NYC’s Best New Steakhouse is a Seafood Restaurant

Time and Tide.

It's a seafood restaurant that takes its cues

from a steakhouse.

Large format, cuts a fish in a way

that maybe you've not seen before.

At a incredibly high level.

Being an executive chef is definitely

more than just cooking food.

At the end of the day, this restaurant falls on me.

Jamal James Kent, founder.

He was building an empire.

Crown Shy and Saga, both Michelin starred.

This was just gonna be the next chapter

that we were building together.

Just a couple months before we were set

to open the restaurant, Jamal passed away,

and so now it's on us to just be the stewards

of his legacy.

[upbeat energetic music]

What's happening, y'all?

I'm Danny Garcia,

I'm the executive chef here at

Time and Tide in New York City.

Let's get off the street and come check it out.

We're gonna head into the kitchen,

see what the sous chef's got going on.

We were super fortunate with this restaurant

to really restart it from the ground up.

There was nothing here so we really got

to design the kitchen from the floors

all the way to the ceiling.

We have the hotline.

All the hot food comes off of here.

Most of pastry production

and additional production is back here.

This is pastry service station.

So during dinner service all of pastries

are coming off here and their production

in the back.

In the back corner here, we have

kind of more robust kitchen equipment,

liquid nitrogen for ice cream, dough sheeter.

This is like our private events and production kitchen.

So this little nook really does the workhorse

of all of our prep and all of our mis and possum.

The hotline designed from The Nomad.

We wanted a prep area that was kind of self-contained.

Also could function as an event space

but didn't really have too much interaction

with the hotline during dinner service or a busy night.

I think for any standard, this kitchen is massive.

For New York City, this kitchen is enormous.

It's usually about 15 to 17 people

in the kitchen on a bustling day.

We're doing 250 guests on a busy night.

Dry goods, dry storage, kind of treated

like a grocery store where everything's

kinda lined up and organized

how we want it and where we want it.

Dish station to the left and then all of our walk-ins.

So this is our cold room, our butcher room.

The idea is that we fabricate all of our proteins in here.

All the fish comes in, it goes directly to Ismi and Miguel.

It's usually at 50 degrees or just below 50 degrees,

but it's always cold all the time.

It is 10 o'clock.

I've got a meeting that I need to get into

for some finance so we actually need to go

and get into that right now.

[relaxed sophisticated music]

The restaurant is only three and a half weeks,

so Kal and I...

Kal, the GM of Time and Tide.

We're jumping on a call with Ryan

who does the analytics for Kent Hospitality.

Basically we have a meeting every Tuesday morning.

We run through the previous week's revenue.

Sales, drivers on the menu.

What's selling, what's not selling.

[Ryan] I think there's room to make price adjustments

in both directions.

Lots of the reasons are stuff like

You know what? It's very pricey.

Are there placements on the menu

specifically where we can move it?

[Ryan] Maybe there's a way to reduce

the price on like the swordfish

if it's running at a 10% margin,

something like that. Sure.

Yeah, we'll work on that.

I would say 75% of my responsibilities

as chef are business management.

I mean definitely super different than any

other restaurant that I've ever worked in

that we have an analytics team.

So it's about 10:45.

It's definitely time to change.

Get into the kitchen, get on a cutting board

and get some stuff rolling.

Do you wanna grab this hog with me?

Yeah.

We've got swordfish, these are aged.

We're gonna take this one which is

from a week and a half ago.

We're gonna take this and break this.

We'll need it for service tonight and for tomorrow.

So we're just gonna kind of get up on portions.

This is probably a 70 pound fish.

You have the top loin and the belly.

Basically just splitting open the fish

so that I can get it into smaller pieces

to be able to work with it more efficiently.

Justin, he's the culinary director of Kent Hospitality.

His grandfather owns a fishing company

out of Long Island, since we don't have

a band saw here, instead of a saw

he came back with a straight machete

and he was like, Well, this is how

my grandfather used to break down fish.

But this knife works really nicely

'cause the bones on the swordfish are pretty easy to get

through so I'm scraping the bones.

Just any extra meat that was left on it

I want to take it off, but really

just because we're serving it on the bone,

I want this to be clean so when it does get roasted

it just catches a nice color and and roast really nicely.

Just gonna call Kal real fast.

Yeah, you got a second to come up for one more menu update?

We did not get very good sardines in today.

[Kal] So we're gonna scratch it?

So we're gonna scratch it,

but we're gonna play the game

of doing monk liver mousse for the first time.

[Kal] No way!

Yeah, candied pistachio, Concord gelee, celery.

So the overall thought of the restaurant, like,

what does a seafood restaurant look like

if it took its cues from a steakhouse, right?

What's our answer to a rib-eye?

Hey, let's just do dry aged swordfish,

and cut it in this like chop almost.

That is really our rib-eye.

So now we're cutting out the steaks and then...

[hammer thudding]

again because you don't have a band saw,

we do the old fashioned way, that's about

12 to 13 ounces.

So the bone is running along the entire spine.

So as you serve it, we'll cut it straight down here,

you'll get the bone in, you'll get all

of this beautiful cartilage and you get the top loin

and then you get a piece of the belly as well.

This is basically the bone marrow of the swordfish.

So it's essentially jelly,

like you can pop it out super tasty,

gelatinous, it sears off really nicely.

One side usually gets me about 36 portions,

so whole fish, maybe I'll be in the ballpark

of 70 plus if we do it right.

So it's about 12:30 and we gotta go.

So day's getting by pretty quickly here.

[upbeat energetic music]

Cool, so we're back at it.

We are working on pithivier.

Halibut pithivier starts with the halibut.

So we take a fish mousse, the halibut trim

that we get via duxelle of mushroom and spinach.

Those all get folded into each other

and then you get these little bricks

that we wrap with spinach crepe.

And then essentially the final part is what we're doing now,

which is wrapping the bricks, is what we call it.

It's definitely taking inspiration

from a Wellington or a, you know,

pithivier is just the French version.

Obviously at a seafood restaurant we want to use seafood.

So it's really about stretching the dough,

pressing it so that it's really molded around

the entire brick.

Making sure that there's no air pockets

is kind of key.

So there's raw fish in the center

and then there's raw mousse around that.

The moisture in the mousse and from the crepe

will steam the entire inside

of the pithivier while the outside is roasting.

So the fork, just like an empanada

or a beef patty if you will, we're just

closing and crimping down the edges.

The puff pastry obviously puffs and expands

and so if it's not crimped the tube will separate

then it just doesn't work.

So this is really like just an aesthetic.

By no means does it make it taste better,

but it definitely gives it a cute little visual.

These edges all get crispy and crunchy

and it helps make it super flaky.

And then this is just a little cross hatch over top,

not cutting through the dough but just cutting into it.

So if you cut into it, it won't cook properly,

either the fish won't cook right

or the insides will will kinda like ooze out.

We just made...

This will be 90 for this set.

This is definitely one of our highest selling items.

When you slice these, you're able to see the inlay.

So we know that the inlay on these

is absolutely gorgeous and perfect.

There's no imperfections.

Same with the wrap.

They look really good and sharp.

So it's about almost 1:30.

We're gonna get these packed up

and then we are going to get into the next project.

[upbeat energetic music]

Calvin Wong. Yes.

Where are we at with crab?

You ready to go?

This is all five?

Yes, sir. Okay, great.

Let's see how much we get but we might end up

doing more but, fly.

I think we start with three minutes and then we go.

This is Norwegian king crab for our crab tagliatelle

that we're putting on the menu tonight.

Super classic butter beurre monte if you will.

A little bit of lemon juice, crab

that's cooked just lightly.

A little bit of chives.

One of Jamal's favorite dishes actually.

So we're just checking the crab,

but we're just making sure it's cooked properly.

Yeah, I mean a little bit of shredded is okay,

like I want it like larger pieces, like,

take that and break that like that.

Don't shred this down to nothing.

When they toss it with the pasta it's gonna break down.

Okay, so we're gonna break down hiramasa real quick.

I'm gonna go to the dry ager, and grab fish

so we can break that down.

Re age these for nine days.

I have one ready which is great.

[upbeat energetic music]

Jordan, you have no oyster pan roast.

Do not do any oyster pan roast.

A.M's portioning crab tag, they're going

to cook and portion crab for you.

The price the Crab Tag 36?

Do you wanna do 36?

Oui, chef.

I mean this is crunch time.

It's...

Yeah, it's 1:40.

We're [beep].

We're in the [beep].

My head is never just focused on one task.

There's always a thousand questions to be asked.

So hiramasa, she's dried.

I mean you can tell it dried

and it's like this thing is...

She's stiff as a board. [laughing]

But this is great.

This is nine days.

This is exactly what we're looking for.

So I'm going to take off the collars.

We use the collars, we SFN those,

something for nothing to some guests

that come in that we're excited about,

and we have a couple of those guests

coming in tonight.

And hiramasa is a type of Yellowfin tuna.

This one specifically from Hawaii.

You see a lot of hamachi.

I think hamachi is fine,

but it this, this really like mass farmed fish.

I just think it's...

They're all waterlogged.

I'm not really a fan of them.

This hiramasa is part of our grand plateau.

Five bites.

It's probably the most composed food on the menu

in terms of like the most intricate, I would say.

Just presenting fish in a way that maybe

hasn't been seen before, hasn't been

eaten in that way before.

This is really just like showcasing

just the simplicity of, like, food for me.

You don't need 15 garnishes, you don't need

a hundred things to, like, make something

this beautiful taste delicious.

It really on its own is really,

really, really, really good.

We're buzzing right now.

The kitchen, it definitely seems calm in here

but, like, people are moving, people know

that there's a lot of [beep] to get done.

So we try to do a meeting with the team

between 2:00 and 2:15 every single day.

[upbeat energetic music]

What's happening y'all?

[Cooks] What's happening, chef?

Busy night.

Tuna collar goes on the menu tonight.

We have tagliatelle replaces oyster pan roast tonight,

monk liver mousse is going to replace

the sardine toast for the evening.

Yo, last night, incredible job.

We had [beep] walk in the door, like, unannounced.

We did a really, really great job of making it happen.

So, like, food looked great.

Put eyes on the prep list if you haven't,

if we don't have anything else, let's have a good service.

[Cooks] Great!

It's about 2:30, doors open at 5:30 for guests.

So from here on out it's really like

balls to the walls, making sure

we're set up and ready to go for tonight.

[upbeat energetic music]

It's almost 3:30.

We've got till 3:55, guys.

So let's just touch base, on all

of our [indistinct] and where we're at.

Organizing prep in Time and Tide

basically consists of using the app called Opsi.

It's basically this intuitive system

that connects what we are actually working on

through a live document where our cooks

are able to say what they're working on,

how many of each item they might have.

So each station has their own particular prep list

with their items and and needs for that station.

Okay, so let's look at Fluke, and let's see

how many portions you have and what you need.

So you have 24 breaded, you have 28 salads.

This isn't counting anything that you just did.

And swordfish, did you put it in yet?

Last night we finished with 22.

And then this morning you portioned out

90 for tomorrow.

Today and tomorrow.

Okay, cool.

For me, this gives these guys the opportunity

to really just be able to say like,

Okay, it's my Monday, I'm coming in,

I know what I'm looking at, I know what I'm doing.

I know what they're doing.

Again, it's kind of in that ballpark of-

Wooooo!

Chef!

This is our our Time and Tide matchbook

and then the 10% of green.

Yo, these are tough.

Who designed these?

Give that guy a raise.

We're gonna finish walking through,

making sure everyone's got what they need

and get ready for service.

[upbeat energetic music]

So it's almost four o'clock,

3:55.

We call five minutes.

We put all of our meals and pots away,

we scrub down the entire kitchen

and basically get ready for service.

Five minutes!

[Cooks] Okay!

The five minutes originated at 11 Madison Park.

This idea of just having like a reset moment in the kitchen,

you're working, you're bustling, things get crazy.

And so having this moment to really scrub

and reset the kitchen before service.

We did it at The Nomad, we do it at Crown Shy,

so everything gets polished and broken down.

I have a reservation meeting

with our dining room management,

and our hosts, and maitre d.

So we're gonna change, we're gonna

get out there for that.

[upbeat energetic music]

[Cara] Hi, everybody.

[All] Hi.

We are sitting right around 150,

But 6 P.Ms do have to turn

for that 8:15 push at the end of the night.

We have six birthdays coming in tonight

and then fives and sixes scattered throughout.

Particularly when there's, like, something

like a big celebration or whatever,

we wanna make sure that we're acknowledging it

at least three times over the course of the evening.

So, as soon as they walk in the door

when the server greets them.

And then at the end of the evening

with a celebration, like, treat or moment.

We take it to the next level of making sure

that we take notes on all of our guests.

If you are lefthanded, if you like sparkling water,

the little things and the small details

we like to focus on.

So we have 30 minutes until lineup.

So everyone's gonna grab a bite,

take a few minutes and then we'll get set up

and really dive into tasting.

[upbeat energetic music]

It is five o'clock on the dot.

I'm gonna drop these off with the dining room,

chat with them, and then I'm going

to start tasting at the raw bar.

What's happening y'all?

[Cooks] What's happening, Chef?

We've got another really amazing dish

that I'm excited about, that I think

is super delicious and fun.

Crab tagliatelle.

So, Norwegian king crab, sell caviar here, 1000%.

If you want a vessel for caviar, that's your vessel.

And I'll give you even talking points, like,

the hot pasta with the salinity of, like,

just the cold caviar.

Like, I actually want to take one

and go eat one because it's gonna be...

I can think about it, and taste it all at the same time.

That will be really delicious.

This dish you should know is, like, one of Jamal's.

One of the first dishes that he

ever put on the menu at The Nomad.

So this is not my dish, this is 1000% his,

but this is just like a little nod to him.

[Cook 1] Thanks, chef.

Thanks, guys.

[Staff] Thank you, Chef.

So we just finished lineup with the dining room.

We're gonna dive into tasting now.

Guys, can we not pack down the tuna?

This one looks great.

Where it's like kind of organic and it's just in there.

It doesn't need to be this, like,

smashed down moment, yeah?

Make sure that like the oysters

the right side up, and make sure

that the tail of the oyster, or the skirt

of the oyster is like either tucked in

or like perfect, yeah?

We're gonna head back to the kitchen.

We're gonna go see garde-manger

and we'll finish the taste through there.

Garde-manger, we're ready to rumble?

We taste everything for the sheer reason of consistency.

Someone might make something today,

someone else might make it the next day

and make it completely different.

I get into everything, open every container,

touch everything, look at everything

to make sure that, like, if all

10 components are good, then I know

that the final product is gonna be exactly what I want.

Trash this.

This isn't good.

All your edges that are brown, they need to get trimmed.

This is what I'm talking about.

It's like you start touching things a thousand times

and then you're like, Yo, there's something wrong.

You gotta fix it.

It's like

Call the maintenance man. The maintenance man is here.

Literally it's 5:30, the restaurant's open

and I'm fixing screws that aren't tight.

But that's what we gotta do.

That's the job.

Let's talk numbers. What do we got?

I have 31 pithivier, chef.

Including those?

[Cook 2] Including those.

Okay. Should be fine.

Collars?

Collars I have 12 and more on the back.

Let's make sure we're marinating it, like, more.

You know what I'm saying?

Like, get the skin side.

Like, let's rub these down a little bit more.

So I'm gonna finish tasting, get

through the last two stations here

and then we're gonna get set up

and ready to go for service.

[upbeat energetic music]

So it is 5:42 and we are open for service.

Guests are in the dining room.

There's five tables that are seated.

Any guest that sits, I'm able to click the table,

look at their notes, see anything.

It also tells me where they're at in their meal.

Any VIP notes that I need to know,

or any guest notes that I should know.

Essentially with service, I will expedite,

I'll help the hotline finish

and I'll help [indistinct] finish food.

The conductor of an orchestra, you know?

It's like telling these guys, and giving them their cues

and their talking points and their cooking points

for what they need to be doing next.

Order at two top.

[Cooks] Oui!

Let's have a good service!

[Cooks] Oui!

Garde-manger, that's one goldfish.

We call out our tickets in a very loud tone.

Kind of really just gets like the energy in the kitchen up.

Make sure everyone's on the same page.

Make sure that we're all working in sync and in harmony.

The goldfish.

And we didn't wanna do bread and butter.

So it was just kind of this fun, playful way

to start guests off with that cracker

or that bread if you will.

So we decided to go with the goldfish.

Think of like the cheddar biscuits at Red Lobsters.

Kind of where like the idea came from

and stemmed into this goldfish.

So we're rocking and rolling.

We have five tables ordered.

We use KDS, which is a kitchen display screen.

It's basically the same exact thing

as, like, what McDonald's uses.

But essentially all of our tickets

come up on the screen.

I read 'em, I expedite them.

And these guys have a mirror image

of like their counts and how many of each thing

that they're cooking at any given time.

So they know their board.

Traditionally, most restaurants have ticket systems

where the the printer will print a receipt

that has all of the items for that table on it.

Should being in the next generation

and ahead of the curve, is where

we want to be with this restaurant.

Is this correct on 32?

It's correct.

It's a group with six young people.

All of them, they came here just for the experience.

They're not hungry so they order a few things.

The plateau mostly.

One of them, he's not having seafood

and he ordered the steak.

We're going two french fries, 32.

Francis, seven, six drop on top.

Crab tagliatelle.

Drop on top means that they have

another snack or another bit in front of them.

Typically we will wait to clear

before we drop something else.

In this case it's just more snacks.

Maybe the guest has an out time

or they kind of want everything at once.

So you'll drop everything at once.

In this case, they know there's food on the table.

I can still drop it.

Garde-manger you're fired on a monk mousse solo.

Anytime.

[Garde-Manger] Order fired, Chef.

Yes, Chef.

Yo, let's go on a tagliatelle order fire,

and a cacio e pepe order fire.

Let's go seven one with a monk liver mousse.

You know the spiel?

Yes. Talk to me. Tell me.

Monkfish liver with a concord grape gelee,

candied pistachio, celery.

You win, see you later.

71.

It is 6:15, we are getting busier.

Things are rocking and rolling.

I appreciate you guys coming by and hanging out,

but it's time for you to go.

[upbeat energetic music]

[Interviewer] I'm just gonna ask you a couple

questions about your job here if that's cool.

I'm like the ghost here.

I don't know if you wanna ask me questions.

[Interviewer] What do you mean you're the ghost here?

I don't really work at Crown Shy.

I'm Danny Garcia.

I am the chef of Saga Hospitality's newest restaurant

that currently doesn't have a name yet.

Are you allowed to tell us here

what you're working on right now?

Actually, I can't.

Okay. Genuinely.

Cool. Thanks, guys.

Yeah, sorry I couldn't be-

[Interviewer] We might see you at the next place.