- Hey guys.
My name is Michael Chernow,
chef and restauranteur
and this is The Breakdown.
[bouncy synth music]
My background in the restaurant industry
goes deep.
I've worked in restaurants
my whole life, pretty much.
I've worked every single
position in the restaurant;
front of house, back of house,
there's really nothing I have not done.
Food hospitality is part of my DNA.
[air whooshing]
- Today we will begin by
learning to boil eggs.
- Let's talk about this for a second.
So, I remember very clearly,
first couple days in culinary school.
Now, I went to the French
Culinary Institute,
and it was no-joke school.
Just hearing that, just like the lesson,
from someone who's insanely
passionate about cooking
that's French, it's like
burned into your brain.
- But you are not an advanced cook.
- But I do know how to boil an egg.
- So, let's pause right here.
So, this is another thing that's sort of
happened over time.
So many people are going
to culinary school today.
And they think that when they
graduate culinary school,
they're a chef!
Most people actually, I guarantee you,
I mean maybe some of you
guys know how to boil an egg,
but if I said, "Hey, soft-boil me an egg,"
I would argue that none of
you would be able to do it.
Boiling an egg properly is definitely
a skill set that you must learn.
[knives chopping]
- [clears throat] Madame,
[speaking in foreign language].
- This is another great thing
that I think is super-duper important
for people to know.
If you don't sharpen
your knives regularly,
you run a much higher risk
of cutting yourself,
because you want your knife
to be able to go through
something very quickly.
And that's something
that they'll teach you
in culinary school intensely.
There's also a bunch of people
that don't go to culinary school,
that just work in the field,
and learn the hard way.
And most people in a kitchen
will actually wait for you to cut yourself
to show you how to properly
sharpen your knives.
It's not important to
cut an onion quickly.
When you understand how to cut something,
and typically, even
some of these guys here
are running it a little close,
you want the blade of the knife
to be running on this part of your finger.
They're holding it like this.
So if you hold it like this,
and you're not really good,
boom, you run the risk
of just cutting the
tip of your finger off.
As the onion gets smaller,
you need to hold it like
this to hold it in place,
but I typically cut like this.
So, there's no chance of me
cutting the tips of my fingers.
I bend these fingers back.
But, you want every single piece
to be exactly the same size.
It's super-duper important,
especially in a fine dining establishment,
or you get the shit kicked
out of you. [laughs]
[knife chopping]
I think in culinary school,
if you had that many
onions on your station,
you'd get assassinated.
[laughs] They wouldn't
allow for that to happen.
If you have three onions,
they're in a bowl.
If you cut those onions in half,
those halfed onions are in a bowl.
The only thing that's
on your cutting board
is the onion that you're cutting,
and the pieces that you've already cut.
Everything is super
organized, super clean.
I actually learned that
stuff at culinary school.
You know, that's the stuff that
really helps you to be successful
as a cook or a chef.
Culinary school today is
a little bit different,
there's a lot more people.
But I would say, in terms of like,
the demeanor of the
chefs and the teachers,
it's very similar.
There's no nonsense.
And this guy was very polite with her.
Chef's hat, for sure,
that's what the chef instructors wore
at culinary school.
That is accurate.
He's wearing a lab coat,
most chef's coats are double-breasted.
Like the guy on the left here,
that looks like a typical chef's coat.
The guy, his chef's coat,
looks like maybe just a
super old-school chef's coat.
Also, just to be real,
you would never ever be allowed
to be in a kitchen in culinary school
without a hat on.
That's like, the biggest
no-no of all time.
Ever.
Like, you get a hair in your food,
and it's just game over.
All right, next up: Cook Up a Storm.
[remote clicking]
[intense orchestral music]
Woo!
So basically what that thing does
is it offers a little bit of sharpening,
but ultimately, it makes the blade
super straight.
When you're cutting things,
the blade gets these little nicks in them,
and ultimately those nicks become dull.
And so, what this is doing is
it's just sharpening the blade.
[intense orchestral music]
Filleting a fish is not easy.
A knife that you use to
fillet a big fish like that
is very heavy.
The blade itself is very, very heavy,
so it can lay down on the bones
and actually cut through,
with weight down on the
bones so it doesn't lift up.
So, a super sharp,
heavy, heavy, heavy knife
is typically what the Japanese use
for cutting knives, for filleting knives.
But when he's running his
finger across the salmon,
he's actually looking for pin bones,
and those bones are a pain in the ass.
You see that bone that just popped up?
Inexperienced people that
are working with fish
don't know that those bones exist
because they're not right
there in front of you.
They actually sit just below the flesh.
But they're short, like this long,
and they're incredibly
hard, for the most part.
All fish have them, but in
a bigger fish they're hard.
And if you don't pull those out,
big trouble.
Like, bone in the gum trouble.
Not good.
And he's probably going
to pull out a tweezer
and start, oh there he goes.
Wow look at that.
I don't know, I've never seen anybody
pull pin bones out like that,
they're actually pretty hard to pull out,
and they don't just dip out like that.
So maybe that guy's got
some serious superhuman talents.
You know, I've actually never seen
a cross-cutting technique like that,
and done the way he did it,
so, it looks pretty incredible though,
I've got to say.
Like, that dude has got some swagger.
There's no doubt.
I mean, that's awesome. [laughs]
It's awesome.
Let's fast forward to the kitchen.
[intense orchestral music]
So he's looks like he's working
with some Wagyu beef there.
Wagyu is incredibly fatty, marbled meat.
It originated in Japan,
this Wagyu beef technique.
They massage the cows,
they feed the cows Guinness beer,
the cows are treated
literally like royalty.
And if you've never had Wagyu,
it's an experience.
So, sous vide is a style of cooking
where you basically take a piece of meat,
piece of chicken, piece of fish,
piece of beef, piece of pork,
and you put it in this plastic bag.
You drop it in the cryovac,
it sort of seals it,
and then you put the protein
into this water bath.
You can cook it the perfect temperature,
and it could cook for 48 hours.
But it will stay the same temperature.
You get a similar sort of texture
with any piece of protein,
when you sous vide it.
That looks very, very good.
What creates fire, typically?
When there's hot oil, and water,
it makes a big boom.
Similarly, wine also will spark fire.
Alcohol makes fire.
Rice wine vinegar will
create something like that.
Basically what they have here
is what we call cooking suites.
They're very expensive, but,
it's typically a huge oven,
or a huge oven with a big range across,
and there's typically a
number of different stations
on top of it.
In a fine dining establishment,
there's a number of different components
that go into every single dish.
And there's different
cooks that are cooking
specific things for each dish.
So if you have them all in one area,
and they're all able to
communicate with each other
around this cooking suite,
it makes life a little bit easier.
[intense music]
Yeah, so what he just did there,
he cut that with a paring knife,
that would never happen.
You would not use a paring knife
to cut a piece of meat, to plate.
You would definitely, 100% use
your chef's knife.
Everything else looked legit,
[laughs] until I saw that.
So now he's doing a
little smoking technique.
So he's going to put that on,
then he's going to blow smoke in there,
to give that a smoky flavor,
give that dish a smoky flavor.
Cook Up a Storm,
it's definitely exaggerated.
I mean, the drama's there,
it's cool, I'm into it.
But, you know.
You would never cut a piece of
beautiful meat like that
with a paring knife.
[air whooshing]
All right, guys, we're
about to throw on Burnt.
[gentle piano music]
- Like velvet, yeah? Like velvet.
- [Cook] Yes, chef. Yes, chef.
- What's on these?
Show me, show me, show me.
All have to be the same size.
[dish clatters loudly]
- Okay, so just off the bat,
this is intense, there's
no doubt about it.
And when a restaurant of this stature
is full-throttle, Friday
night, eight o'clock,
there's 120 covers in the dining room,
there is a level of intensity for sure.
However, this looks a little chaotic.
Typically when you look into a kitchen
of that stature,
it is completely organized.
So that feels like an intense moment,
and there's definitely intense moments,
but they exaggerate this a bit.
The chef of the restaurant will always
walk over and look over
somebody's shoulder
and if he sees something
that's not being done
the way he wants it done, he will
sometimes just push you out
of the way and take it over,
or tell you, in either a
nice or not-so-nice way,
how to do it the way
he wants you to do it.
A chef like this is looking
at every single dish
that's coming out of the kitchen
as a piece of art.
And they take it that seriously,
and so you can imagine
the level of stress that
is on chefs like that.
Let's just say, they do
100 to 200 covers a night,
when I say covers, I mean people,
100 people a night.
Let's just say, 100 people.
And it's a fine dining restaurant,
where there's five or seven courses
or whatever it is, that's 500 dishes
coming out of the restaurant a night.
Every single one of them needs to be
precisely perfect.
And if it's not, it doesn't go out.
And if it goes out, and it gets sent back,
it's not fun.
- Come on, you've got to thicken it up.
Come on, this is the dish.
You are looking at that
all the time, yeah?
- Yes, chef.
- You have eyes on it
the whole time, till you hit the pass.
- Yes, chef.
- Yeah? Look at me.
Yeah? You up for it?
- Yes, chef.
- That right there is a moment
that I think is incredible, right?
He did that so well.
If a chef gives you that moment,
right there, where he said
"Look at me in the eyes,"
and is not going to like, annihilate you,
that is a chef saying, "I like you,
"I think you're awesome,
"I'm trying to mentor you."
That is a good thing.
That's a good thing.
- Sweeney!
- So that right there,
if someone saw you do that in the kitchen,
what she just did,
nightmare.
Trouble for you.
You have a tasting spoon
in a kitchen like that, always.
I mean, that shit happens all the time,
just to be honest with
you, like that's the truth.
But, I mean it's nasty,
and so that's why you always
have a tasting spoon on you,
so if you're going to taste something,
you have a spoon that you taste,
and then you throw it, you
run it under some water
and you put it back in your pocket.
- What's your name again?
- Helene.
- Next time you make cacio,
toast the pepper first
to remove the moisture,
and then you want to
grind it by hand, yeah?
- Let's see that one again.
- So she just took her spoon,
tasted,
and then put it right back in the dish.
If I see that,
it doesn't go over well.
So, I think what's happening here, is
he is her mentor, and in
the world of restaurants,
once someone is your mentor,
they're always your mentor.
It's never like, "Oh, you've come up,
"and now you're doing your
thing, and you're everywhere,
"and you're like, on my level."
That's just not the way it goes.
My mentor is a guy named Frank Prisinzano,
he was my boss before
I opened up Seamore's.
And he still is my mentor,
and he'll come into any
one of my restaurants
and break my balls
about everything.
- American?
- Yeah.
- Yeah, arrogant prick.
- Well, he's a chef.
- The typical chef has a massive ego.
And are very type-A.
That's classic.
Male, female, doesn't matter.
There's very few things
that are as intimate
as preparing something
that's going into somebody's body.
When you look at the role of a chef,
who's in control of feeding
hundreds of people a day,
thousands of people a week,
it's a very, very serious
responsibility, right?
Like, you're putting
food in people's bodies.
I mean, we don't really
think about it that way
on a regular basis, but it's true.
And it's [beep] for real.
And so, when you're trying
to be the best at that,
it comes with baggage.
- Michelin sends its
inspectors to restaurants
to eat, and award stars.
One, two, three.
- Bar none.
- I'll just stop here, and say
the world of Michelin-star restaurants,
it is the top of the top of the top,
the most elite.
And there are definitely restaurants today
that have Michelin
stars, that you're like,
"Michelin star? That diner?
"Really?"
But, if you have a Michelin star,
it is because you
actively have pursued one.
It doesn't just happen.
The level of intensity that
one would have to endure
to gun for a Michelin
star, or two or three,
forget anything else in your life.
If you're going for three Michelin stars,
it is because you live, eat, sleep
in your restaurant.
[air whooshing]
All right guys, we're
going to move on to Chef.
- I've been waiting to talk to this prick
for a long time.
I am not cloying, I am not needy,
I don't care what you think.
You're not getting to me.
I'm not needy!
[strolling piano music]
- This is obviously a scene
where a food critic walks into
Jon Favreau's restaurant,
who's given him a terrible review,
and now he's back for food.
And I think Chef is approaching it.
You'd have to be drunk, really angry.
You know, pros, super high-level reviewers
that are writing for the
Times, or something like that,
definitely know what
they're talking about.
But sometimes I'm like,
"You didn't have to do that," you know?
However, today, with Instagram, and, like
every single dish that comes
out of every single restaurant
is walking into a photo shoot.
That is just the way it goes.
Today, everybody's a critic.
It sucks.
Everybody has different palates.
And, you know, you've just
got to be prepared for that.
I've never seen anything
quite like this before,
like this is so dramatic,
I don't think that it
would necessarily happen,
although I'm sure at some point it has.
It wouldn't be good.
If a reviewer is coming
into your restaurant,
a super high-level reviewer
is coming to your restaurant,
it is because your
restaurant is at a standard
that would warrant somebody to walk in
and review your restaurant,
and typically a chef that's
cooking at that level
does not want to have a long-standing
bad relationship with
restaurant reviewers.
So he probably, or she probably,
would not address someone like that
if they gave a shit about
their career long-term.
I don't think a chef would
be going after a critic
the way he is going after a critic,
because that's just like,
death by suicide [laughs], you know?
You just don't go head-on
with a critic before
you deal with it.
It sucks, you take it, and you pray to God
that they come back in, so you
can wow the shit out of them.
And in your heart of hearts you know
that you [beep] hate that person,
but you can't attack them.
We're going to fast forward a little bit.
- So now, suddenly, you're
going to be an artist.
Well, be an artist on your own time.
- Oof, man.
This hits me right in the gut.
The restaurant business is such
a [beep] hard business, man.
It's like, this conversation
that they're having
right now is so typical.
There's so many different
ways kitchens are run.
If it's a chef owner,
there's no shot that the
front-of-house manager
has precedence over a chef owner.
Ideally, in most scenarios,
the general manager
and the chef of the restaurant
are in cahoots, and they have
a great working relationship.
And so, though these fights happen,
but this conversation
wouldn't happen between
a chef and a manager,
this would be a chef and an owner.
[air whooshing]
Next up, one of my favorites,
Ratatouille.
- What is this?
Keep your station clear.
Dinner rush come, what will happen?
Messy station slow things down.
Food doesn't go, orders pile up, disaster.
- So, I mean obviously, he
does not know what he's doing.
He's got a huge stock pot
sitting on his station.
That would never be okay.
Like, you have bowls set up for
uncut vegetables, cut vegetables,
and then peels, like onion
peels or something like that.
So you have your trimmings,
your uncuts, and your cuts.
And you would never have a stock pot
sitting right on your station like that.
That's probably why she just flipped out.
- You think cooking is a cute job, eh?
Like Mommy in the kitchen?
- Yeah, that's pretty on-point,
I've got to say.
Like an old-school, beautiful
French kitchen setup.
I mean, that's a beautiful kitchen.
I love this movie.
You would never pour boiling anything
into another pot with boiling anything,
'cause you'd burn yourself, you know?
And you typically would
not hold the pan handle
without a towel on your hand,
because you'd most likely burn yourself.
Specifically if you're
dealing with copper pots.
They get super [beep] hot.
And then you also wouldn't stack
your pots on top of each
other on the station,
'cause you'd get screamed at,
like she's about to do right now.
- I'll make this easy to remember:
Keep your station clear,
or I will kill you!
- When your station is a mess,
everything becomes a mess.
It's like, you know, the age-old saying,
like, you walk into a restaurant
and the bathroom is a mess,
the bathroom's like, dirty,
you can only imagine
what the kitchen's like.
It's the same thing with a cook.
If a cook's station is all messed up
and it looks like there's no order,
you just kind of know. It's not happening.
It's not going to work.
- Ugh! Your sleeves look
like you threw up on them.
Keep your hands and arms
in, close to the body,
like this, see?
- I think that that's pretty much saying
you want to keep everything
tight, clean, efficient.
You don't want your elbows
sitting on your station
so you get them all dirty,
like she was talking about before,
and you don't want to be dirty.
You've got to be organized.
And that's what she's trying to do.
That's what every, all these clips?
It's all about trying to be organized.
I got to say that actually now,
looking at this cartoon,
they did an incredible job
of really making a kitchen
feel like a kitchen.
I mean, even to the dish station,
that's the dish machine
right there, it's perfect.
The whole entire setup,
and the line there,
and, that's called the dish pit,
it could not be more accurate.
Remember what I said about
having different bowls
for mise en place?
They're not peeling their potatoes
onto their cutting board,
they're peeling the
potatoes into those bowls,
so it's nice and neat and clean.
They have their peeled
potatoes in that container,
they have their unpeeled
potatoes in the other container,
they're peeling into the bowl.
It's pretty on-point.
Guys, thank you so much for watching me
break down these awesome,
classic cooking clips.
Power off.
[air whirring]
