- 1 year ago
At Laser Wolf in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, executive chef Sam Levenfeld and his team work in tandem each night to serve guests an authentic skewer house dinner.
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00:00Laser Wolf is what we call a Shippudiyah, which in Hebrew means a grill house.
00:05So everything as you're about to see is centered around our grill.
00:10Order in eggplant.
00:12Eggplant.
00:13Fire Zeno.
00:15Solid team for two going to 208.
00:17We know for a fact that we're going to be busy every night starting at 5.
00:21Tonight we're starting with 274 covers on the books,
00:25expecting probably between 30 and 50 walk-ins.
00:28So we'll end up somewhere in the 300s.
00:31We have a super strong team and they just, they just get it done.
00:35Come on.
00:44So, um, Millie and Natalie here grilled off 14 cases of eggplant today.
00:50How much pepper?
00:51Four.
00:52So that's a hundred pounds of red peppers.
00:54They spread them all off on this grill, steamed them for a little bit.
00:57They're peeling them and this will all be ready for our prep for tomorrow.
01:01All three restaurants in the Hoxton Hotel are Israeli.
01:04So all of our prep that we do in this building is for the whole building.
01:08We kind of share everything and that's what makes things more efficient.
01:12This is Rafa and Yanet, our butcher extraordinaires building all of our skewers.
01:18They're married, believe it or not.
01:20They've been here since before day one.
01:23They are the backbone of this restaurant.
01:26They make everything perfect.
01:28And we all get really upset when they're gone because we can't do it like they can do it.
01:33We cannot.
01:34Aproximadamente tenemos entre una hora, hora y media para acabar 120 skews de pollo.
01:40Muy bien dejaron 120 pollos, 120 hangers, 6 eggs de salmones, 30 panes de cóctel, 20 de beef and lard y 20 de bispo.
01:53Bueno, nosotros ya lo tenemos bien calculado, verdad.
01:55La gente dice que se ve fácil y lo hacemos ver fácil y hay compañeros que han venido y no se les hace, se les dificulta.
02:04Entonces nosotros tenemos que tratar de que el skew vaya todo plano, flat, para que cuando vaya al grill no vaya colgando.
02:14Eso es lo importante.
02:16Es lo que le gusta al chef, que vaya la pieza no perfecta, pero sí casi casi.
02:21Y para que el cliente diga wow.
02:24Quede satisfecho.
02:26Su paladar del cliente quede satisfecho.
02:29Pero al igual nos encanta porque pues al saber que la gente está probando nuestro trabajo, el trabajo de los chefs, todo eso, pues es decir wow.
02:38Estamos en el 5 estrellas.
02:40The best.
02:41I love the chef.
02:43Love you too.
02:44Love you too.
02:45Alright, let's go say hi to the rest of the team.
02:47Thank you guys.
02:48They're the best.
02:52They're actually the best.
02:53This is howdy.
02:54Howdy.
02:55It's the first time we've ever heard that.
02:59I'm sure.
03:00So we're going from Laser Wolf, which is on the rooftop to the main floor, which is where Far is and where our main prep kitchen is that all of our shared prep happens.
03:10This is where the rest of the magic happens.
03:14These are our guys right here.
03:16Everyone say hi.
03:18This is Avellino grinding our meat for our butchers right here.
03:22He's grinding that meat because it needs to be ready to process first thing tomorrow morning.
03:27We've got Juana, Rosario and Matilda, our prep manager.
03:31So right now they're cutting our sumac onions, our red onions that we mix with sumac and some vinegar, some salt, a little sugar.
03:39And this is going to go on the side of every kebab that we serve tonight.
03:43So we have to make this one daily.
03:45They're about to pick and cut some herbs for tomorrow.
03:48So when they come in, all they have to do is mix.
03:51There's a lot of stuff to balance and they're the ones that kind of make a lot of sense out of everything.
03:55It's interesting because at the end here, they always ask us, what do you think?
04:02Or ask us, what do you think?
04:04Because all the flavors have different flavors.
04:07And they give us an option.
04:08They give us an option to think.
04:10It's good.
04:11It's good.
04:12I'll bring this.
04:13I'll remove this.
04:14So it's nice.
04:15It's nice to work here, more than anything, to work together.
04:18You're not going to tell them about your dish at far?
04:21No.
04:22A burrata toast with apricot amba.
04:25She took a little apricot amba home, which was one of her favorites,
04:29and put it on some toast with burrata, told me that she loved it.
04:33I'm like, we're going to put that on the menu.
04:35So it's Matilda's toast.
04:36Yeah, exactly.
04:38Don't be embarrassed.
04:39It was delicious.
04:40Yeah, exactly.
04:42Matilda and her cousin Lorena came up with this program that makes everything work a little easier.
04:47They're always thinking a day ahead.
04:49I mean, I can show you what we're working with here.
04:52This is just Laser Wolf.
04:55This is Rafa and Yannet, who we just met, the butchers.
04:58This is Kvarr AM, Kvarr PM, Kvarr Chefs.
05:02Rafa and Yannet right here.
05:04If I were to try to do this list with one other chef, this would probably take me about 16 hours, I want to say.
05:13And they'll get it done in eight.
05:15They're amazing.
05:16They're really, really amazing.
05:17And they didn't even come in with any butcher experience.
05:20They just knew how to cook.
05:21They knew what they were doing and, you know, went from there.
05:25All right, guys.
05:26So it's 416 right now.
05:29So about 45 minutes until service.
05:31I'm about to feed the fire with some more charcoal real quick.
05:34Get it up to temp.
05:36Just the way that we grill things here, we pay a lot of attention to where our fire's at.
05:41So what we're doing is we're letting our charcoal burn as hot as possible right now.
05:46So when we get to service, it's been burnt out enough that we have our proper cooking temperature that we're looking for.
05:53Because if you try cooking a kebab on top of this open fire, it's going to taste like cigarettes in your mouth.
05:58And that's not what we're looking for here.
06:00And at the beginning, that was actually an issue.
06:02It's like people were starting their fire too late and then 5 o'clock hits.
06:05We're busy and we're like, well, what do we cook with?
06:08So at least an hour before service, probably an hour 15, we light our first embers, get it to burn out.
06:15So we're in a good spot once service starts.
06:18So as you can see, the way the line works, one giant grill.
06:22We have a fryer over here and our Salatim station that they're very nicely setting up over here.
06:29So here at Laser Wolf, we do a little bit of a prefix menu.
06:32So every table starts off with a variety of 10 different Salatim, which are Israeli-inspired salads.
06:37Earlier in the day, we remixed all the salads that the prep team made, re-seasoning them and tasting with me.
06:43Added more olive oil, salt, herbs, whatever they needed to make sure that everything that we serve tonight is exactly what we want it to be.
06:52So we had a last-minute hiccup before service, a little family situation.
06:58So Jesus over here started the day on Salatim and he slid over to our fry station.
07:04Thank you, Jesus, for being so accommodating.
07:08And then Ana from our prep team slid over to Salatim to come help out.
07:13In case there's a call-out, in case we're light, in case someone's on vacation, we all have to be ready.
07:20Even if it means like five minutes before service something happened, you need to change what you're doing, that's what we do.
07:26All right, so Sergio's about to fire off our tasting skewers.
07:30One of each skewer that Raffini so beautifully made earlier today.
07:35Just to make sure that the seasoning is right for the rest of service.
07:38They're spot on pretty much every night.
07:40We still go through the process because that's what we have to do to like just make sure that we're staying on the right track.
07:46But we trust them very, very, very much at this point.
07:50Or if we have to say, you know what, we can't serve this tonight, that's what we have to do because we'd rather only serve things that are right, you know?
07:58So what you're seeing right here, before we were letting all of our coals burn out, you see no flame whatsoever here.
08:05We drill it into the cook, it's like the first thing we teach them.
08:08Like before you focus on whether this is well done or medium rare or whatever you need it to be, it's like no, you focus on the coal first and then everything else.
08:18Like that is where you start.
08:20And if you can't master that, then you can't really work the station.
08:23And you can see just by looking at it, how close the meat is actually to the charcoal, which means you don't need nearly as much as you think you would to get a beautiful sear on this.
08:32I mean, this hanger has a perfect crust on it and there's barely any charcoal under it.
08:37It's because it's been burnt out right and because everything is so close to the fire.
08:43There's a lot of fat in there, but we keep our fire at the right temperature that when that fat drips down, all we see is this beautiful smoke and no flames.
08:51If there's ever a flare up, we move all the skewers, reset our fire, start again.
08:56So we have good color on both sides, just about ready.
08:59Going to give them a little squeeze just to see if they're done this, that one's good.
09:03Serge, do you want to be the master skewer taker offer?
09:06You're the man with the plan, bro.
09:08Yeah, of course.
09:11So if you see what he's doing, he's actually pulling the skewer out and keeping his tongs as the pressure as it's coming off.
09:18So you're not pushing the meat off, you're pulling the skewer out and keeping the skewer in place.
09:23When we're serving all these kebabs, they have their own garnishes in certain sauces that go with each one.
09:29But for the purpose of actually tasting for seasoning, we're going to keep everything plain.
09:33So I kind of like to work from least spicy to most spicy so you don't have one spicy bite and that kind of like affects all your other bites.
09:40But if you zoom in a little closer, maybe a tinge of pink here, not as much in this.
09:47So nothing's going to be like medium rare like you would expect a burger when you go to a steakhouse.
09:52But look how much juice is on the bottom of this plate.
09:54Everything stays so juicy because we grind all of our own meat and we don't over mix it.
09:59And we keep a large amount of fat on the meat as we cut it.
10:02We don't trim a whole lot off.
10:04Those are our skewers for the night, all tasting perfect.
10:07So yeah, I guess in theory if we were in a pinch and we're like, you know what, this brisket doesn't have enough salt in it.
10:12Maybe we look for a batch that was, if these were made yesterday, that were made today.
10:18And we just won't serve anything with this date on it.
10:21But nothing gets older than two days.
10:24If it turns out that all the brisket in house doesn't have enough salt, then we just can't serve that for the night.
10:30Knock on wood, I can't remember the last time that happened with any of our proteins.
10:34We do taste it every day.
10:36But it's a good way to keep each other in check and just make sure that like, you don't do 300 covers in a night and then be like,
10:43wait, this has no salt in it. That's what we really serve to 300 people.
10:47You just got to stay on it. You got to stay on it.
10:49So as you see over here, Ana is setting up our Salatim.
10:54Salatim is kind of the engine that keeps this restaurant running.
10:59You can't serve any of the skewers until the Salatim are on the table.
11:02If we fall too far behind on Salatim, then everything else struggles.
11:06You know, all of service struggles. We're all waiting.
11:09And she's lining up all these trays.
11:11So when everyone piles in at five o'clock, we're just going. We're just going.
11:16Six minutes until service.
11:20We have 274 covers on and we can fit about a hundred people in here.
11:26A little more when we open up the patios.
11:28So that would mean three full turns of the restaurant tonight.
11:33Solid team for two going to 310.
11:36Solid team for two going to 209.
11:39So when the ticket comes in, I write the table number on here.
11:43The Salatim chefs also get a ticket.
11:46So they bring it up to the Salatim.
11:47As soon as the Salatim comes out, then we're going to send that out.
11:50And I'm going to write the time on the top.
11:52And that's when we'll indicate exactly when to fire.
11:55Order in eggplant. Fire alitas.
11:59Eggplant.
12:01So our vegetables, our eggplant cauliflower, as soon as they get ordered in, I got some color on them.
12:09So they can slowly cook and be ready by the time we fire.
12:12We also do the same thing with T-bone and Bronzino.
12:15We fire it out earlier than the skewers because they take longer to cook.
12:19Solid team for two to 309.
12:23All right, Sammy.
12:25You ready? It's your time to shine.
12:27108, 209, 406, 208.
12:30All right, let's fire two chicken, three steak, two Lambo, one cofta, one brisket, one salmon.
12:41Necesito uno pita por favor. Gracias.
12:45Salatim for two.
12:47Seat two is gluten-free.
12:48It's going to go to 20.
12:50Thanks, Heidi.
12:52And one salmon as well.
12:54You can send that out first.
12:56It's going with my Doran.
12:57Fire alitas.
12:58That's two all day.
12:59Necesito cuatro pita por favor.
13:03And then it's coming with that cucumber with no seasoning.
13:07Oh, you got it.
13:08Didn't see it.
13:10Yeah, you got it.
13:11One big metal, two regular, one salmon.
13:14Solid team for two going to 302.
13:17Fire foie.
13:18Fire foie.
13:19Jesus, dos alitas, yes?
13:20Yeah.
13:21And one foie.
13:22Trabajando duro.
13:23Como Jesus.
13:24Order in Kali.
13:25Kali.
13:26Kali.
13:27Kali.
13:28Kali.
13:29Kale tabbouli.
13:30Going to 406.
13:31406.
13:32Salatim for four.
13:33Cucumber no seasoning.
13:34Going to 403.
13:35Look at that smoke, bro.
13:36That's what we're looking for.
13:37Salatim for three to 17.
13:38All right, Papa, we're going chicken lambo.
13:39P supercom lo.
13:40Two reds, Ohhh Okay.
13:41Cheers.
13:42Yes, we're looking for it.
13:43Absolutely.
13:44Salatim.
13:45Cali.
13:46Cali.
13:47Cali.
13:48Cali.
13:49Cali.
13:50Cali.
13:51Cali.
13:52Cali.
13:54Cali.
13:55Cali.
13:56Cali.
13:57Cali.
13:58Cali.
13:59Cali.
14:00Cali.
14:01Cali.
14:02Cali.
14:03Cali.
14:04Cali.
14:05Cali.
14:07double steak, everything else together on a big plate.
14:11So I call his skewers, obviously, let him get set.
14:14Then we're gonna let him know how he's gonna plate it,
14:17just what plates he's gonna need.
14:19And then we're about three minutes away from plating,
14:21I'll let him know what skewers are going with what.
14:23Because if you give him the information too early,
14:25it's like, okay, what'd you say 10 minutes ago?
14:28So it's just like, what do you need to know now?
14:30What do you need to know a little later on?
14:32And I know, like, whatever we've already talked about
14:35a million times, but just how perfect his fire is,
14:38how there's no flare ups, you know?
14:40And it's not always like this.
14:42You can see when we train a new grill cook,
14:45it's just like every second, you're like, okay,
14:47you have a fire, you have a fire.
14:49Because everyone's tendency to get your grill
14:51as hot as possible when you need to cook things fast,
14:53but like, you kind of need to fight that urge.
14:55And that's what Senor Sergio is so great at.
15:05Fire Puppets Fritas.
15:07That's a Lambo, right?
15:08Yeah.
15:10I was like, what garnish do I put on that?
15:14Look at that, baby.
15:17First pick in the books.
15:18It's the first time we've ever done this together.
15:21Chicken, steak, brisket, kofta, lamb and beef,
15:24and one more rice.
15:28Yeah, two rice.
15:30It's going to 4.06.
15:32All right, Sergio.
15:362.09, one pita.
15:37Let's fire two chicken, two steak, one is medium,
15:41one Lambo, one, two, three salmon.
15:45Sorry, it's four salmon, not three.
15:48That's it.
15:50So we have one more solid team, two coming up.
15:52That's when the printer went out.
15:54And it's gluten-free, so cucumbers.
15:58So we flash fry our eggplant to get it nice and soft,
16:02some nice grill marks on it,
16:05some nice peeled sun gold tomatoes with some schug,
16:10some shipka peppers,
16:13crispy garlic, crispy shallots.
16:18Order in Zeno.
16:20Zeno.
16:22Quattro arroz, por favor.
16:25I'm just waiting for solid team, so just give it a sec.
16:30Let's get that first one out.
16:35Salmon, eggplant, rice, going to 20.
16:42Can we go foie 101?
16:46Let's go chicken, steak, lamb and beef, and a salmon.
16:51Going with the rice to 4.03.
16:57Order in Kali.
16:59That's less fun than a Zeno.
17:00Fire Zeno.
17:05Sammy, after you put that Zeno on, I'm ready on a couple.
17:15Me too, baby.
17:16So this is our Bronzino right here, completely de-boned,
17:21stuffed with some ginger, tomato, and garlic cooked down.
17:25We're going to cook it on one side, cover it with a bowl, flip it over, and then I'll call my next ticket that goes with it.
17:3117-101.
17:3317-101.
17:34Serge, let's fire two steaks, one Lambo, one salmon.
17:42Necesito uno repollo, por favor.
17:44Repollo.
17:46Gracias.
17:47One of those steaks is solo, and then you're going steak Lambo together.
17:52I think one of the cool things for us, too, is we do 350 covers a night, and it feels this tame throughout the entire night.
18:00They're so good on the line, and everyone's been doing this for so long that it's just comfortable and smooth and easy.
18:09Solid team for five, going to 401.
18:13It's our cauliflower with confit pine nuts, shorma spice, a slug tzatziki, some fresh galleons on top.
18:21It's been a day one.
18:23One of our very favorites.
18:31All right, we're going to go steak, durad, khali, rice, 17.
18:38Let me know when to fire the fries on that.
18:41About three minutes.
18:44Tres mas pira po povar.
18:46Solid team for two, going to 2.03.
18:56Papi, on 2.06, we're going to switch this lamb and beef to brisket.
19:05Not for you.
19:06No, not this one.
19:07A lighter one.
19:08Not for you.
19:09Fire papas fritas.
19:10They basically didn't like their salmon.
19:11They just wanted to do the steak instead.
19:12Okay.
19:13Steak instead of the salmon?
19:14Yeah.
19:15Okay.
19:16Fire steak.
19:17Fire steak, please.
19:18Solo.
19:19Sonder.
19:20They just didn't like the salmon.
19:22All right, solid team for two, going to 3.01.
19:23Order in eggplant.
19:24Eggplant.
19:25Necesito repolla, piña y tres pira, por favor.
19:29Solid team for two.
19:30One person has a gluten allergy.
19:31That's at seat one.
19:323.11.
19:33I just didn't like the salmon.
19:34All right, solid team for two, going to 3.01.
19:36Order in eggplant.
19:37Eggplant.
19:38Necesito repolla, piña y tres pira, por favor.
19:52Solid team for two.
19:54One person has a gluten allergy.
19:56That's at seat one, 3.11.
20:01Solid team for four, going to 2.01.
20:04They have a peanut, salmon, and egg allergy.
20:08They are totally fine.
20:12One pita, going to 17.
20:18Just got to be confident with it.
20:23So we're going to finish that with some citrus salt.
20:27Some more of that ginger tomato.
20:29Make sure that it was stuffed with.
20:32Just a little bit.
20:33It's pretty strong.
20:37Try not to plop it on the plate like that.
20:40Okay.
20:41I need one pepino regular.
20:46A couple of limones.
20:50And all the herbs.
20:52Cinco arroz, por favor.
20:57Let's go lamb and beef, xeno, and a rice.
21:02Going to 1.03.
21:031.03.
21:07Sammy, can I add one ticket whenever?
21:09Yeah.
21:10Let's go on 2.06.
21:17As soon as we clear it out, we're going to go on a brisket salmon.
21:23Steak solo, going to 3.02.
21:25Solo.
21:26You can bring a rice.
21:27You can bring a rice.
21:28Yeah.
21:33Order in.
21:35Three collies, one eggplant.
21:39Okay, senor vegetable.
21:45Let's go chicken, brisket, rice.
21:482.03.
21:49Chicken, brisket, rice.
21:502.03.
21:57Let's go lamb and beef, steak, and a rice.
22:002.07.
22:02I feel a lot more smooth than I thought I would, honestly.
22:05Let's go, buddy.
22:06Let's go.
22:07Love you, brother.
22:10We got a bunch of salad team coming up right now.
22:14Let's go salad team for 8.
22:16Going to 4.08.
22:19Fire alitas, fire papas fritas.
22:23I need salad team.
22:25I need salad team for 2.
22:265 and 2.
22:28Salad team for 2 to 3.08.
22:31Yeah, I just want all the salad team's been 10 minutes,
22:38so I want to get the salad team out first.
22:40You guys need a 5, right?
22:41Yeah.
22:42Just a 5.
22:43Solo no cinco.
22:44And then I have refills, but...
22:47Fire foie.
22:49Of course.
22:54All right.
22:55We're going to go salad team for 5.
22:57It's an avocado allergy.
22:59We do not have avocado.
23:00They're good.
23:014.04.
23:02Bye, dude.
23:0444.
23:07Okay.
23:08Dos pita, por favor.
23:11Come on.
23:12Fire papas fritas.
23:15That's 3 all day.
23:16Sammy, I got a big one coming up.
23:20What's that?
23:21I got a big one.
23:22Heidi, we're going to go with these wings for 8 people to 4.08.
23:28Find you.
23:293.01, 2.01, 3.11.
23:33And 3.06.
23:343.06.
23:35All right, Sergio.
23:36Necesito tomate, por favor.
23:37Let's fire two chicken.
23:38One steak.
23:39One kofta.
23:40Two kofta.
23:41Two brisket.
23:42Sorry.
23:43Three brisket.
23:44One lambo.
23:45One salmon.
23:46Should be nine skewers all day.
23:49Thank you, Jesus.
23:50All right.
23:51French fries.
23:52We are going to go to 3.11.
23:533.11.
23:54Solid team for two going to 3.10.
23:58Isn't it awesome when everything's flowing though?
24:01Like it doesn't look like it's the three brisket.
24:03Two brisket.
24:04Sorry, three brisket.
24:05One lambo.
24:06One salmon.
24:07Should be nine skewers all day.
24:09Thank you, Jesus.
24:10All right.
24:11French fries.
24:12We are going to go to 3.11.
24:13Three 11.
24:15Solid team for two going to 3.10.
24:18Isn't it awesome when everything's flowing though?
24:23Like, it doesn't look like anyone's working crazy hard, right?
24:26They're just doing it.
24:28It's controlled, though.
24:29Controlled, you know?
24:32Ordering Zeno.
24:33Zeno.
24:35Now we're going down.
24:38That's a pretty quick fire, right?
24:41Yeah.
24:41I do have a big pick coming up, too, after this.
24:45It's fine.
24:47Plattos.
24:50Chicken steak double brisket.
24:53You got a solid team for two coming up, too.
24:54Chicken lambo, brisket solo, kofta solo.
24:58Sammy, you're good to fire that Zeno now.
25:01All right.
25:02Solid team for two going to 2-0-2.
25:11Necesito uno hummus, por favor.
25:14Buzzy, you good?
25:18You got a brisket solo.
25:20All right, we're going to go chicken, steak, brisket, brisket, with a rice going to 2-0-1.
25:26Chicken steak, brisket, brisket, rice, 2-0-1.
25:29You ready, Sam?
25:3015, 409, 408, 308.
25:33408, 15, 308, 404, and 3-10.
25:37No, 15?
25:39No, 15.
25:40408, 15, 308, 404, 3-10.
25:43So everything but 401.
25:46Yeah.
25:50Peat up for six.
25:51Peat up for two.
25:52Peat up for two.
25:55Perfecto.
25:55Gracias.
25:56All right, guys.
25:57We're about an hour and a half into service.
25:59The first turn was super smooth.
26:01We had a little juggling to do on the line before we got started, but everyone's where they belong.
26:06We're open until a little after 10.30 tonight.
26:09Looking forward for a great night.
26:11Thank you guys for joining us.
26:12It was awesome.