So we have the sunchokes. They've been smoking.
10:13 We have grits nicely cooked,
10:16 and it's gonna bind everything together.
10:17 Get this broken down so it actually mixes for the miso.
10:21 Vegetable-based misos like this,
10:22 they take a little bit more time.
10:23 There's less enzymatic properties to it.
10:25 So we're gonna let this age for about 8 to 12 months,
10:28 probably right around when the sunchoke flours become a thing.
10:32 Planning out a dish for next year, basically.
10:34 We popped some corn earlier.
10:35 This is gonna go into our miso.
10:37 It's just gonna give it, like, another layer of complexity.
10:39 All the popcorn is adding is flavor to it.
10:42 I don't know. This is something I decided this morning.
10:44 I snuck off and bought some popcorn.
10:46 It's kind of funny to think about, like,
10:47 something dried being fresh,
10:49 but dried corn right now is really at its peak,
10:52 and we'll see what the flavor does.
10:53 That's the fun thing about R&D-ing is, like,
10:55 it doesn't always have to be so exact.
10:57 We're gonna hit it with some koji.
11:00 This is salt.
11:01 We're gonna pack this in a little bit at a time.
11:03 Packing it super, super tight.
11:05 Try to prevent any air pockets in there,
11:07 and that's gonna prevent it from spoiling.
11:09 We're gonna put a layer of salt on this,
11:10 throw some plastic on it, put a weight on it,
11:11 and it's gonna go into our fermentation area.
11:14 So it's 2 p.m.
11:15 We're gonna get some of our lighter pickles,
11:17 vegetables ready.
11:20 It would be a shame for us to, like,
11:21 get these really beautiful, like, spicy radishes
11:24 and not try to highlight some of its
11:26 just really fresh qualities.
11:28 We're gonna use an apple vinegar that I took off yesterday,
11:31 probably with, like, ginger and sake leaves,
11:33 something, like, light and floral.
11:34 I love this idea of, like, sheeting vegetables,
11:36 so you're eating, like, fruit leather almost.
11:39 This is really weird. Oh, I see.
11:41 This is kind of interesting.
11:43 Look at that.
11:44 R&D-ing always came about because of my love
11:47 for the creative side of this,
11:49 but I know that this was the job that I was born to do.
11:52 I've always wanted to be a chef,
11:54 always wanted -- never anything else.
11:56 First time I worked a 14-hour shift in a kitchen,
11:59 I was 13 years old.
12:00 I would skip class, and I would go cook.
12:02 I'm gonna show Mads this and see what he thinks about it.
12:04 This is one of the settings for the roller.
12:06 See that?
12:07 [ Laughs ]
12:09 -Yeah, I love it.
12:10 -Noma itself was such an impactful restaurant on me.
12:14 I gave up everything to just follow Mads
12:15 for the past couple years and moved my life to Mexico,
12:19 moved my life to here, traveled with him,
12:21 and just did whatever I could
12:22 to just understand this man's brain.
12:25 -It's kind of -- It's kind of stupid.
12:27 -Is it stupid? [ Laughs ]
12:29 I like the idea of, like, cooking it out like that.
12:32 Almost. -Just put it in water.
12:33 Just put it in water to start with.
12:34 -The cold water will probably change the texture
12:36 and see if we change our mind about it.
12:38 The way that I learned from Mads is, like,
12:40 you have to keep an open mind.
12:41 If you try to overthink things, you lose that flow
12:44 of what the possibility could be.
12:46 It's about 215 right now.
12:48 We need to get moving on what we need for service tonight.
12:52 This is some sriracha that just got flown in from Maine.
12:55 These are similar to the ones
12:57 that you're gonna see in Hokkaido.
13:00 So, very small. They're buffoon.
13:02 Very beautiful. I love sriracha.
13:04 Like, I have a tattoo of it on my hand.
13:06 Like, it's one of my favorite things in the world.
13:08 We always imagine this restaurant
13:09 being almost like an extension of the market.
13:11 So, this is gonna be part of our snacks
13:13 that we have these carts go around.
13:14 We present some options for them to add on
13:17 to their meal at the beginning
13:19 as a way for us to kind of bring the market to them.
13:21 I'm gonna go ahead and take this off,
13:23 pass it to the boys in the back.
13:24 They're gonna get it all brined in seawater
13:26 so it's ready for service.
13:28 Mario cart.
13:30 Chef, if you finish these up, get them all like this.
13:34 And then Nate knows how to get them all brined,
13:36 but we just need to take the tongues out.
13:37 -Nice. I know.
13:39 -We're gonna go into a meeting and talk about tonight.
13:43 -Okay, very fast.
13:44 Seven course menu.
13:46 There's some changes to the menu.
13:47 -It's uni.
13:48 We're not doing base scallops tonight.
13:50 -It was too noisy yesterday.
13:52 That's why I walked around to you guys
13:53 and said, "Make the noise."
13:54 Do you need a hammer?
13:55 Do you need a drum set?
13:57 Put it out.
13:58 If you join in, you can make a lot of noise,
14:00 but we are in a completely open kitchen.
14:02 It's okay people feeling they're part of the kitchen.
14:04 That's a part of the show.
14:05 Really be careful.
14:07 We do have an event on Sunday.
14:09 It will be a busy, busy, busy two days.
14:12 Let's have one house.
14:14 -One house. -One house.
14:16 -Oh, my God. On camera, too.
14:18 Come on, guys.
14:19 ♪♪
14:26 -The garum that we pulled off this morning
14:28 is going to be going into a new set for our menu tonight.
14:31 In the sauce, I also mixed some of the fig vinegar.
14:34 So this is the two sauces
14:35 that we actually said were completely done.
14:37 This is bison that we get from a ranch.
14:40 These bisons that just kind of roamed on their land
14:42 for a long time.
14:43 This tartare is a reflection of the actual meat
14:47 that we turned into the garum itself.
14:49 The sauce will actually be a paste of these crickets
14:52 and dried currant leaves.
14:54 Burned some onions in there.
14:55 We fermented some garlic.
14:56 This is going to be kind of the base of the flavor.
14:59 Mads conceptualized this idea
15:00 of kind of plating over the top of this lid,
15:04 thinking about a beautiful way for us
15:06 to kind of present something in a very unique way.
15:10 And then we mix it into a sauce
15:11 that we made from some egg yolks.
15:12 So kind of classic, like, tartare flavors going on here.
15:15 Right? So this is just going to kind of give us a base
15:18 for these radishes that we got from a moon farm
15:20 to kind of stick.
15:21 Super spicy are going to go really,
15:23 really well with the tartare.
15:25 The idea is that these radishes become a way for you
15:27 to actually pick up the meat
15:29 and then dip it into the sauce.
15:31 These capers are from last year.
15:32 We forged a bunch of blueberries from New Jersey
15:35 in the Pine Barrens,
15:36 and this is just going to add to some acidity.
15:39 It's kind of like one of our favorite ways
15:40 to preserve berries, salt them in their unripe stage.
15:43 This is the bison heart here in smoke,
15:45 like katsuobushi, like bonito.
15:47 We're just going to shave that over the top of it.
15:50 It's going to give it like a smoky,
15:51 kind of salty, dried meat flavor.
15:54 This goes like this.
15:56 And then now Chef says yes or no,
15:58 and we taste it, and we see if we're happy with the flavor,
16:01 the idea of the actual dish.
16:03 -9 out of 10 times, I would say no.
16:04 [ Laughter ]
16:07 So the idea with this dish is you eat it with your hands.
16:11 And I don't know if anyone here have been hunting before,
16:13 but it's a tradition that if you have your first kill,
16:17 you should take a bite of a raw heart,
16:20 carving out the heart, and you do it with your hands.
16:22 So I like this kind of raw meat with raw hands.
16:27 You just dip it like this.
16:31 -Got the fried shallots.
16:33 -You need that, yeah? -Yeah.
16:35 Crispy shallots. -That's good?
16:36 -Yeah.
16:38 -It's very powerful. -Too powerful?
16:41 -It's too much sauce here. -Yeah?
16:43 Put less sauce?
16:45 -This is too much. Too big. -Okay.
16:47 -I'll put a little bit less on this. -Okay.
16:50 There it is. It's smoking.
16:52 Tastes delicious. It's just too much.
16:53 You're getting 12 courses. This is a lot.
16:55 So we'll play one more up, try it again.
16:57 We always just keep trying and trying and trying and trying
16:59 until it's perfect.
17:01 We do use very beautiful products here.
17:03 So when we price things out,
17:04 there is a certain level of food cost
17:07 that is probably more than your average restaurant.
17:10 Biggest impact of us being able to combat that
17:12 is utilizing the scraps and, like, you know,
17:14 nothing goes to waste. We don't throw anything away.
17:17 So, you know, the food cost for us balances itself out.
17:22 -So this is perfect now.
17:23 It's approved and it's good to go.
17:25 -These are the carrots that we saw hanging by the fire
17:27 earlier today. Really happy with them.
17:30 They're still raw, which is the most important part.
17:33 Taking the raw flavor, but they're still crunchy.
17:35 So these carrots are gonna be served with the snacks.
17:37 Accompany some of our vegetables
17:39 that we have fresh from the market this morning.
17:40 So we took the peppers from Norwich
17:42 and then we pickled them.
17:44 This is the leaves from the cabbage
17:46 that we bought this morning from Norwich.
17:48 And then last year, it's turned into a white kimchi.
17:51 The idea is that we're just making a very beautiful garden
17:54 with all of these vegetables
17:55 that we got from the market this morning.
17:57 This is a mixture of minimalism and deep technique.
18:01 We're gonna serve it with a sauce
18:02 that we make from last year's citrus.
18:04 It's like creamy vinaigrette and salted beech plum
18:07 and shiso paste.
18:08 This is from the pumpkin seeds that we saw earlier today.
18:11 And it's gonna be going inside this pumpkin seed urchin dish.
18:13 We want to try out.
18:14 They took all of the inside out of this pumpkin,
18:17 so we completely cleared it out.
18:19 It's gonna be paired with mandarin,
18:20 so I'm just gonna cut some fresh mandarin.
18:21 I think pumpkin and uni is a really classic flavor
18:25 combination in my mind.
18:27 So we have some salted egg yolks, which we've just cured,
18:32 and some soy and mirin, some marigold flowers.
18:36 Pairs really well with mandarin.
18:38 This is some dulse.
18:39 The dulse is a very beautiful, delicate seaweed.
18:44 This is pumpkin broth.
18:48 And this is the oil.
18:52 I'm gonna see if Mads is okay with this.
18:54 This same pumpkin seed, just toasted
19:01 and deglazed with a little bit of fish sauce
19:03 to give him a salty...
19:04 Oh, this is really nice, huh?
19:06 -It's good. -Yeah?
19:08 -Mm-hmm. -Okay.
19:10 Happy with it.
19:12 All right.
19:13 We got the menu sorted out right before we serve it.
19:16 It's kind of classic, our style, right?
19:18 All of the dreams that we had in our head were accomplished.
19:22 I think even more so, there's things in the back of my mind
19:25 that I'm already working on for next week.
19:27 I can't wait for our guests to come in and try it themselves.
19:30 Thank you so much for following me,
19:31 and now you know what it's like to be
19:32 the chef of research and development
19:34 for Mads Refsland at ILLIS.
19:36 Peace.
19:37 (upbeat music)
19:40 (dramatic music)