- 6 minutes ago
Bon Appétit spends a day at Graciela, an Argentinian steakhouse in New York City, where grill master Nicolás Standitchi runs a 12-foot live-fire grill. Trained at the Buenos Aires steakhouse Don Julio, Nicolás breaks down how the team butchers grass-fed Argentinian beef, manages charcoal and open-fire cooking, makes chorizo from scratch, and prepares for a busy dinner service.
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00:02Graciela is an Argentinian tavern.
00:04At Graciela right now, in English, maybe you call it grill master.
00:07In Argentina, we call it the parricero.
00:10That's the person that eats in charcoal cooking the meat.
00:12It's one of the biggest grill I've seen at least here in New York.
00:16Eight feet long.
00:17Charcoal is the main source of extra flavor that we give to the beef.
00:21The rest of it is just a pure beef flavor with salt.
00:23We have really good steak, but this is much more than a steakhouse.
00:28Many people consider that Don Julio is the best steak restaurant in the world.
00:32At Don Julio, I was grilling.
00:34When Mr. Pablo Rivero, the owner of Don Julio, said we're going to open a restaurant in New York,
00:40I said straight yes.
00:42And we are really looking forward to build up this team here in New York.
00:48Good morning. It's 10 a.m. Welcome to Graciela.
00:51My name is Nicolas. I'm the chef.
00:52And let me introduce you to the team.
00:57Welcome to the restaurant. Let me take you to the main stage.
01:00This is the grill. It was made by Grillworks.
01:04If we include the jasper, we got around 12 feet of firepower.
01:08The mechanism is really simple.
01:10We lit the fire inside of the firebox.
01:13This wheel right here lets you put up and down the grill.
01:17I think it's one of the most important aspects in the parrilla.
01:20To learn how to control heat, how to spread the embers, and how to cook in an open fire kitchen.
01:27Right now we got our meat delivered.
01:29So we're going to take the steaks that we're going to butcher today.
01:35This is the produce that arrived today.
01:37What we do with the beef, mostly Argentinian one, is we keep them vacuum sealed.
01:42It's really important for them to continue their aging process.
01:45They wet age. We let them age for around 28 days, 30 days.
01:50That delivers a unique flavor and tenderness to the meat that you cannot find with dry age.
01:56I just take the meat upstairs.
01:59We're now going to start opening the bags for the steaks, inspecting them.
02:03If they need trimming, we'll do the trimming.
02:05These steaks that we have here are going to be served tonight.
02:08For the ribeyes, weighing for 16 ounces.
02:12And for the strips weighing for 14 ounces.
02:16I'm going to cut the strip right now.
02:18The strip is from Argentina, from the purveyor is Rio Platense.
02:22We actually built this program in Buenos Aires with them.
02:26It's grass-fed and it comes from La Pampa.
02:31Cut the correct size portion.
02:3614.55.
02:38New York strip is not such a fatty cat in Argentinian cattle.
02:41But we can see a nice infiltration here.
02:44The white fat is a good indicator of grass-fed.
02:47No grain involved. That's the drill there in Argentina.
02:50We grow nearly all the cattle this way.
02:52Getting this beef to the country was a little bit tricky.
02:56But when we got this product, I think all the team was amazed with the great quality and the actual
03:04availability that we're going to have.
03:05Because this is really exclusive to us here at Graciela.
03:10Grass-fed meat tends to have a pure beefy flavor.
03:14I think most of the grain-fed meat, I think they are a little bit chewier.
03:19And they develop like a gelatinous taste.
03:21I will move on to ribeye right now.
03:23So this is Argentinian ribeye.
03:25When you cut steaks, you usually want long strokes.
03:30You don't want to saw the meat.
03:32If you saw the meat, you get like a weird pattern.
03:35This actually looks like really amazing.
03:37There's a very special technique that Leandro told me for cutting steaks.
03:42Mostly for bigger pieces.
03:44You just tuck in your elbow through your ribs.
03:48And you just draw a straight line.
03:51That rib cage helps you to guide the hand straight.
03:55For this, you need like really steady hands.
03:59So you go and you get an even piece.
04:04We go around 300 portions of ribeye a week.
04:09It's a huge amount of mise-en-place to do.
04:14Nailed it.
04:18First try.
04:19I was trained with Leandro, the grillmaster at Don Julio.
04:23First thing we did in the morning was go through a lot of ribeye, a lot of shrimp.
04:28So that was my main training.
04:30I don't know an amount of steaks that I have.
04:33I have been processing my whole career at Don Julio and at Graciela.
04:37But it's really a lot. Quite a lot.
04:40At Don Julio we do 500 kilograms of meat per day.
04:46Around that.
04:47So just imagine.
04:49I worked for five years there.
04:52I just varied them like so.
04:56Right now we are done for meat slicing.
04:58We are going to pop this in the fridge.
05:00And let's continue with the day.
05:05Right now we are going to lit the Jusper on the grill.
05:08So we can start our morning mise-en-place.
05:10Mostly vegetables that need to get charred or ember roasted.
05:13Jusper is charcoal oven.
05:15And the brand is from Spain.
05:16Here is where I store the charcoal.
05:18We have bigger storage downstairs.
05:20But for service we have this reservoir here.
05:25And that's how I cut myself.
05:28This charcoal.
05:29It's a really special one.
05:30Because of the wood it's made of.
05:32It's Quebracho Blanco.
05:33This delivers a really nice flavor.
05:35And the temperature or the heat that it transfers to the grill and to the meat.
05:40It's even all the way through.
05:42The nice thing about this is national or Argentinian tree.
05:45We import this charcoal also from there.
05:47As we do with our meat and some of our spices.
05:51This consumes at least 3 bags per service.
05:53Maybe 4.
05:54And in grand total we do 10 to 12 bags per night.
05:58For cooking meats in a grill.
06:01You need the firebox.
06:02Just because you need the embers to be really lit.
06:06When the embers are undercooked.
06:07They are black or they have flame on it.
06:09It transfers to the meat.
06:11Tastes like gas.
06:12When you get all the embers cooked.
06:14You can bring them down to the grill.
06:17We actually have a tool for that.
06:19It's right here.
06:21In Spanish they are called atizadores.
06:24What we do with this is just take charcoal from the foronero to underneath the grill.
06:29And we also use them to move the embers around.
06:33So you get the ashes out of the ember.
06:36And you keep that constant heat all the way through.
06:40We're going to use these fire starters.
06:42It's like wood chips with a little bit of wax on it.
06:45So they burn really easy.
06:47For this restaurant to run coals.
06:49Don't get the customer's water with the smoke.
06:52There's a filter in this hood.
06:54We actually have also a system of self-cleaning for the hood.
06:58Here we have mainly two sets of grills.
07:00This grill is a round grill.
07:03And this is a V-shaped grill.
07:04They serve different purposes.
07:06In this one you can get an even browning.
07:09For example, provoleta or mocheca.
07:12Or the chorizos that we make here in-house.
07:15And with this one you need to be shaped to act as a canal.
07:18For fat dripping towards this side.
07:20Not getting fat to render and start burning in the coals.
07:24And now that the grill is lit.
07:26We're going to move on with the next task.
07:33Okay.
07:35Right now we're going to make chorizo.
07:36You have the pork fat.
07:38The pork shoulder.
07:40And meat for chorizo.
07:41This is a spice mix that we developed in Argentina.
07:44In Los Julio Butchery Shop.
07:45We actually bring the paprika.
07:48And what we call aji molido.
07:50From Argentina.
07:51It's like chili flakes.
07:52They are from the north of Argentina.
07:54From Cachi Valley.
07:55First, we need to grind our meat.
07:57So we're going to alternate in between.
08:00Pork fat.
08:01Pork meat.
08:03And stir meat.
08:06Temperature here is very important.
08:08That's why we have an old pan with ice underneath.
08:11So we keep the temperature low.
08:13If the meat was too warm.
08:14And it's not going to be nice and coarse as this.
08:17The difference between chorizo in Argentina.
08:20Other than tradition.
08:21It's mostly the spice mix that we use.
08:24For example, Spanish chorizo.
08:26Maybe you have more of the smoky flavor of their paprika.
08:31Mexico focuses more on herbs.
08:33Maybe oregano or something like that.
08:35We prefer just pure meat flavor.
08:39For the next step.
08:40You want it also really cool down.
08:42That's why we keep the ice here.
08:44This is wine that has been sitting overnight with garlic.
08:47Just to infuse it.
08:48And for the chorizo right now.
08:50We're trying to make a seasonal concept.
08:52And we're using some dry tomatoes for the mix.
08:55So we're going to add the spice mix.
08:57Wine.
08:59And the tomatoes.
09:00Gently knead it.
09:02To distribute everything uniformly.
09:04But you don't want to overwork this mix.
09:08Chorizo is part of the asado.
09:11Asado can mix means a lot of things.
09:14It's a cut.
09:15Short ribs.
09:17But also means the event in which you gather people around.
09:20Wood fire oven to eat dinner.
09:23Mostly meat.
09:24Right now I'm going to introduce you to this stuffing machine.
09:26The pressure comes from down to the top.
09:29And you want the least amount of air possible here.
09:32So you're going to slap the meat inside of the machine.
09:38If we get air inside of the machine.
09:42It will translate to air inside of the chorizo.
09:44And that will yield a pretty bad result.
09:48You even out the surface.
09:49And you're ready to go with this.
09:51For the casings we use just natural casings.
09:55This is pork or hogs casing.
09:57For the sotica we use sheep casing.
10:02When I found like a little bit of air pockets.
10:05I just puncture a little bit the casing.
10:07So we can get that air out of the chorizo.
10:12We're just going low and slow.
10:14Now we have to portion them.
10:15And they should weight around 160 grams.
10:19So we twist.
10:24And we go with the following one.
10:27It should be around the same size.
10:29But now when you twist.
10:31You have to twist through the opposite direction.
10:34For them to keep the separation here.
10:37I'm going to keep portioning this.
10:39And twisting them for the next couple of minutes.
10:42And after that we're going to keep going through today.
10:49For now we're going to hop in our briefing.
10:52We're going to discuss a little bit of the things that are going on with service.
10:55How many covers.
10:56And we're going to say thanks for Yamil for his work.
11:00No major menu changes today.
11:02But one heads up if you weren't here yesterday.
11:03We switch the pricing of the empanada from 12 to 14 per piece.
11:06And remember Friday and Saturday crowds are a little bit quicker.
11:09They do have shows to go to.
11:11So keep me informed at the door.
11:13So I can turn those tables accordingly or going through.
11:16Let's have a great Friday service.
11:18Let's kick some ass.
11:20Let's make some money.
11:31Okay.
11:32Okay.
11:33There's a few minutes before service.
11:35This is how I set my station.
11:37And I'm refilling salt.
11:39We use salt from Argentina.
11:40We bring this to the restaurant.
11:43I have the sport towels to clean.
11:46Sanity wipes to sanitize.
11:48I got my needles here.
11:50Very handy.
11:51We measure temperature with martini needles.
11:53I like them because they retain heat better.
11:56The most sensible part of the body is the lip skin.
11:59So you go underneath here.
12:01And you can feel the temperature here.
12:03Okay.
12:03During service, I will be mainly cooking grill.
12:06It gets really hot.
12:07First order got in.
12:10It's a bar skirt bar strip.
12:11Bar portions usually are the regular portions that we cut in half for the bar.
12:17I'm cutting for the bar portion.
12:19I salt it in this wire rack.
12:22Because normally in service, I will use this for cooked meats.
12:26And this for salting and maintaining.
12:28When they're ready to start working, when the first course already worked,
12:32I'm going to place them over here or here in the grill.
12:35So they start to cook.
12:37And as they get the crust and the grill marks, I will start putting them here on the top.
12:45So they finish cooking, but more slowly.
12:49Here up top, you add less heat, medium heat, high heat.
12:53So you get to play with that.
12:56So for keeping track of the steaks, what we usually do is the fired steaks go from here to here.
13:04It's like two thirds of the grill.
13:06The steaks that I don't hold, they go here.
13:08And I just listen to the service.
13:12See if there are many fresh courses that are running out.
13:16And I just start firing steaks.
13:20Fire river media!
13:21Yeah, chef!
13:23So, the step of turning, you try to turn as little as you can the steak.
13:29Right now, because of the layout I'm using for working, and the fact that I have to leave this space
13:34as clear of fire as possible,
13:36so I can rest steaks here.
13:38I have to maybe flip some of the steaks a little bit more often than I would like.
13:42Like for example, this ribeye that's going to go for medium.
13:45But usually you try to not flip that much steak.
13:48Just sear, sear, temper if it's needed, or you tempt it and it should register the temperature that you desire.
13:55Short rib, ribeye, strip, all medium.
13:58Fire at 350-50.
14:00I got another ribeye, it's medium.
14:03Fire short rib, ribeye, strip, all medium.
14:06Going with two mila papas puree.
14:13Right now, we reached that point in the night when the service is really busy.
14:18I have to ask you to leave so we can continue for the service.
14:21Thank you very much.
14:25Thank you very much.