- 6 minutes ago
Kabawa was just named the best restaurant in America by Food & Wine, and the best in New York City by The New York Times. So, what does it take to run a full service at America's best restaurant?
Category
🎈
FunTranscript
00:02Kabawa just got voted the best restaurant in America and every night its
00:07chefs have to live up to that reputation serving a $150 three-course
00:12Caribbean menu from an open kitchen. The small restaurant only feeds 130 per
00:17night but it takes 50 people to make this service happen. But Kabawa is a long
00:23way from the stern high-pressure fine dining kitchen stereotype.
00:27I always just want my kitchen to feel like people could be themselves you
00:31know. Head chef Paul Carmichael works hard to keep fun at the heart of
00:36everything they do. But behind that relaxed atmosphere is a huge amount of
00:40work and a lot of ingredients. We go through so much f***ing goat. Oh my god.
00:46We spent a day inside Kabawa to see what a full service actually looks like at one
00:51of America's most acclaimed restaurants. Service doesn't start until 5.30pm but the
01:01prep kitchen is already in full swing. This is our little prep kitchen. This is
01:06essentially where the magic happens you know. This is the heart and soul of
01:11Kabawa. At the helm is chef Paul Carmichael. Born and raised in Barbados he worked in
01:17acclaimed kitchens around the world before opening Kabawa in 2025. Kabawa is a
01:23culmination of all my thoughts and experience in one little space. This is
01:31really just an expression and a sharing of my culture. Getting ready for each
01:36night's service is hours sometimes days of preparation and it takes a big team.
01:41This is Rhys Bailey from Venezuela. This is my boy James. I have no idea what he's
01:49doing but that's James. Ross my sous chef. Elliot my sous chef. And then in the corner
01:58there's Adama. For most of the day much of the heavy prep happens back here. By service
02:05the focus will shift to the open kitchen. And at the heart of the operation is the
02:10tilt skillet. So the thing about this that's amazing is something that would
02:14take three hours. We can do an hour and a half in the pressure cooking. And with
02:19eight hours of food prep to do and at least 17 different dishes to create, every
02:23hour saved is crucial. While the chefs work through the morning's prep list,
02:28ingredients for the next few days are already arriving. We just got in one of
02:31our deliveries from Aqua West which is like right around the corner from us. We
02:36work really closely with them. Today we got some scallops, some salted cod, some
02:42mad-eye that gets flown in from Japan. It's nice and fresh every day. Brings us on time.
02:50Never late. My guy. Thanks boss.
02:54Oh, sorry. Chef Paul has gotten stuck in the walk-in there behind you. He's being a
02:59little silly. I like to walk him. I like to lock him in the walk-in from time to
03:04time, you know. Just trying to make his day harder as he likes to say sometimes.
03:11Kabawa doesn't serve a conventional a la carte menu. Every guest eats three courses,
03:15choosing one dish from each section of the prefix menu.
03:20This is the main kitchen for Kabawa. Twenty-five seats around it. We got five
03:27stations and an expo. Jin's our butcher. Yeah. Butcher guy. The cutter of meat and
03:35fish. And meat and fish make up a huge part of Kabawa's menu. Every week the
03:41restaurant gets through 50 pounds of bass and a hundred pounds of goat. Jin starts
03:45with the mad-eye. This goes with ginger and turmeric on a banana leaf. It's
03:51cooked on banana leaf. And it is one of the main courses here at Kabawa. You know
04:00what's funny is that Jin talks a lot, but now he's camera shy. That's not true. He
04:05can't shut up. I don't talk a lot because I live by this Korean saying. You keep your
04:13mouth shut. You're already halfway there. Or my mom tells me that all the time. Which
04:19he does not listen to. Because he is a chatterbox. Once the mad-eye is done, there's
04:28plenty more fish to prepare. Jin is just pin boning some black bass. But this is very boring.
04:36So we're going to go back and see what's going on. So walking through the catacombs
04:42of Kabawa. This is Bar Kabawa. And we are entering Pastryville. Pastry also makes up a large part
04:54of Kabawa's menu. From the sweet coconut turnover to savory dumplings. This is my rock gen. This
05:02is generally just a sweet, rich dough. It gets filled with coconut baked topped with cream cheese icing.
05:10But once again, boring.
05:16Cooking is by no means boring, but it's a lot of repetition. So if you don't like repetition,
05:23and you don't like getting good at one thing, I don't think cooking is for you. Nor is surgery. Or
05:32law.
05:35Before the chefs feed more than a hundred customers tonight, they have to feed the restaurant staff.
05:40Family meal is basically just a meal for the staff. You know, their lunch break, we provide it for them.
05:46Everyone here works really hard. My rule for family meal is it's got to be fast, and it's got to
05:53be tasty.
05:55Once family meal is put together, it's straight back to getting ready for service. And for the next step,
06:01everyone gets involved. One of our main ingredients here is habaneros, but we take them and then cook them
06:07in oil to preserve them and soften them. They get used in, I don't know, five or ten different recipes
06:15at least.
06:17This is about a case, maybe a case and a half right here of habaneros. We go through three cases
06:24of habanero a week easily.
06:26That's 15 pounds of habaneros a week. And while everyone tackles those, Jin is out front working through today's meat
06:33prep.
06:33This is our pork middle, just for our chileta dish. There's the loin, there's the belly. And this has been
06:42drying in the fridge for about two weeks.
06:45So it's going to be a little tricky. So I have to like move this around many times.
06:50The chilitas can-can dish costs an extra $75 for two, on top of the $150 prefix menu cost.
06:56And for Paul, expensive dishes like this demand high standards.
06:59I want to strive for excellence and that requires hard work and it requires discipline, but it doesn't require, you
07:09know, destroying a person's soul.
07:12I use this box cutter just for this particular task, because obviously it's not going to be very good for
07:20your knife.
07:23I cut myself so many times in the beginning here. A lot of cooks find this kind of shameful to
07:30wear these.
07:31For a butcher, like one little mistake can end up as a really, really bad injury, you know.
07:38Once the pork is ready, Jin starts preparing one of the kitchen's most expensive ingredients.
07:42See this boy?
07:44Each ribeye block can cost the restaurant $700. And for diners, it's a $175 supplement for two.
07:51More than the price of the entire prefix menu.
07:55Overthinking doesn't get you a better result. So when you overthink, just go for it.
08:01It's now almost midday and the deliveries show no signs of stopping.
08:05This is my guy, Al. Best in the business. Most handsome, hardest working.
08:13I love these guys.
08:17With four and a half hours left until service, everyone breaks for family meal.
08:21But once lunch is over, the pace really starts to pick up.
08:24And one of the last things to put together is the chickpea curry.
08:29So you smell the aroma. The ginger's coming off. We make our own curry powder here.
08:34So you get a nice flavour. My squash going in. All the butter squash, roasted.
08:40400 degrees, 15 minutes.
08:44This curry will be served with the roti to start everyone's meal in just a few hours' time.
08:49Six table spooks. That's what that was.
08:52How do you feel?
08:55I've been doing this for a long time.
08:59Certain things you touch, you know.
09:03While the final pieces of the curry are being put together, the front kitchen starts to fill up.
09:08Napkins are prepped, and the front space is getting ready to handle the night's service.
09:13But in the prep kitchen, there's still one of the day's biggest jobs to finish.
09:18Four and a half hours? Okay, goat's coming out.
09:22So we brine the goats for 48 hours, and then first thing in the morning I put the goat in
09:27the oven.
09:28And then it cooks for four and a half hours.
09:31So it's confit, cooked in its own fat, cooked for four and a half hours to completely tender.
09:36Goat is Kabawa's number one seller, with as many as 40 portions served in a single night.
09:41But even after more than two days of preparation, it's still not quite ready to serve.
09:47Once taken off the bone, the shredded goat is compressed together in a tray, and left to cool.
09:52So the goat's processed. After it cools, we cut into squares. So that's goat. This is all goat. It's like
09:59one big medallion of goat.
10:07My favourite time of day. Light off.
10:12With just a few minutes until opening, the prep kitchen lights go down.
10:15Moving the focus to the open kitchen out front, that's where eight hours of preparation now has to come together,
10:21in full view of the restaurant's guests.
10:26And with the final preparations done, it's time to open.
10:30We're open!
10:32But Chef Paul still doesn't seem too stressed.
10:34Virgil!
10:36Virgie!
10:39Yeah, I'm back.
10:40Oh, I gotta, you gotta come in.
10:43Right, Virgil? Oh, f***ing love him.
10:46I love him.
10:48Alright. Bye, y'all. Work time.
10:53We are now 5.30-ish. It is kabow time. We are open.
11:00Ron's over here, getting some plates ready for the roti, and drinks are being made, as you can hear, it's
11:07shaky shaky.
11:08Every guest starts their meal the same way, with roti and three dipping sauces.
11:13From there, guests choose their dishes, and orders start spreading across the kitchen.
11:195.30-4 and table five.
11:21At the centre of service is Chef Max, kabow's expediter.
11:25Can you finish off two scallops, please?
11:29And then come back on a pepper shrimp breadfruit.
11:33With five stations cooking at once, Max has to keep track of everything, making sure every dish for a table
11:39is ready at exactly the right time.
11:40And that's crucial, as appetizer orders start pouring in.
11:44One of the most popular is pepper shrimp.
11:47Raw royal red shrimp, with sorrel, scotch bonnet, and thyme.
11:52Another favourite is plantain with scrambled egg and salt cod.
11:58Table five.
11:59To the bar.
12:01But in an open kitchen, Max's job doesn't just stop at managing the counter.
12:05Right in front of you is a sweet potato cooked in a pineapple broth, pencil beans, rice, and a mix
12:10in the side with spicy vinaigrette.
12:12Enjoy.
12:13Next up are entrees.
12:15Pork is fried, fish are grilled, and one of the 42-ounce ribeye steaks that Jin butchered earlier is fired
12:21on the plancher.
12:22And kabow's best-selling goat, after hours of preparation, is finally ready to serve to customers.
12:29Fire table 11.
12:32Table 31. Madai steak goat.
12:34All the share.
12:3631.
12:39Ooh, buddy.
12:41We out here now.
12:45Little more salt?
12:48Lime juice.
12:50Since the positive reviews came flooding in, kabow often books up almost the minute they release seats, up to two
12:56weeks in advance.
12:57I feel like this restaurant is far beyond anything that I thought it would have been.
13:02Like, we opened really quietly.
13:04We were very blessed to have some good reviews early, and then it just snowballed from there.
13:10It was voted the best restaurant in America by Food & Wine, and this year it jumped from fourth to
13:15number one restaurant in New York, according to the New York Times.
13:18Caribbean food's been very, very important to me for my entire life.
13:24I always want to represent this food as honest as I can, and kabow and bar kabow does that for
13:30me.
13:32This restaurant is not about preaching, it's about joy, and if you take something away from our foodways, awesome.
13:41And no matter what, if you leave here, you understand, like, Caribbean food isn't just jerk chicken and off-steel.
13:48You know?
13:51I mean, everybody wants it to be a concept. If you need it to be a concept, you can make
13:57it that if you want, but like, that's what this place means to me, and I don't even think I
14:02could replicate it anywhere else, to be honest.
14:05Orders keep flooding in, and as diners reach the end of their meals, desserts are starting to come out.
14:10By dessert, I'm 17.
14:12After nearly two hours of service, the first seating is slowly coming to an end.
14:17But for the staff, the pressure's not off yet. There are still two more seatings to go this evening.
14:23This is the end of our first seating. It's been amazing having a day with you.
14:29Smooches. Hearts. Love. This thing. That thing. This thing. I don't know. All the hearts.
Comments