Every Job in a Michelin-Starred Kitchen

[gentle music]

[gentle music continues]

[gentle music continues]

My name is Steve Guardino,

and I'm a Line Cook here.

The short story of that is, basically,

whatever Chef requires of me is my job.

Everything's about my knife work and presentation.

We're doing a small dice on the shallots,

it's for the arctic char crudo.

It's supposed to be basically invisible, almost.

Has to be as fine as possible,

so that it blends in with the rest of the dish.

My name is Jae Young Bok, and I'm from South Korea.

You can call me just Ryan.

The Chef Entremetier is in charge of each garnish

and the sauce base for the every dishes,

so I'm gonna prep for garnish and sauce for each dish,

working with the Chef Grills and Plancha

to make a whole dishes in front of the [indistinct].

Probably make about 30 to 40 pastas on a busy night.

Pasta wasn't really something I was passionate about

before starting the station, and then once I started on it,

I kind of started enjoying it more

and learning more and getting really into it.

My name is Parth Bhatia

and I work on the fry station during service.

My name's Richie Lu

and I'm a Prep Cook at the Crown Shy.

So we're taking nori chips that have been painted

with mochi rice flour paste,

and then we fry 'em, press 'em out,

and we cut them in threes for our bento boxes.

My name's Gene deVries

and I'm one of the Tournants in the kitchen.

Essentially, I float around and fill in gaps and help.

Today they're a little short on garde manger station,

so I'm helping with them on garde manger.

Day to day, it changes.

I'll work brunch one day, grill one day,

plancha one day, Entremet one day and prep one day.

So just depending on every day it's different.

So today I'm on plancha, so that's fun,

but favorite is grill for sure.

I'm the grill cook, basically in charge of preparation

for all proteins during service.

It definitely gets hot, like if you guys are here around,

seven, eight o'clock,

it gets pretty toasty back here, so.

[gentle music]

My name is Alfred Nebiar.

I am the Chef de Cuisine at Crown Shy.

In charge of running the day-to-day operations

of the restaurant from all the admin stuff,

like hiring and worrying about food costs,

to the creative side, menu development to service,

and just making sure that the quality is up to our standard.

I think something that was an active decision was trying

to give the cooks a time for themselves

and we can try to encourage 'em to like go have lunch

and go see things and find inspiration in the city

before coming to work and trying to move away

from the 70 hour work weeks

and these insane hours that everyone's been doing

because it's just been a habit.

[gentle music]

There's only four of us on the management team

and we have to come up with 12 new dishes.

That crunch to really like come up with things

and be creative is I think my favorite aspect of this job.

[gentle music]

It's my job to make sure the kitchen runs smoothly

as far as managing the cooks

and making sure the food looks good.

I'm a Pastry Cook at Crown Shy.

I usually get here around 2:30

and I'm done around 12.

If I work service, that means that I'm taking bread out

at the beginning of every table's meal

and then desserts when they fire.

[gentle music]

[Jose speaking foreign language]

[Wilmer speaking foreign language]

[Marleny speaking foreign language]

[Olvis speaking in foreign language]

[Carlos speaking in foreign language]

[Yomaira speaking in foreign language]

[Maria speaking in foreign language]

[Luis speaking in foreign language]

[Erik speaking in foreign language]

My name is Justine Cortez and I am a barback

and prep person.

So my goal is to be a bartender pretty soon.

Right now I am filtering some tea

that's gonna go in a old fashioned type of version

and we're gonna freeze some olive oil whiskey.

[gentle music]

I am Anushana Sharma

and I'm the Crown Shy Pastry Sous Chef.

I have a pretty big team.

I help out with the production.

I jump on on the line, so kind of everywhere.

Every night differs, but a slower night, about 200 breads

and something around 200 desserts.

I like what I do, I really do and I like working here.

It is why I've been here for so long.

It's my second week, so I'm still training

and learning all the different dishes.

So I work production, so that means I am

prepping all of the like cakes and breads

and ice cream bases

and different components of the desserts

and everything put out by the pastry team.

I'm the Sous Chef that takes care of AM production

for SAGA and Crown Shy.

We are the sauciers for the rest of the restaurants,

so we essentially keep that prepped

so when the line cook comes in in the afternoon shift,

they can just pick this up.

We produce the base content

and they use finesse to kind of get the final product.

So my name's Wei, I'm an extern here.

I guess that's my goal to like just to learn and train

and maybe be a great chef one day

and I feel like this is a great place to learn and do that.

I'm Isabel Vega and I'm the chocolatier for SAGA.

I make the candies for SAGA.

So that's two types of bonbons, a nougat,

a caramel and a rice crispy.

[German speaking foreign language]

[Mari speaking foreign language]

[tense music]

My name is Jamal James Kent and I'm the chef

and owner of all these restaurants.

I am here always,

all the time, all hours.

What I do in these restaurants is I lead the team,

I inspire the team, I nurture, I teach.

So my role is to grow our businesses

and then also teach our chefs

and our teams how to run these restaurants.

Going forward, our kitchens are gonna be smaller

because running restaurants are a really tough business

and it's all about the efficiencies.

Restaurants are super labor intensive

and it takes a lot of people to run any restaurant.

What it takes to manage a team this large is A: trust.

People need to trust that you're making good decisions

for the right reasons.

I think empathy is really important

when you manage any group of people.

Following through on your words is really important.

So if I say something, I'm always gonna follow through.

[knife chopping]

[gentle music]

Hi, I am Jassimran Singh

and I'm the Culinary Director

for Crown Shy, Overstory, SAGA.

Developing is, I think it's a huge role

because we don't wanna repeat a lot of same things.

We come up with the ideas

and team kind of present their way of serving dishes.

We go back and forth for several weeks

and then every new season we change dishes.

[gentle music]

Hi, I am Tyler Sylvestri and I am the Head Sommelier.

A lot of people think my job is a lot of drinking wine,

which I mean, it definitely is,

moreso tasting when when I'm on the clock.

But really a lot of my job is running around

and helping out clear tables, taste wines with distributors

and also make sure that the partnerships that we have

with them are positive and fortuitous for everybody.

The Sommelier is like a bass player in a band.

Our job is to fatten out the sound.

I open wine, talk about wine with guests,

help facilitate pairings,

and I clear an enormous amount of tables

throughout the course of the night.

My name is Ivan Toxqui and I'm a bartender.

I'm a Drinking Consultant.

My favorite thing to make

is actually my least favorite thing to make, a negroni.

When you don't like something

that you really strive to understand it,

it actually becomes more fun and more interesting.

Favorite drink to make here, I'm gonna be a little biased.

It's our smoked butter, old fashioned.

It's got some nice plum apple notes too,

a little marsala chai just kind of brightens it up

a little bit as well.

Yeah we have like about like 21 different cocktails

and also all the classic cocktails

that we kind of put all together.

There's a lot to memorize

and then there's also like stuff

that kind of you make based off muscle memory,

which helps out a lot.

[gentle music]

My name is Noelle.

I am a server here.

Today we all get in here at four, so,

and I'm a closer tonight so,

probably it's, what is it Tuesday,

probably gonna get off at around midnight.

Every server has their own side work

based on what section they're in.

I'm in the back corner of the dining room today,

so I am in charge of waters.

I'm a big proponent of getting people to have cocktails,

wine, full meal, and make it all the way to dessert.

And then after dinner drink.

That's something that I really enjoy doing.

I don't think many people do that.

So that's my job to make sure people

have dining experiences they normally don't have.

I have a bit of a theater background,

so I like to approach every table

like it's its own play.

I have my lines, my marks that I need to set.

There's a little bit of improv, but for the most part,

like it's, this is my audience,

this is the first time that they're experiencing it

or they're back for the show for the second time,

so I always have to hit those marks.

[Ivan speaking foreign language]

So my name is Andres Ramos Carrasco

and my title job is a Floor Manager.

Basically just take care of any issues

that come up on the floor,

make sure everything's running smoothly.

Before service we just sort of answer emails

or make the floor plan

so everyone knows what they're doing for the night.

My name is Jesus Nava and I'm a Kitchen Server here.

Hi, my name is Tobi Reyes.

My hours today is four to 10.

Hi my name is Johnny Toapanta.

I'm a Kitchen Server here at Crown Shy.

I would say kind of like what Chef James Kent says,

we're in the industry of splitting hairs.

So we're just like very attentive to detail,

make sure everything's done right

and precise and consistent.

I'm Daysy Wither

and I am the Assistant General Manager of Crown Shy.

I'm basically the mom of the restaurant.

I started in this industry about 11 years ago

as a bathroom attendant.

If someone wants to work for me,

all I ask is for dedication,

for somebody who has the hustle.

Somebody that works as a team member for everybody,

not just in their sole position, but for everybody.

It's one team, one dream.

Hello, my name is Jesenia Eldorama.

I am Maitre D' of Crown Shy.

The Maitre D' is the one that runs the book,

so they'll be the ones coordinating where the guests go.

The hosts are kind of the ones that

greet them, bring them to the table.

If they have any questions, they can kind of ask both.

But the Maitre D' is the one that runs the book.

Crown Shy I feel like has a very welcoming environment

even for guests and as an employee myself,

I feel like I've always felt welcome.

We're one big family, even between the three teams upstairs,

downstairs, it's very welcoming.

[gentle music]

[gentle music continues]