[upbeat music]<\/p>\n
The Sip and Guzzle is a American Japanese<\/p>\n
hybrid cocktail bar.<\/p>\n
We got number one burger in North America,<\/p>\n
voted by world’s best steakhouses.<\/p>\n
My title is Executive Chef.<\/p>\n
I did 10 years at three Michelin, Alinea, as Executive Chef<\/p>\n
and I’m taking all of my creativity<\/p>\n
and applying it to the bar.<\/p>\n
It’s a cocktail bar.<\/p>\n
A lot of the food wouldn’t work in all environments.<\/p>\n
Here, having a 13-inch mochi fry, that’s chewy<\/p>\n
and it’s a French fry with a couple of cocktails and a beer<\/p>\n
makes absolute sense and it’s fun.<\/p>\n
[upbeat music]<\/p>\n
Hey, what’s up? Welcome to Sip and Guzzle.<\/p>\n
I’m Mike Bagale, Executive Chef. Come on in.<\/p>\n
[bright music]<\/p>\n
This is actually Guzzle Bar.<\/p>\n
Downstairs is Sip Bar.<\/p>\n
Upstairs focuses on classics<\/p>\n
and classic cocktail-making, prohibition style.<\/p>\n
And then downstairs is a little bit more technique driven<\/p>\n
and the kitchen supports both programs.<\/p>\n
So, come into the kitchen and let’s get started.<\/p>\n
[bright music]<\/p>\n
\u266a Hey \u266a<\/p>\n
We’re checking in on some morning production.<\/p>\n
Chef here is getting ready to grind our A5 Wagyu<\/p>\n
for our signature Tavern Burger.<\/p>\n
This Tavern Burger is a byproduct of another iconic sandwich<\/p>\n
that we do, the Royale with Cheese.<\/p>\n
We take all the trimmings from that<\/p>\n
and we grind it into patties.<\/p>\n
That was how this dish was birthed.<\/p>\n
We use A5 Miyazaki specifically<\/p>\n
’cause the Royale with Cheese sandwich is an iconic sandwich<\/p>\n
in Japan called the Katsu Beef Sandwich.<\/p>\n
And our version is a little bit Americanized.<\/p>\n
We put minced onions<\/p>\n
similar to how big fast food brands do it.<\/p>\n
We make our own Japanese ketchup, our own version<\/p>\n
of cheese sauce on it.<\/p>\n
Specifically, this is tenderloin.<\/p>\n
This isn’t just A5 Wagyu, it’s the most tender cut on top<\/p>\n
of it already being tender.<\/p>\n
And the reason for which is when you bite<\/p>\n
into this really thick sandwich, it needs to disintegrate<\/p>\n
and eat almost like a marshmallow.<\/p>\n
But for the burger, we do 12 a day, very specifically<\/p>\n
because that’s our yield of our byproduct.<\/p>\n
So, it is sustainable.<\/p>\n
This is like a nose to tail, if you will,<\/p>\n
of our in-house production.<\/p>\n
There’s a lot of fat here.<\/p>\n
It’s not traditional for a Tavern Burger,<\/p>\n
so we need to strengthen it.<\/p>\n
So, we add a little bit of gelatin<\/p>\n
and then we add Japanese Jidori egg yolks<\/p>\n
to give it a little bit of a binder as well.<\/p>\n
It’s a Japanese chicken that’s actually a fertilized egg.<\/p>\n
It is chicken eggs they use in Yakitori.<\/p>\n
We start this in the morning, let them really,<\/p>\n
really firm up ’cause we’re gonna pan base those<\/p>\n
in a lot of French butter and caramelize ’em.<\/p>\n
And we need to make sure that it’s fresh ground daily,<\/p>\n
that it’s bound properly<\/p>\n
and that it has time to rest<\/p>\n
so the meat softens even a little bit more,<\/p>\n
but it’s still compact.<\/p>\n
And then we assemble the burger by adding<\/p>\n
what I call Parmesan singles to mimic like a craft single<\/p>\n
where we take Parmesan and cream and lay it into a sheet<\/p>\n
and cut it into perfect square so we can drape that over<\/p>\n
and steam it over the final product.<\/p>\n
And then we do our own fermented shishito relish,<\/p>\n
napa cabbage slaw, fermented pickles, just a light brushing<\/p>\n
of tare on it and the Breads Bakery sesame buns.<\/p>\n
This looks great, chef.<\/p>\n
I’m gonna head upstairs and check in with Chef Isaac.<\/p>\n
[upbeat funky music]<\/p>\n
I like to start my day with Chef de Cuisine Isaac here.<\/p>\n
Isaac runs not only the day-to-day operations,<\/p>\n
he helps me streamline the systems<\/p>\n
to make sure every dish is consistent.<\/p>\n
Let’s check out this caviar.<\/p>\n
You gotta see how it’s gonna work.<\/p>\n
This is Golden Osetra caviar.<\/p>\n
We get it farmed from Greece.<\/p>\n
It’s just a rare quality egg.<\/p>\n
It’s a little bit richer,<\/p>\n
a little bit more buttery<\/p>\n
than you would typically get from a caviar.<\/p>\n
Any luxury ingredient,<\/p>\n
there needs to be a form of education<\/p>\n
from the product to the guest.<\/p>\n
The best way to serve it is in abundance.<\/p>\n
That way the guests feel not only are they getting<\/p>\n
the quantity of which they want,<\/p>\n
but they’re able to make their own assessment<\/p>\n
into why they like it.<\/p>\n
[Isaac] Dealing it in with ice cream a lot.<\/p>\n
So, thinking maybe we just do a special with a fat dab<\/p>\n
of caviar on the Hakata milk saucer.<\/p>\n
Mm-hmm. Really good. It’s delicious.<\/p>\n
This batch is super nutty.<\/p>\n
Alright, we’re gonna check some of the deliveries<\/p>\n
that are coming in now.<\/p>\n
[upbeat music]<\/p>\n
Some of our deliveries come up to the bar.<\/p>\n
This is our Breads Bakery delivery.<\/p>\n
A very prestigious list<\/p>\n
that rated us number one burger in the country,<\/p>\n
is partially due to this amazing<\/p>\n
partnership with Breads Bakery.<\/p>\n
Every day, deliver in the morning between 12<\/p>\n
and 15 buns just baked like an hour ago.<\/p>\n
[Mike] We don’t make it in-house<\/p>\n
because we don’t have the time commitment,<\/p>\n
the proofing, the ovens.<\/p>\n
One thing coming from Michelin kitchens<\/p>\n
is there’s like a stigma of not making everything in-house.<\/p>\n
And if you’re not making your own bread<\/p>\n
or your own cured meats or whatever-<\/p>\n
Then you’re a hack.<\/p>\n
Yeah, then you’re an idiot and you should go home<\/p>\n
and never come back.<\/p>\n
Bread looks awesome and we have a few other deliveries<\/p>\n
that we need to check on.<\/p>\n
[upbeat music]<\/p>\n
Come on in. Thank you.<\/p>\n
Straight to the kitchen. Alright.<\/p>\n
This is our bluefin tuna.<\/p>\n
Really high quality, as you can tell.<\/p>\n
Clean, beautiful product that we use a lot of.<\/p>\n
Typically what we’ll do is we’ll separate this loin<\/p>\n
and use the loin specifically<\/p>\n
for putting into our volcano roll.<\/p>\n
We like to give it a little taste, determine if we want<\/p>\n
to age it on the skin a little bit downstairs<\/p>\n
to impart a little bit more umami and flavor.<\/p>\n
Or sometimes it’s kind of ready to go now.<\/p>\n
What do you think?<\/p>\n
I think it’s great.<\/p>\n
I think sit on it for a couple days<\/p>\n
and let it kind of concentrate, just on the skin.<\/p>\n
Okay. And we’ll break<\/p>\n
it down and get it ready.<\/p>\n
It could go right now.<\/p>\n
I’d be happy with it right now.<\/p>\n
But yeah, let’s give it a few days and we’re okay.<\/p>\n
Let’s pack it up and keep on moving.<\/p>\n
[bright jazz music]<\/p>\n
So, a big part of my day is checking in on production.<\/p>\n
All of the production happens behind the scenes<\/p>\n
before we start service.<\/p>\n
Right now I’m checking in on our volcano roll,<\/p>\n
which this is an homage to the Japanese hand roll.<\/p>\n
This is a unique recipe of macerating nori<\/p>\n
with sugar and soy and an invert sugar and then drying.<\/p>\n
This is a perfect example of a dish that’s just hyper,<\/p>\n
hyper minimalist, but it took about four months<\/p>\n
of constant R and D.<\/p>\n
This is actually two sheets of nori<\/p>\n
that we’ve pressed together.<\/p>\n
The next thing is to fry it quickly<\/p>\n
and what we’re doing is we’re letting the sugars<\/p>\n
that are in the soy caramelize, you take this bar<\/p>\n
and you have to work very, very quickly<\/p>\n
because as the sugar cools, it hardens.<\/p>\n
So, what we’re doing is rolling this<\/p>\n
and pressing it so that I’m getting it very, very,<\/p>\n
very tight and structural.<\/p>\n
And then the sugar temperature is dropping drastically<\/p>\n
and as it cools,<\/p>\n
[nori roll whooshing]<\/p>\n
it forms a tube.<\/p>\n
And we set it right here and we make 150 of those<\/p>\n
and then we move on to the next project.<\/p>\n
So, we’re almost done here.<\/p>\n
Let’s go check on some more of the production.<\/p>\n
[gentle music]<\/p>\n
So, we saw some production upstairs.<\/p>\n
A lot of the rest of the production happens down here<\/p>\n
in our receiving kitchen.<\/p>\n
You saw upstairs, me rolling the tubes and finalizing ’em<\/p>\n
and then they get dehydrated.<\/p>\n
Down here is where the production starts.<\/p>\n
We lacquer and brush and macerate all the nori,<\/p>\n
and then it gets air-dried before the final steps.<\/p>\n
So, this happens every day, first thing in the morning,<\/p>\n
as well as drying our chicken skins that we will puff later.<\/p>\n
This is our Bikini production.<\/p>\n
It’s the Bikini sandwich designed for my love<\/p>\n
of the Spanish Bikini sandwich.<\/p>\n
We call it the world’s thinnest sandwich.<\/p>\n
The idea of this dish is that we fill it<\/p>\n
with luxurious ingredients<\/p>\n
that embody ham and cheese sandwich.<\/p>\n
We use Comte cheese from France<\/p>\n
and we kind of make like a Comte cheese ganache.<\/p>\n
And then we layer that with fresh shavings<\/p>\n
of Cinco Jotas Jamon Iberico,<\/p>\n
which for me is the greatest jamon in the world.<\/p>\n
This is the base of the sandwich<\/p>\n
and as you can tell, it’s super, super airy.<\/p>\n
It’s like a wafer. We need two of these per order.<\/p>\n
We can sell over a hundred of these a night.<\/p>\n
So kind of like everything else, it’s a huge production<\/p>\n
that has to continually work with extreme efficiency.<\/p>\n
These machines here, they have to continually go for hours<\/p>\n
and hours to fill this.<\/p>\n
It’s not a traditional stroopwafel machine.<\/p>\n
It’s basically a flat iron press with non-stick surfaces<\/p>\n
that I’ve used for a variety of techniques,<\/p>\n
but it’s the only one I know that proves this technique.<\/p>\n
The batter’s really special<\/p>\n
because it’s a combination of the right amount of starch<\/p>\n
and how those starches are introduced with flour<\/p>\n
and how it’s rested and sits over time<\/p>\n
to give it the resiliency it needs to be paper thin<\/p>\n
and light without being overly heavy.<\/p>\n
And over here, we have our chicken production,<\/p>\n
Chef Will here, has been with us since day one<\/p>\n
and he’s a monster.<\/p>\n
Will can single-handedly prep almost all of it by himself<\/p>\n
and we’re super lucky to have him.<\/p>\n
This is a signature Electric Chicken.<\/p>\n
It’s called Electric<\/p>\n
because it has a heavy amount of Sichuan oil<\/p>\n
and a little bit of Sancho, which is Japanese,<\/p>\n
that has a numbing effect on the pallet.<\/p>\n
It’s kind of like our version of Nashville hot chicken,<\/p>\n
but we debone it for maximum surface area for crunch-<\/p>\n
Crunch. For consistency.<\/p>\n
It also helps speed up the cooking process.<\/p>\n
Then we brine the legs overnight.<\/p>\n
It makes a juicier piece of chicken.<\/p>\n
For me, you cannot fry chicken if you don’t brine it.<\/p>\n
We air-dry it, it takes a little bit<\/p>\n
of that moisture out of the skin<\/p>\n
so that when we fry it, it gets even extra crispy.<\/p>\n
Off the air-dry into buttermilk, out of the buttermilk<\/p>\n
and into our dredge.<\/p>\n
Out of the dredge into the fryer,<\/p>\n
every single chicken gets fried for exactly seven minutes,<\/p>\n
no more, no less.<\/p>\n
Out of the fryer into our amazing Sichuan oil.<\/p>\n
It goes in and outta that oil, which just allows<\/p>\n
that textural crunch layer to be saturated<\/p>\n
with all that chili.<\/p>\n
But then we let it drip and dry<\/p>\n
so that the chicken’s not overly saturated.<\/p>\n
And then we finish it with a heavy dusting<\/p>\n
of a lot more chili powder and Sichuan powder.<\/p>\n
And you let the guests use a pair of scissors.<\/p>\n
We instruct them to put a glove on<\/p>\n
so they can handle the heat.<\/p>\n
If we cut up the chicken, it immediately starts<\/p>\n
to lose heat and also moisture.<\/p>\n
All of the dishes are izakaya-style.<\/p>\n
So, it’s all things to share.<\/p>\n
And this is how we can make something that is a single leg<\/p>\n
of chicken shareable for, you know, the whole table.<\/p>\n
But that’s it for our chicken. Keep this thing moving.<\/p>\n
We have a little bit more production to do.<\/p>\n
[upbeat music]<\/p>\n
[singers vocalizing]<\/p>\n
We got about an hour before doors open,<\/p>\n
get ready for service, do any final tastings,<\/p>\n
any final garnish work<\/p>\n
and make sure the stations are set the way<\/p>\n
they need to be for service.<\/p>\n
Here’s our nori rolls.<\/p>\n
The cutting boards are coming out,<\/p>\n
salamanders going on, ovens are going on.<\/p>\n
Cotton candy machines getting warmed up.<\/p>\n
This is another bit of garnish for one of the dishes.<\/p>\n
This is our chicken skins, which we make chicken stock<\/p>\n
and puree the chicken stock<\/p>\n
with koshihikari rice from Japan.<\/p>\n
It kind of puffs like a chicharron.<\/p>\n
These are the skins that we had drying<\/p>\n
on the speed rack downstairs.<\/p>\n
We go through a lot of these.<\/p>\n
We do a chicken chips and salsa.<\/p>\n
So, this actually acts as like a potato chip.<\/p>\n
The guests get to crack the chips that are seasoned<\/p>\n
with the powder and dip it into avocado, pineapple<\/p>\n
and salsa verde.<\/p>\n
So, part of service is getting these last minute.<\/p>\n
They stay super crunchy.<\/p>\n
We’re gonna put up the chicken chips and salsa.<\/p>\n
This is kind of a Ferran Adria trick<\/p>\n
way, way, way, way back in the day.<\/p>\n
He used to put salt air on his margaritas,<\/p>\n
which is super ahead of its time.<\/p>\n
Sometimes people will look at airs and foams<\/p>\n
and they’ll criticize it as being sciency and molecular.<\/p>\n
It’s no different than any other technique.<\/p>\n
Making a foam, making a puff chip, making an anglaise<\/p>\n
for ice cream base.<\/p>\n
These are all science techniques.<\/p>\n
You can either dip it or you can sip it.<\/p>\n
It’s almost designed to be like a gazpacho.<\/p>\n
Guests have a lot of fun with it.<\/p>\n
We need to check the foie gras,<\/p>\n
which is our signature Mont Blanc recipe,<\/p>\n
which is toasted shokupan, sour cherry jam.<\/p>\n
And make sure we’re tight there. Did you reblend that?<\/p>\n
This is new. That’s new?<\/p>\n
Yeah- It still needs<\/p>\n
to be blended silkier.<\/p>\n
This is a pato foie, a classic French pato foie<\/p>\n
using cherry juice.<\/p>\n
It’s kind of like a jam, which still gives it bite<\/p>\n
and really holds up texturally to the foie gras.<\/p>\n
We’ve lost a few chefs to this dish.<\/p>\n
[chef laughing]<\/p>\n
He’s our third chef to attempt this-<\/p>\n
Today. Today.<\/p>\n
Foie gras’s obviously really, really dense, right?<\/p>\n
It’s pure fat.<\/p>\n
And when fat gets cold, it gets really, really firm.<\/p>\n
We stabilize ours with a little bit of gelatin,<\/p>\n
so it’s flexible, but we don’t do a whole lot else to it.<\/p>\n
So, inherently he’s working with a very,<\/p>\n
very dense firm duck fat.<\/p>\n
And he probably should start going to the gym soon.<\/p>\n
He’s gonna fix the cherry.<\/p>\n
So, I think we’re pretty much there, unless I’m surprised.<\/p>\n
[laid-back music]<\/p>\n
There’s also like a peanut butter and jelly thing going on.<\/p>\n
Not in actual flavor, but in texture and design.<\/p>\n
The sour cherry and the super fatty foie gras<\/p>\n
and, of course, the bread your mind takes you<\/p>\n
to a place, you’re like,<\/p>\n
something’s very familiar about this.<\/p>\n
And it’s done in a little bit more of an elegant fashion.<\/p>\n
For service, like I’ll typically expedite<\/p>\n
or Chef Isaac will expedite.<\/p>\n
We have 110 people on the books,<\/p>\n
but we could easily have 150 walk-ins tonight<\/p>\n
that we’re not ready for.<\/p>\n
And with that comes surprises.<\/p>\n
That’s the nature of the beast.<\/p>\n
We are all set up in here with tastings.<\/p>\n
Now, we just need to finalize<\/p>\n
getting the expo station set up<\/p>\n
and fine-tuning everything<\/p>\n
so we can get ready to go for service.<\/p>\n
[upbeat music]<\/p>\n
It’s four o’clock.<\/p>\n
We’re about to get busy,<\/p>\n
so I’m gonna have to kindly ask you to leave.<\/p>\n
Thank you.<\/p>\n
[gentle music]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"[upbeat music] The Sip and Guzzle is a American Japanese hybrid cocktail bar. We got number one burger…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":180983,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[9,56,63,65,64],"class_list":{"0":"post-180982","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-new-york","9":"tag-ny","10":"tag-nyc","11":"tag-nyc-headlines","12":"tag-nyc-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180982","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=180982"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180982\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/180983"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=180982"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=180982"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=180982"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}