- 5/18/2025
Follow culinary director Nick Ocando as he takes us inside the kitchen of his three standout restaurants in St. Petersburg, Florida. The day begins at Allelo, where his team prepares a Mediterranean menu with cappelletti and radiatori pasta made in-house, steamed lobster, a wagyu and scallop plate, and its signature octopus and watermelon dish. Then it's off to Juno & the Peacock, a coastal American restaurant, serving showstopping appetizers like a seafood tower stacked with oysters, shrimp, crab, smoked salmon, and lobster salad. He wraps up at Pluma, a cocktail lounge serving Central American small plates, known for its popular huitlacoche empanadas.
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00I oversee three restaurants, June of the Peacock, Alelo, and Pluma.
00:03I'm the Culinary Director for all operations.
00:06I'm also the Executive Chef of Alelo.
00:08Part of the job as the Culinary Director is to make sure that we are staying concept correct on our menus
00:12for all three concepts, being Pluma, Central American, June of the Peacock, Coastal New American,
00:18and Alelo, Mediterranean, Aegean.
00:20My job is to make sure all operations are functioning properly
00:23and create an environment where our chefs are comfortable being unique and creative.
00:30I feel like St. Petersburg wasn't really paid attention to much in the past.
00:35A lot of the restaurants really didn't have to try too hard to be busy because of the location.
00:39No matter how good the restaurant was, they were going to be busy because of where we are and the tourism.
00:45That's kind of shifted now.
00:47The pressure for the culinary scene to kind of elevate their game is on.
00:51Yeah, every day I typically will start in one restaurant and make sure everything is running smoothly there.
00:56Then I'll move on to the other two concepts, and then I tend to circle back.
01:00So my day starts at Alelo.
01:03Today we're making pasta.
01:06One thing that's definitely we're well known for at Alelo is the house-made pasta.
01:12We make extruded pasta, like we have the radiatory over here, which is great.
01:16And then we also do stuffed pastas.
01:19Right now she's making a cappelletti with a honey-time ricotta filling.
01:22So we roll it out for this particular stuffed pasta.
01:26She has to cut it round, and then she's going to fill individual little pockets of it and then do a nice little fold on it.
01:32Works out pretty well.
01:32So the application for this pasta is going to be on our tasting menu right now.
01:37It's for our papaya pomodoro.
01:38The stuffed pasta is definitely a more skill-based art, for sure.
01:43Definitely takes some craftsmanship and some patience for this and lots of practice.
01:49Maria's been working for us for probably a combined almost eight or nine years.
01:53She's just a professional at what she does.
01:55One of the bigger variations is how thick are you rolling your pasta.
01:59If you roll it too thick, when you have it doubled up on the edge here, that part won't be tender enough.
02:03But if it's too thin, it will blow out when you go to cook it.
02:06So it's a very fine balance.
02:09This is a daily process.
02:11Part of it is keeping it fresh.
02:12You can't do this without having the proper equipment.
02:15We outfitted with this equipment to optimize it and created a super consistent product for our guests.
02:25We sell pretty much all of our pasta within a day or a day and a half.
02:31We make pasta probably six days a week.
02:33So this is the capolitis, the honey time ricotta capolitis that Chef Maria was making earlier.
02:39Chef Miguel, we got our papaya pomodoro with the capolitis in there.
02:43Comes up to the pass.
02:44We finish with the black volcanic salt.
02:47It's our toasted brioche croutons.
02:49Nice little crunch throughout while you're eating.
02:51One of my favorite parts.
02:52And we're going to finish with some of this beautiful basil.
02:55Classic pairing, tomato basil.
02:57Plus with the ricotta filling, everything goes really nicely together.
03:01Right now, this dish is offered on our tasting menu only.
03:04But we've had such positive feedback from our guests that we want to put it on our regular menu.
03:10This is one of my favorites that we're going to be preparing today is the octopus melon.
03:15It's a very popular dish on our menu.
03:16It's in our shared dishes.
03:18We sell a ton of octopus.
03:19We probably sell well over 20 orders a night.
03:21This activity happens a couple times a week at least.
03:25And what you do is you season it liberally with salt.
03:27And you just give it a good massage.
03:30Kind of get it worked in here.
03:31You're kind of doing a quick cure on it.
03:33So at the core of our concept, we're a Mediterranean and Aegean concept.
03:36So we like to stay concept correct.
03:38We import this octopus from Spain.
03:40They're known for their octopus.
03:42This is going to be a quick blanch on this.
03:44Quite a few years ago, I had a melon and goat cheese salad.
03:50And I had an octopus preparation I had designed for a menu.
03:53And one day I sat down and I ate both of the dishes at the same time.
03:57And it occurred to me how well they paired together.
03:59So the next thing I'm going to do is I'm just going to separate each individual tentacle.
04:03I think one thing that is important that some people will do is you shouldn't cut the head too short into the body.
04:09Because all these tentacles, even though they don't seem like it, they run all the way up to here.
04:14And if you cut your head short, you will cut into the fattest and best part of your octopus.
04:19So we have our eight tentacles all separated out.
04:21This thing we're going to do is add them all into the bag.
04:23And then for me, because we're about to vacuum seal this, I do like to spread out the aromatics that I have put inside the bag.
04:30So it does have more of a uniform contact.
04:34So then we're going to come over to our chamber sealer.
04:37Let it run through the process.
04:39So now that the octopus is vac sealed and in the cooler, the next step for the dish is to prepare our watermelon.
04:46We're going to compress it with basil and fresno to kind of pair the whole dish together.
04:51See how tight that is?
04:53So it is forcefully injecting the flavor of the peppers and the basil into the melon.
04:58And it's going to sit like this until later on tonight.
05:02I'm going to jump over to Juneau and the Peacock and check on them for the day.
05:05Our owners are good enough to donate their golf cart to the cause of keeping me from running down the alley.
05:14The first week that we purchased the space at Juneau, that first day, I did 17 miles in between the two restaurants.
05:23We decided it's probably a good idea to get a golf cart and allow us to facilitate going back and forth.
05:30Chef, how are you doing, buddy?
05:39So this is Juneau.
05:40This is our outside expo down on the other end there for hot apps, garmagee, raw bar, pastry, all that comes out of there.
05:50And we also built this expo table in the middle that has a refrigerated garnish well.
05:54On any given Saturday, we tend to see about 1,200 people.
05:57You know, if you figure 1,200 people aren't just eating one plate each.
06:00So say people have two plates, right?
06:02So it's 2,400 plates coming out of the kitchen in any given day.
06:05So it's a lot of volume.
06:07So we want to make sure we prepared our kitchen for that and built it out in a way that creates success for us.
06:13Hey, Chef, how's it going today?
06:14Pretty good, Chef. How about you?
06:15Good, man. Good.
06:16Chef Drew is our executive chef here at Juneau and the Peacock.
06:19Lunch service getting started over here?
06:21Yeah, it's starting to pick up for sure.
06:22I think we're going to need to build a seafood tower.
06:25Okay.
06:25So it's going to be 12 oysters, East Coast oysters, poached shrimp.
06:29We have a cold lobster salad.
06:31This lobster is dressed with a brown butter aioli.
06:34This is actually a really interesting technique.
06:37If you just brown butter and added it to mayo, it would just solidify when you cooled it down.
06:41We actually toast milk powder in order for it to get that brown butter quality.
06:45And it's kind of like an homage to a hot lobster roll that you would get with butter, but served cold in that way.
06:51This is a little bit of crab louise.
06:53And then we just have some smoked salmon that we dress with olive oil and we sell it to on the expo side.
06:59And, yeah, and some shrimp and sauces.
07:01For us, having a seafood tower on the menu just makes sense.
07:04Our guests are looking for it.
07:06We want to give our guests what they're looking for.
07:08We have the ocean across the street.
07:10Even if we didn't have it on the menu, everyone would ask for it anyway, right?
07:13The seafood tower is definitely one of those wild moments when it goes through the dining room.
07:16People are like, what's that? I want that.
07:18You know, you're sitting down with a bunch of your friends and they're like, I don't know what we want yet.
07:21Let's just get a seafood tower while we decide.
07:26Now we're doing a little bit of mise en place for Pluma, our Latin American, Central American restaurant and cocktail lounge.
07:33So what Francesca is making here is our juta coche empanadas with a purple corn masa.
07:39So it's one of our top sellers in there.
07:41People love this dish.
07:43And then the filling is going to be juta coche.
07:46So it's the corn fungus, corn, cilantro, onion, all cooked down with some mozzarella inside the empanada here.
07:53Pluma, it's based around Central America, Central American cocktails.
07:58Even the cocktail menu is broken up into four different regions of Central America.
08:02Whether it's the empanadas or the short rib mole tacos or the pan de quejo, the Brazilian cheese bread, it's all.
08:09You can pick it up and eat it.
08:10You don't need full sets of silverware and plates and all the stuff to share it.
08:14It works out pretty well.
08:16Everything's looking good here.
08:17We're going to go back to Lelo and make sure we're ready for service there.
08:19Yeah, so now we're getting ready to plate up the Octo.
08:22So we have our watermelon that was compressing from earlier.
08:25Nice and beautiful.
08:26Nice, deep color.
08:27So I like to do nice cuts on this so it can be placed well on the plate.
08:31Little cubes, one inch by one inch.
08:33Then we're going to take some of our plumped currants or hydrated currants.
08:37A little bit of that orange juice goes right in there.
08:40This is going to be a whipped goat cheese, chev.
08:43Okay, so we like to keep our plating somewhat organic, natural.
08:48I don't want people to know what person made it.
08:50It's like putting stuff on a plate and letting them fall the way they fall.
08:53Then for the octopus, I like to have the Octo somewhat in kind of its natural shape.
09:01And I think it's nice for people to not have to use their steak knife for it.
09:06Then we usually finish with a little bit of Aleppo.
09:09That's the dish for that one.
09:13So I'm going to start breaking down the Wagyu for our tasting menu that we're running right now.
09:17At the end of the day, we're Mediterranean-Agean concept, but we want the best for our guest.
09:22If that means I have to get beef from Japan, then that's what I'm going to do.
09:26I'm going to cut all this trim up and I'm going to render it down so I have the clarified Wagyu fat that I then use to sear this piece of meat in later on when we pick it up for service.
09:38For this dish, it is accompanied by a beautiful seared scallop from the East Coast, and we will actually sear that scallop in the beef fat as well.
09:49This dish is going to be plated up with potato boulangeres, so a seared braised potato.
09:53We braise it in a rendered stock, and then we also have asparagus, chanterelle conserva, pomegranate, huckleberry, gastrique, as well as a duck fat vinaigrette.
10:02Our portion for our guests is typically around three ounces.
10:06We've had some really great feedback on this dish on the menu.
10:09It's nice to have high-quality products to work with, high-quality stuff for our staff to sell.
10:14So I'm going to prep the lobster special now.
10:21When you cook a lobster naturally, like a shrimp, the tail curls like this.
10:25Some chefs will stuff a skewer through the body to keep the tail straight, so when it's poached and it comes out cooked, it's straight.
10:33I found a good method that if I tie two lobsters together, then the tails stay straight because they're pushing against each other when they cook.
10:39When they come out, the lobster's tails will be straight for presentation.
10:42So we're just going to put it in. It's at 212 right now, full steam.
10:47We'll let that run for 12 minutes, and then we're going to cook the claws for two more minutes.
10:51I'm from Maine, and so I feel obligated to represent lobster well on our menus.
10:57At Juneau, we have a New England lobster roll along with lobster bisque, and down here we have the lobster cocktail that we've been featuring.
11:05I think it kind of sets us apart from the other businesses here in St. Pete.
11:09I'm just going to cut these strings off. You see how the tail stayed nice and straight, which is great.
11:14This tail, if I hadn't tied it, would be curled up in a complete circle right now.
11:18See how straight that tail is?
11:20These will need to sit in here for a little while to get them nice and cold before we start cleaning them.
11:24Okay, so one thing I like to do for presentation-wise on these, I like to serve it inside the shell.
11:30What I'm going to do is I use ice water here, and I use the same water over and over again for this, just because then I have lobster-flavored water.
11:39I'm not rinsing the flavor of my lobster away.
11:42The green parts are the liver.
11:45Where I'm from, we call it tamale.
11:46And if you were having a lobster bake in Maine, with my family, all the old aunts would be collecting all the tamale from everybody to make salad dressing out of it.
11:56For this one, I'm going to shell out the arm, knuckle, and claw.
12:00I personally feel like the knuckle is the best part of the lobster.
12:03It's the most flavorful and super tender.
12:06What I'm going to do with that is I'm just going to then cut it in half, and I'm going to set it back underneath in the body there.
12:12This is pretty special to do it like this.
12:15It is a little bit labor-intensive, as you can see.
12:17You can't buy this pre-done like this.
12:19You know, if you get this in a restaurant, it's because someone like me or Chef Tim has stood here and done this work to make sure you have that for your guests.
12:28Nowhere else in St. Pete can you get a lobster like this.
12:30We usually only have three or four orders at a time, because we do want to prep it, sell it that night, get more fresh lobsters tomorrow, prep it, sell it that night, and just keep it super fresh.
12:39One downfall to ordering a whole lobster in a restaurant is you pretty much have to put a bib on to eat it, but instead I put the bib on when I have to clean them in the kitchen, and we take care of it for you.
12:48We do all the heavy lifting and present it really nicely so that someone can sit there in a pretty dress and enjoy some fresh lobster like that.
12:55I think one thing across the board that I want our guests to leave with is I want them to feel welcome and also feel like they're part of the family and that we're here to make sure that everyone's taken good care of and pushing the quality to be top-notch for everybody.
13:09I think that makes a big difference, and I think that at the end of the day what I want my guests to take away is you literally feel good after you eat the food.
13:17And I never thought as a young man, now I'm a father, that I'd be reading 30 labels to go through a supermarket to make sure I'm buying quality food for my family.
13:26So we do very much so the similar thing for our guests.
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