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Bon Appétit spends a day on the line with Chef Mike Bagale, executive chef at NYC’s best new bar, Sip & Guzzle. Chef Bagale is redefining cocktail bar food with his Japanese-American fusion menu–from a limited edition #1 Wagyu burger to caviar-topped desserts. See how NYC’s most exciting new bar is also serving one of the city’s most innovative food menus.
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00Sip and Guzzle is an American-Japanese hybrid cocktail bar.
00:05We got number one burger in North America, voted by world's best steakhouses.
00:09My title is executive chef.
00:11I did 10 years at 3 Michelin Alinea as executive chef,
00:14and I'm taking all of my creativity and applying it to the bar.
00:19It's a cocktail bar.
00:20A lot of the food wouldn't work in all environments.
00:23Here, having a 13-inch mochi fry that's chewy and it's a french fry with a couple cocktails and a
00:29beer,
00:29it makes absolute sense, and it's fun.
00:40Hey, what's up? Welcome to Sip and Guzzle.
00:42I'm Mike Begale, executive chef.
00:45Come on in.
00:47This is actually Guzzle Bar.
00:49Downstairs is Sip Bar.
00:51Upstairs focuses on classics and classic cocktail-making, Prohibition-style,
00:55and then downstairs is a little bit more technique-driven,
00:57and the kitchen supports both programs.
00:59So, come into the kitchen and let's get started.
01:06We're checking in on some morning production.
01:09Chef here is getting ready to grind our A5 Wagyu for our signature Tavern Burger.
01:14This Tavern Burger is a byproduct of another iconic sandwich that we do,
01:19the Royale with cheese.
01:20We take all the trimmings from that and we grind it into patties.
01:23That was how this dish was birthed.
01:24We use A5 Miyazaki specifically because the Royale with cheese sandwich is an iconic sandwich in Japan called the Katsu
01:32Beef Sandwich.
01:34And our version is a little bit Americanized.
01:36We put minced onions similar to how big fast food brands do it.
01:40We make our own Japanese ketchup, our own version of cheese sauce on it.
01:45Specifically, this is tenderloin.
01:47This isn't just A5 Wagyu.
01:48It's the most tender cut on top of it already being tender.
01:51And the reason for which is when you bite into this really thick sandwich,
01:55it needs to disintegrate and eat almost like a marshmallow.
01:58But for the burger, we do 12 a day very specifically because that's our yield of our byproduct.
02:03So, it is sustainable.
02:05This is like a nose to tail, if you will, of our in-house production.
02:08There's a lot of fat here.
02:09It's not traditional for a tavern burger.
02:12So, we need to strengthen it.
02:13So, we add a little bit of gelatin and then we add Japanese Jodori egg yolks to give it a
02:18little bit of a binder as well.
02:20It's a Japanese chicken.
02:21It's actually a fertilized egg.
02:22It's chicken eggs they use in yakitori.
02:24We start this in the morning.
02:26Let them really, really firm up because we're going to pan-base those and a lot of French butter and
02:30caramelize them.
02:31And we need to make sure that it's fresh ground daily, that's bound properly, and that it has time to
02:36rest.
02:37So, the meat softens even a little bit more, but it's still compact.
02:40And then we assemble the burger by adding what I call Parmesan singles to mimic like a crab single,
02:45where we take Parmesan and cream and lay it into a sheet and cut it into perfect squares so we
02:50can drape that over and steam it over the final product.
02:53And then we do our own fermented shishito relish, Napa cabbage slaw, fermented pickles, just a light brushing of tare
03:00on it, and the Bread's Bakery sesame buns.
03:03This looks great, Chef.
03:04I'm going to head upstairs and check in with Chef Isaac.
03:10I like to start my day with Chef de Cuisine Isaac here.
03:13Isaac runs not only the day-to-day operations, he helps me streamline the systems, make sure every dish is
03:19consistent.
03:20Let's check out this caviar.
03:21You're going to see how it's going to work.
03:22This is Golden Ocetra Caviar.
03:24We get it farmed from Greece.
03:25It's just a rare quality egg.
03:27It's a little bit richer, a little bit more buttery than you would typically get from a caviar.
03:31Any luxury ingredient, there needs to be a form of education from the product to the guest.
03:36The best way to serve it is in abundance.
03:38That way the guests feel, not only are they getting the quantity of which they want, but they're able to
03:43make their own assessment into why they like it.
03:45I feel like getting it with ice cream a lot.
03:47So, thinking maybe we just do a special with a fat dab of caviar on the Hakata milks off there.
03:53Mm-hmm. Really good.
03:55Delicious. This batch is super nutty.
03:56All right, we're going to check some of the deliveries that are coming in now.
04:03Some of our deliveries come up to the bar.
04:06This is our Bread's Bakery delivery, a very prestigious list that rated us number one burger in the country.
04:12It's partially due to this amazing partnership with Bread's Bakery.
04:15Every day, deliver in the morning between 12 and 15 buns just baked like an hour ago.
04:21We don't make it in-house because we don't have the time commitment, the proofing, the ovens.
04:27One thing coming from Michelin Kitchens is there's like a stigma of not making everything in-house.
04:32And if you're not making your own bread or your own cured meats or whatever.
04:36Then you're a rack.
04:37Yeah, then you're an idiot and you should go home and I'll never come back.
04:39Bread looks awesome and we have a few other deliveries that we need to check on.
04:44Come on in.
04:45Straight to the kitchen.
04:47All right.
04:48This is our bluefin tuna.
04:50Really high quality, as you can tell.
04:52Clean, beautiful product that we use a lot of.
04:55Typically what we'll do is we'll separate this loin and use the loin specifically for putting into our volcano roll.
05:01We like to give it a little taste, determine if we want to age it on the skin a little
05:05bit downstairs to impart a little bit more umami and flavor.
05:08Or sometimes it's kind of ready to go now.
05:10What do you think?
05:11I think it's great.
05:12I think sit on it for a couple of days and let it kind of concentrate just on the skin.
05:16Okay.
05:16And then we'll break it down and get it ready.
05:18It could go right now.
05:19I'd be happy with it right now.
05:21But yeah, let's give it a few days and we're okay.
05:23Let's pack it up and keep on moving.
05:29So a big part of my day is checking in on production.
05:32All of the production happens behind the scenes before we start service.
05:35Right now I'm checking in on our volcano roll, which this is an homage to the Japanese hand roll.
05:41This is a unique recipe of macerating nori with sugar and soy and invert sugar and then drying.
05:49This is a perfect example of a dish that's just hyper hyper minimalist, but it took about four months of
05:56constant R&D.
05:57This is actually two sheets of nori that we've pressed together.
06:00The next thing is to fry it quickly.
06:03And what we're doing is we're letting the sugars that are in the soy caramelize.
06:08You take this bar and you have to work very, very quickly because as the sugar cools, it hardens.
06:13So what we're doing is rolling this and pressing it so that I'm getting it very, very, very tight and
06:19structural.
06:20And then the sugar temperature is dropping drastically.
06:22And as it cools, which forms a tube and we set it right here and we make 150 of those.
06:29And then we move on to the next project.
06:31So we're almost done here.
06:32Let's go check on some more of the production.
06:35So we saw some production upstairs.
06:37A lot of the rest of the production happens down here in our receiving kitchen.
06:41You saw upstairs me rolling the tubes and finalizing them and then they get dehydrated.
06:46Down here is where the production starts.
06:48We lacquer and brush and macerate all the nori and then it gets air dried before the final steps.
06:54So this happens every day, first thing in the morning, as well as drying our chicken skin.
06:59That we will puff later.
07:01This is our bikini production.
07:03This is the bikini sandwich designed for my love of the Spanish bikini sandwich.
07:09We call it the world's thinnest sandwich.
07:11The idea of this dish is that we fill it with luxurious ingredients that embody ham and cheese sandwich.
07:16We use comte cheese from France and we kind of make like a comte cheese ganache.
07:20And then we layer that with fresh shavings of Cinco Jota's jamone Iberico, which for me is the greatest jamone
07:27in the world.
07:28This is the base of the sandwich.
07:29And as you can tell, it's super, super airy.
07:33It's like a wafer.
07:34We need two of these per order.
07:36We can sell over a hundred of these a night.
07:38So kind of like everything else, it's a huge production that has to continually work with extreme efficiency.
07:42These machines here, they have to continually go for hours and hours to fill this.
07:47It's not a traditional Stroopwafel machine.
07:49It's basically a flat iron press with nonstick surfaces that I've used for a variety of techniques, but it's the
07:56only one I know that proves this technique.
07:58The batter is really special because it's a combination of the right amount of starch and how those starches are
08:04introduced with flour and how it's rested and sits over time to give it the resiliency it needs to be
08:10paper thin and light without being overly heavy.
08:13Over here, we have our chicken production.
08:16Chef Will here has been with us since day one and he's a monster.
08:19Will can single handedly prep almost all of it by himself and we're super lucky to have him.
08:24This is a signature electric chicken.
08:27It's called electric because it has a heavy amount of Sichuan oil and a little bit of Sancho, which is
08:32Japanese.
08:33That has a numbing effect on the palate.
08:35It's kind of like our version of Nashville hot chicken.
08:37We debunk it for maximum surface area, for crunch, for consistency.
08:42It also helps speed up the cooking process.
08:44Then we brine the legs overnight.
08:46It makes a juicier piece of chicken.
08:48For me, you cannot fry chicken if you don't brine it.
08:50We air dry it.
08:51It takes a little bit of that moisture out of the skin so that when we fry it, it gets
08:55even extra crispy.
08:56We off the air dry into buttermilk, out of the buttermilk and into our dredge.
09:00Out of the dredge, into the fryer.
09:02Every single chicken gets fried for exactly seven minutes.
09:05No more, no less.
09:07Out of the fryer, into our amazing Sichuan oil.
09:10It goes in and out of that oil, which just allows that textural crunch layer to be saturated with all
09:16that chili.
09:17But then we let it drip and dry so that the chicken's not overly saturated.
09:21And then we finish it with a heavy dusting of a lot more chili powder and Sichuan powder.
09:26You let the guests use a pair of scissors.
09:29We instruct them to put a glove on so they can handle the heat.
09:31If we cut up the chicken, it immediately starts to lose heat and also moisture.
09:36All of the dishes are izakaya style, so it's all things to share.
09:39And this is how we can make something that is a single leg of chicken shareable for, you know, the
09:43whole table.
09:44So that's it for our chicken. Keep this thing moving. We have a little bit more production to do.
09:52We got about an hour before doors open. Get ready for service.
09:55Do any final tastings, any final garnish work, and make sure the stations are set the way they need to
10:00be for service.
10:01Here's our nori rolls. The cutting boards are coming out. Salamander is going on. Ovens are going on.
10:06Cotton candy machine is getting warmed up. This is another bit of garnish for one of the dishes.
10:11This is our chicken skins, which we make chicken stock and puree the chicken stock with koshikari rice from Japan.
10:17It kind of puffs like a chicharron. These are the skins that we have drawing on the speed rack downstairs.
10:23We go through a lot of these. We do a chicken chips and salsa.
10:26So this actually acts as like a potato chip. The guests get to crack the chips that are seasoned with
10:32the powder
10:32and dip it into avocado, pineapple, and salsa verde.
10:36So part of service is getting these last minute. They say super crunchy.
10:41We're going to put up the chicken chips and salsa. This is kind of a Fran Adria trick.
10:45Way, way, way, way back in the day, used to put salt air on his margaritas, which is super ahead
10:50of its time.
10:50Sometimes people will look at airs and foams and they'll criticize it as being sciency and molecular.
10:57It's no different than any other technique. Making a foam, making a puff chip, making an anglaise for ice cream
11:03base.
11:04These are all science techniques. You can either dip it or you can sip it. It's almost designed to be
11:09like a gazpacho.
11:10Guests have a lot of fun with it. We need to check the foie gras, which is our signature Mont
11:14Blanc recipe,
11:15which is toasted choco pan, sour cherry jam, and make sure we're tight there.
11:19Did you re-blend that? This is new. That's new? Yeah, it just did.
11:23It still needs to be blended silkier. This is a patafouille, a classic French patafouille, using cherry juice.
11:29It's kind of like a jam, which still gives it bite and really holds up texturally to the foie gras.
11:35We've lost a few chefs to this dish. He's our third chef to attempt this. Today. Today.
11:42Foie gras is obviously really, really dense, right? It's pure fat. And when fat gets cold, it gets really, really
11:48firm.
11:48We stabilize ours with a little bit of gelatin, so it's flexible, but we don't do a whole lot else
11:55to it.
11:56So inherently, he's working with a very, very dense, firm duck fat. And he probably should start going to the
12:03gym soon.
12:03He's going to fix the cherry. So I think we're pretty much there, unless I'm surprised.
12:10There's also, like, a peanut butter and jelly thing going on. Not in actual flavor, but in texture and design.
12:16The sour cherry and the super fatty foie gras and, of course, the bread. Your mind takes you to a
12:21place.
12:22You're like, something's very familiar about this. And it's done in a little bit more of an elegant fashion.
12:27For service, like, I'll typically expedite, or Chef Isaac will expedite.
12:31We have 110 people on the books, but we could easily have 150 walk-ins tonight that we're not ready
12:36for.
12:36And with that comes surprises. That's the nature of the beast.
12:40We are all set up in here with tastings. Now we just need to finalize getting the expo station set
12:44up
12:44and fine-tuning everything so we can get ready to go for service.
12:51It's 4 o'clock. We're about to get busy. So I'm going to have to kindly ask you to leave.
12:56Thank you.
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