- 3 months ago
Bon Appétit spends a day on the line with Chef Michael Vignola of The Eighty Six, North America's number one steakhouse. This historic NYC restaurant was a popular spot for the likes of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Earnest Hemingway and is straight out of the 1920s. 102 years since opening, this tiny restaurant (just 10 tables) continues to push boundaries and uphold its big legacy.
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00The 86 is a historic American steakhouse. I have a 107-day age coffee and tobacco crusted
00:07strip that's bone-in. We also have these beautiful Spinalis dorsiuses. We are licensed to carry 27
00:13different prefectures of Japanese Wagyu. I believe it's probably the best in Wagyu that you can ever
00:18taste. One thing great about the 86 is we are small but mighty. It's like an attack battle sub here.
00:23Every little spot is hyper-designed and focused. We are unconventional, we are uncompromising,
00:29and we are lunatics in hospitality.
00:42Hello, I'm Chef Michael Vignola here at the 86 in the West Village in the heart of New York City.
00:47Come on in, it's 10 a.m. and we're already behind.
00:5110 tables, 35 seats, 102-year-old restaurant. Some of the cool things about this room,
00:55you have Hemingway's booth, he used to pass out drunk there all the time.
00:59Welcome to the kitchen here at the 86. This is it guys, it's 200 square feet of pure power
01:04and a little bit of mayhem. Let's go check out the boxes and walk downstairs.
01:11And down to the belly of the beast here. You'll notice things at the 86, every square foot is
01:16hyper-designed and utilized. A storage for above, we built this little shelf. We have pop-up tables for
01:21polishing and for to-go, as well as our linen storage for our uniforms and jackets. Watch your step as
01:26we
01:26navigate through dishland. Right now we're in the prep area as well as raw bar down here.
01:31We have pastry underneath into our walk-ins. First thing we're going to do is check on what's in
01:37the aging box. We have a few different specimens here. This is our beautiful bone-in American Wagyu,
01:42coffee and tobacco crusted, stripped about 107 days old at this point. So coffee and a cigarette,
01:47one of my two vices left that I have are Marlboro Reds and cold brew coffee. I also think they
01:52go
01:52amazing with steak. They bring out the unctuousness and the beef. They really pair well and give you
01:56a height of umami. I wish it had smell-o-vision. One of my other favorite cuts is here is
02:00the
02:00spinalis. This is the decal or the rib cap, the spinalis muscle, off of the ribeye. 100% prime,
02:07American, corn-fed, grain-finished. This has been lightly aging for about 11 days. You can see the
02:11bark is really starting to develop on here. It's got some great fung to it. This is just about right.
02:16We're going to portion this later. We're going to serve this up tonight. We get these amazing ducks from Joe
02:21Djurgowitz, where we utilize the entire animal. You have these dry-aged breasts. These have about
02:26six days on them at this point. We get them fully un-eviscerated, means guts, necks. Everything
02:31is still intact. There's confie in the sausage. There's foie gras in the sausage. There's also duck
02:35meat. And with these beautiful necks that were a natural casing for them. I wanted to showcase the
02:40whole animal. We're going to go upstairs. We're going to start off with some of the butchery work.
02:45Corner, coming down. All right. I'm going to pause right here. I got to grab a cutting board.
02:51Corner, coming to my line. We do as much as we can upstairs and as little as possible
02:56downstairs. Knife cuts and prep all happen downstairs. Any of the live cooking, sausage
03:01stocks, etc., all made here in the kitchen. We're going to fabricate some of our beautiful stone axe
03:088-9 filet mignon. Marbled beef, score 9+. That means it is a 9 of 11 on the amount of
03:15intermuscular fat in
03:16the filet. You're going to notice the filet. It's kind of got two different parts. The eye of the
03:21tranche and then this head. So we're just going to come in and free this gently up. See the bigger
03:26pockets of fat? We're going to pull that off. All of this gets saved. It goes into what we call
03:30beef
03:30love. We finish our steaks in a variety of different fats and tallows. Stone axe in Queensland,
03:35Australia. It's crossbred program of American and Australian bulls. Really rich minerality.
03:41They get to feed on seagrasses. It naturally gives it a little bit of a salinity to the meat. I
03:46think
03:46it is the best filet in the world, although I'm not a filet eater personally. I do, of course,
03:51you know, for science. But it is a delicious, unctuous filet. We open at four o'clock. We found
03:56that four o'clock is the new nine o'clock. As a lot of diners now don't want to eat
04:00this nighttime
04:00anymore. I know for myself, I'd rather take the earlier res than go to bed. So for those of you
04:05kids out there, I'm here for you four o'clock. It's the new nine. We're going to kind of mark
04:08off
04:08what a portion looks like visually beforehand. As you can see, it tapers, right? But you want to make sure
04:14you hit your weights on everything. We're shooting for like a six ounce portion. Oh, right on the
04:20money. When I talk about the end of muscular fat, look at that marbleization. It just really runs
04:25through there. It's not like a normal filet. Normal filets you see are just plain red. This has
04:30beautiful amounts of that snowflake fat or marble through it. These are going to get sent downstairs.
04:35Our butcher is going to finish tying and trussing these. What we do is kind of round them out a
04:39little
04:39bit and we tie them up. It keeps it uniform in shape and size. It also ensures that my chef
04:47and
04:47cook who's cooking this piece is looking at it, inspecting it before it goes out. Meaning he has
04:52to cut this off after it's been rested. So he's judging the quality. He's judging his sear and his
04:56doneness. It's just another level to ensure consistency. We truly believe you cannot be great if
05:01you are not consistent. Next up, we're going to butcher our dry aged decals. So these are for tonight's
05:05service. It's the spinalis. It's the outer rib cap of the rib eye. So as you can see it tapers.
05:11It's
05:11not a perfect card. What we're going to cut are these beautiful kind of five ounce bricks or like
05:16deck of cards out of it. It's a really unique cut. It's extremely expensive. After it's yielded,
05:20it's roughly, you know, 80, 90 bucks a pound. And we'll get four per steak roughly. So there's eight
05:26of these per steer. In the grand scheme of things, not a lot. So really bespoke cut to us. First
05:32thing we're
05:32going to do is cut this little tail off. This will grind. We'll use it in our beef jus. It'll
05:37also
05:37go into our debris for our Wagyu French dips. And I just start with kind of removing some of this
05:41excess pellicle or skin. I am very fortunate enough that I have some amazing partners in Allen Brothers
05:47and in the Dakotas that they hold these for me. And don't forget, it is pulled off of a rib.
05:53So it's
05:54not that there aren't a lot of them. Just nobody does this. They don't want to put the work in.
05:58They
05:58want to dry age it themselves. They don't want to pay for it. It's a true luxury item. It's nicely
06:03trimmed up. See the difference from there to there? It's insane. I think there's a lot of good dry age
06:09and then there's some great dry age. I think if you like funky blue cheesy, I think that's way over
06:13wrought personally. What I love about dry age is the mouthfeel it gives you and a little bit of that
06:17funky parmesan umami-ness. I love everything about this steak. It's a loss leader. I don't make a lot of
06:23money on this steak. It barely brings even the cover's cost of it. But it's an honor to be able
06:27to serve it
06:28against and have them enjoy the experience of the deco. All right, we're gonna move on with our day.
06:34Coming in boys. Hey, let's talk sardines. One of my favorite fish. Beautiful ayahuashis from Hokkaido.
06:41They get full in rigor. You can see they're still nice and stiff as a board. Beautiful clean eyes.
06:45Everybody knows sardines from, you know, their grandma used to eat X, Y, and Z sardines on a peanut
06:48crackers. This is not them. I really prefer the Hokkaido Japanese sardines versus the Mediterranean ones. I feel
06:54like they're higher in fat. The colder the waters, the more fat they have. Higher in those omega-3s.
06:59It just tastes slightly better to me. We take our beautiful ayahuashis. Clean the head. Clean the tail.
07:06Make a small incision here. And then we're just going to use our fingers to really clean out everything
07:11else. They are soft enough that we are going to find the center bone and gently just rub our nail
07:17around it. Our amazing corporate sushi chef, Stanley, showed me this technique many moons ago,
07:23and it stuck with me. For those of you that have butchered sardines, it is not easy to do that.
07:28Once we have it cleaned, we take off a little bit of the belly here. Trim it up. Then these
07:34are ready
07:35for cure. This dish ends up as a three-piece kind of crudo. It gets finished with a hot, warm
07:40garlic oil,
07:41a little bit of a minus eight ice wine vinegar, some fresh herbs and breakfast radish, as well as
07:46this amazing sardine toast on the side. Sardines are done. Going back down to get our scallops. Behind,
07:56behind. These came in just from mass today. Beautiful live sea scallops. We're going to deshell them,
08:01shock them. They're going to be an addition tonight. Back upstairs. Corner! We actually have two entrances to
08:06the kitchen. The main pass through our door here to split. Or the other way. Come on! This is through
08:12our service area. You always gotta knock. Make sure you don't run into somebody. It's tight. It's kind
08:18of a one-way thing. Through the alleyway, they say. Watch your step through the gangplank. Here's where
08:26we keep our firewood. And into the kitchen. We're going to shuck some of these beautiful sea scallops.
08:34We're going to do them slightly grilled and more of a crudo, kind of a tataki style. You want to
08:37get
08:37your thumb in here. Really kind of just free it up from the shell. Make sure you're not missing
08:42anything up. Keep that guy for display. Not really a knife. Not really a spatula. It is a flexible
08:49little guy. It's great for everything from long distance to short, small things, strokes. You know,
08:54as you go through your career, you just kind of collect tools. Whether you bought them, you stole them,
08:59you borrowed and never gave them back. This guy right here. It is one of one. This burl came from
09:06my sister's backyard in Raleigh, North Carolina. Holly Springs to be exact. The copper is from the
09:11flat iron building window casements. The white between it is ivory from Steinway Piano Keys where
09:16my brother-in-law worked for 25 years as a polisher. And then it is a coil spring that was
09:21also dug up in
09:22the area. It is an extremely specific knife to me. The three rings are for each of my kids. Mia,
09:26Michaela, and Ronnie. It's kind of like they're with me all day. We're going to take our beautiful
09:30shells. We're going to give them a boil. I lied. We're going to get a bigger pot.
09:37You're going to ask me how I get water. Well, we go down here. Chef Winston likes to open up.
09:43We have our beautiful tea off the combi line. And here is our kitchen faucet. All you chefs out there
09:49that have dedicated culinary sinks, I salute you. We're going to clean our scallops. Right here,
09:54we have a little bit of cold water. I like to put some Malden in there just to kind of
09:58keep that
09:58seawater flavor while we're rinsing off some of that sand and silt from the scallop dredging. Clean
10:04gloves. You'll see me reaching kind of everywhere throughout the night. One thing we love is
10:09convertible items like magnetic. Go sticks to the wall. I have a small little cabinet up here. This is
10:16everything that we use for the pass. I also love these little organizers. They hold all sorts of random
10:21stuff. So I'm just pulling it apart, cleaning off this beautiful frill and all the guts. You're left
10:28with this amazing, beautiful, plump scallop. Leave them in there just to get off some of that silt
10:34and sand. We'll let it soak for a few minutes. We just got in our Dover soles from Jean-Marc.
10:38I'm
10:38going to run downstairs. Put it right here. Beautiful. Dover soles, wild caught. You can tell by the whiteness of
10:45their bellies. They are beautifully fished, super pristine. Came from the south of France. We got
10:50four pieces in today. That's for tonight's delivery. Yes. Thank you. Looks like we're doing Dover's next
10:55since they showed up. Behind, behind, atras. We are going to butcher brine and get these ready for
11:00tonight's service. First things first, sanitize. We're going to cut right up here. You can see where it
11:05kind of naturally bends. We're just going to go in there, cut through, make a clean incision, flip it over,
11:12under this little dorsal here, score it, and then we're going to pop the center bone out.
11:18These scissors are garden shears. They cut through clean. They cut through the bone. They also don't
11:23rip or tear any flesh. And then we're going to lightly skin this fish. Just get your thumb under
11:28there. This is one of my favorite tasks of the day. Peel it. One shot, knock them out. Our Dovers
11:36are
11:36done. They're in the brine. You want to guys do cups up? Cups up. This is where we come upstairs.
11:45Chef Winston brings up the AM cruise food. This is some of the mise en place that we're going to
11:48walk through for today. Let's go. Squash puree needs some. Taste the squash puree. It's not. It's a
11:53little grainy. It's not. It's very under seasoned. I taste the orange. I taste a little bit of squash.
11:57I don't taste any seasoning besides that. More salt. Oh, this is very good. So notes were that this needs
12:03more salt. Probably some nutmeg. This is the Caesar dressing. We need to get that blended a little
12:07bit more. It's a little grainy. We said the celery root curating. You should blend. Like add and blend
12:13it. Like into it. Like emulsion. Yeah. That's where I think you're getting the graininess from. You're
12:16making pebbles of the cheese. Black pepper, onion spread, a little bit of salt. No acid either. It needs
12:21a little bit of sherry. We don't really have a whole lot of like acid in that. It needs it.
12:26We're getting the
12:27rest of the order together. Spot checking and then getting staff the orders for tomorrow. Let's rock and roll.
12:32Beautiful. Thank you, Jeff. That went pretty well. There's always some tweaks, pivots, talk through
12:37discussions. Hello. We're always fighting deliveries here in New York. One of our amazing partners in it
12:48all is Chef Arnold, as I like to call him. We've been arguing back and forth about butchery and specs.
12:54Arnold and I were on a call as I was driving in and I said, cut me X, Y, and
12:57Z and let's look through
12:58them. Less than 24 hours later. Here they are. This is the first cut off the Westholm short loin of
13:04Australian Wagyu Porterhouse. This steak is beautiful. We talk about the best of both worlds.
13:10It's this kind of piece right here. I'm just going to cut it out. We'll save that for our beef
13:13love
13:14and this will be a great beautiful porterhouse for us. Beautiful T-bone, end to end. Needs a little bit
13:20of age on it and tighten up and just came out of cryo. So it'll start to bloom shortly. How
13:23many ounces?
13:2424? I could go bigger. This is going to be a special as we head into the spring months and
13:31spring menu. Oh, that's beautiful. So this is a bone in Kansas City. Cut off the short loin again
13:36as it tapers down. We're kind of left with these edges as I only want beautiful. This is from Rosewood.
13:42One of the original Wagyu's in America. Rosewood didn't start commercially producing Wagyu for sale
13:47until 96. So they waited 20 years of genetics that are really rich in this beef. I think it is
13:52bar none the best American Wagyu you can purchase. Arnold again, I can't thank you enough for all you
13:57do jumping through the hoops for us and making us look good. I'm glad to see you here my friend.
14:01Thank you Arnold. We're still running the gun and we got some more deliveries coming in. My amazing
14:05friend Estelle. Come on in. Beautiful. I've known Estelle for a very long time. I brought you some
14:10spring items. Wild strawberries grown in Malaga, Spain. They're super perishable. They die before the end
14:18of service. But at their peak, they are like the best strawberry you can get. We will offer these
14:22tonight for some VIPs. We'll send them out. Just a little thank you, a gesture to them. As we talked
14:26about, we love luxuries. We like to showcase them. We like to highlight amazing things in season. And
14:30you can't do these types of things with normal people. You need nut jobs like Estelle here,
14:34who's amazing at what she does. She runs around this city. She used to be on a bicycle and now
14:38she's in a
14:38band and she's got a whole big business and amazing children. I take the subway.
14:42Subway now. More relaxing. You're in full production? Yes. For another couple of months until it gets too
14:48hot over there. So end of June. Okay. How much a flat? 3.5 for two kilos. How many of
14:54these is in two kilos? 15.
14:56Okay. That's doable. Yeah. Affordable luxuries. Thanks. For VIPs. Wild asparagus coming from the
15:05long region southwest. Look at that. Of France. These are one of the items that is going to be featured
15:10on
15:10our spring menu. Moreals from Oregon. Yeah. A fresh burn or cultivated? Fresh. Wild. Oh. Black
15:17winter truffles. Those are pieces. I don't want pieces. This is it. This is it. And then we're
15:23at a gap season. Last week. Gap season until the Australian Black end of June. You want to use your
15:28scale or my scale? I'll use your scale. I trust you. Are you still doing deliveries or who's your normal
15:33guy? I do deliveries, of course. I'd love to see the chefs. It would be boring my job if I
15:39was like
15:39not making deliveries. You'd be too adult. I'll see you later. Thank you Estelle. The best. Estelle
15:44Strega. New York City chefs. You know, you know. At least we got snacks.
15:53Trying to get through things. Cooks are coming in. We're in the proverbial poops as you will. As you
15:58can see the line is getting full. During service it's only about three or four of us in the kitchen.
16:02This
16:02is the crossover time with the chaotic. This is what I love. I still have to clean some foie. Hudson
16:08unblemished liver. Foie is the engorged liver of a duck or a goose. It is fed corn until the liver
16:14kind of gets fatty and unctuous. And then it is chilled and served. It's two different lobes
16:18attached. To clean the foie I'm really going to use two tools. Offset and a spoon. It's literally just
16:23coming in. Coming under. Not blemishing the outside of the skin because that's going to help seal our
16:29torchon later on. Torchon is French for towel. It is going to be a rolled terrine that is lightly poached.
16:34In plastic we cure this foie in a mixture of salt, coriander, dark brown sugar, a little bit of pink
16:40salt or sodium nitrate to help keep the color beautifully pink. As well as cognac, sauterne,
16:45and mouscate. All that saves and we push it through a sieve later on. You can see the vein runs
16:50right
16:51through it. The healthier the foie is the less veins it has in it. See the vein there? Gently work
16:58it out.
16:59We're all done here. We're going to run to a PX meeting with Lee. Almost P's there. Let's go.
17:07Let me introduce you to our general manager, Lee Kodsman. Lee's been with me nine, ten years now.
17:13We're going to go over our PXs. PXs are any friends of the brand, friends, special notable guests,
17:17special occasions that we're dealing with. We have 17 first time diner reservations. Love that. So we can
17:23have a little fun tonight. Yeah, absolutely. Are we doing white asparagus tonight? We'll have white
17:27asparagus. Probably four orders. We'll figure out through the book where they go. Uh, whoa.
17:33Holy . The world's best. 101 just came out that we are the best steakhouse in the U.S.
17:39and number 12 in the world. And that's pretty crazy for this little joint six months in. I'm going to
17:44be real guys. This is a pretty humbling and uh, it's a little surreal. Wow. What the ?
17:51Did you guys just hear that? Yeah. You became best in the U.S.
17:55Yeah, dude. Forget number 12 in the world. We're best in the U.S.
18:00Holy . This little hole. This thing tell you. You guys did that . You guys.
18:07I'm so pumped right now. I'm sweating. I'm excited. I am really like, ha! I'm so excited.
18:13It's so hot in this restaurant right now. That's wild.
18:20Let's go. We're behind.
18:263.30. Time for pre-shift. We're going to check out with the team, see where we're at for the
18:29day.
18:29What's up, guys? Happy Wednesday.
18:30Happy Wednesday.
18:32Tonight, we are featuring five orders of stone crabs. I have one held back for a VIP if we need
18:36some more to up them. We changed the endives for the Waldorf salad, so I'd like some feedback on that
18:41tonight. It's a new organic endive. We also shock them in a little bit of ice water and acidulate them.
18:46We're moving
18:46around. It tends to lessen that bitterness, kind of like broccoli rabe. It was something that my aunt
18:50had mentioned. We tried. We did it here. It's fantastic. A little while ago, I got an insane
18:55phone call. We became number 12 in the world on the 101 Best Steakhouse List.
19:05To the crew that does this in and out, in a basement, up a staircase, through a doorway,
19:10in a hallway, and you guys make it all happen, I can't tell you how incredibly grateful and humbled
19:17I am to work amongst you all. And you've made this kid from Queens extremely happy and very grateful.
19:25And if I talk anymore, I'm going to cry. So I'm going to stop talking, and this is for you
19:31guys.
19:31To number 12 in the world, number one in my heart. 86 on me, 86 on three. One, two, three.
19:3786!
19:43All right, it's 350. We've flipped the kitchen. We've now taped the pass or our folding table.
19:48Lights come down. Chef Winston and I do our dance for the night. Before that, it's fitting in the pass.
19:55Chef, you have it? You can see these very custom brackets we have here. So it comes, sits in,
20:00lock it in, lights up. Chef printer goes in. We've talked about it all day. Now it's time. It's battle.
20:06Service starts. My station is here. Look at that. Right on cue. Orders are coming in. Walk it in.
20:13Churro. Lobster pasta. On back. Waldorf. Deck on midwell. Whip. Whip.
20:22Guys, as you can see, service is getting hectic. I'm going to need you to get the out of here.
20:26Have a good night. Thank you.
20:28Have a good night. Thank you.
20:28Have a good night. Thank you.
20:28Have a good night. Thank you.
20:29Have a good night. Thank you.
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