This LA Restaurant Does It All by Hand, No Machines

[upbeat music]

We here at Dunsmoor, we don't use any electric machines,

with the exception of like temperature control.

We have no blenders, we have no food processors,

we have no stand mixers.

We do everything by hand.

Cooking by hand and cooking with wood fire

is definitely less efficient.

It's more difficult.

It's if you're making a salsa verde by hand,

like chopping all the herbs,

doing it in the mortar and pestle,

you have a lot of different opportunities

to make good decisions and taste as you go.

Whereas when you're just like throwing things

into a machine, I don't think you have that option.

I had this theory, food cooked in the past can really be

accentuated with the knowledge that we have now,

but working within the limitations of the past.

[upbeat music continues]

Hey, what's up y'all?

I'm Brian Dunsmoor, the Chef Owner of Dunsmoor Restaurant.

Come on in.

We got a lot to do.

[mellow music]

So it's 11:00 AM and the first thing I like to do

once I get in the building and get settled

is I like to grab the computer from the front

and then check the reservations.

So when I'm checking the reservations, what I'm looking for

is cover count, any like special people

that might be coming in that we're excited about,

and then also the flow of service.

We have a lot of industry that comes in here.

On any given night, you know there might be like six tables

of chefs which can get pretty overwhelming.

What really makes a difference in being successful

financially in a restaurant is like being able to fill

the earlier part of the night

and the later part of the night.

The middle is just a given, like you're gonna be busy.

85 covers to start, probably do 120.

So looking good on reservations.

When we get going during service, the first thing

that gets popped is the back bar

'cause we do kind of like a pub burger,

like a thick medium rare dryish burger back there

with duck fat fries and we only offer 20 a night.

Right when the doors open, people are coming in

to try to like capture their burger before they're 86ed.

We like to keep the menu pretty loose

because we like to change it very often

and cross utilize products.

We try to be as thrifty as possible here

'cause we don't want any waste.

So right now I'm just checking the menu from last night

and then kind of reworking it

based on what we have coming in today.

I think that looks like about it for changes today.

All right, now we're done marking up the menu.

Let's get in the kitchen and make sure

that we have everything that we need.

[mellow music]

Most of our grains, like our our grits or cornmeal or rice,

whatever grain it is that we're using at a time,

it's normally for Anson Mills.

I think all chefs say the same thing.

It's like find the best ingredient and treat it simply

and try to just accentuate that.

Like that's what all chefs say.

But it really is true and the older I get,

the less I want to do to these great products.

It's our job just to let 'em shine.

And here's our belon oysters, wild from Maine.

Look at these beauties.

There's only five kinds of edible oysters on the planet

and this is one of 'em.

They have a very coppery flavor which doesn't lend itself

well to eating raw in my opinion.

So we cook these in the wood oven

with a Florida bottarga butter that our buddies make.

Alright, looking good.

Looks like we got everything that we need

to do the changes on the menu that we talked about earlier.

Let's do it.

[mellow music]

All right, so it's about 12:30 so it's time

to get the fire started so we can start cooking

and gettin' ready for service.

Just so we're not wasting a bunch of paper and stuff,

a little bit of paper helps getting the fire going.

So we just use some of our spent menus

from the night before.

I like to just take this little wad of paper

and kind of sit it right here in the middle.

I also like to use a little bit of wood chips

just to kinda help move it along a little bit.

And then when we're building it, I like to use like,

two large logs on the bottom to build the base

and then kind of stagger it up from there.

And then I like to start using some smaller ones here

just 'cause they'll light up.

And then I like to go back to big on the top

'cause the bigger the wood, the bigger the coals in the end

but the longer it takes to get going.

But we just want it to like ignite so it'll take a while

for this to burn down into coals 'cause we don't cook

over live fire, we cook over coals.

Once this burns down we'll like push a little bit of it back

and then we'll just start feeding this andiron right here

to continue producing coals and then we'll shuffle 'em

over here underneath the grill.

During service, when we have this thing at full force,

if you use the laser thermometer, it doesn't even read

so that means it's like a thousand degrees back here.

It gets very, very hot.

So this right here, this is called fat wood.

It has this like really flammable sap

which is like a great natural fire starter.

So we'll use a little bit of like the night before as oil.

But just watch how this stuff just lights up.

You can smell it, you can smell the sap burning

and we just tuck this down in here

and at this point like it should take care of itself.

We want it to be burning really hot so we're not getting

that kind of acrid bad smoke taste.

We want that clean charcoal taste.

And once it starts burning down into coals,

then we'll be ready to cook on it.

But we'll pull a little bit of this burning wood over here

in a second when Conrad starts smoking the quail

to kind of get the wood chips going for the actual smoke.

So while working the fire, you definitely need like

some special tools to keep it going.

This is like a cool little doodad also.

If you look at it, it has like a mouthpiece,

kinda like a trumpet.

Have you ever seen when people you know blow on holes

to help ignite them?

That's why this does except your face

isn't completely in the fire.

So you can basic like.

[fire crackles]

And that'll really help get it going.

We use that a lot over here

and you can see how it moves the flame around

and adds some oxygen to the situation.

Cooking with live fire definitely presents

a couple different challenges.

It's the actual heat itself 'cause this thing gets crazy hot

so once it's burned down to coals, coals are hotter than

the actual fire itself.

But we use wood and the wood fire flavor

as like an ingredient.

People have been cooking meat over live fire

since the beginning of cooking.

So if it ain't broke don't fix it.

You can't get that depth of flavor like in a saute pan.

You can only get that flavor cooking over charcoal

and live fire.

It's coming up on one o'clock.

It's time to meet and discuss the menu for tonight

with the sous chefs and then we're gonna get going on prep.

[mellow music]

It's definitely a collaborative team effort.

It's like the more eyes on this stuff the better.

Up here I got like,

a big fat loin of the wild Boston bluefin tuna.

I think we can throw it up here.

We'll be running a little bit heavy up here with five.

I think we do our fallback set, the Florida Bottarga,

little bit of saletta, chive, lemon zest.

You guys know the drill?

How do you want it cut?

Let's start with lean and then we'll go into fatty.

Tomorrow, I'll block it out.

I'm gonna butcher that here in a second.

Like sliced or?

Yeah, we'll do it sliced.

We got those Asian pears in.

We have four quarts of farmer cheese

so let's use that with it.

The pear chutney from the quail,

we'll move up here and we, I think we can do like

a little mashed potato like divot in the cheese

and then we'll plate the farmer cheese kinda like

we have been doing.

I think the Asian pears, I think we're gonna need

to cut those-

To order.

To order.

That's fine.

For sure.

That's fine.

Yeah, it'll be fine.

And then we will plate that up.

Maybe let's throw some like some toasted chopped like,

like crushed walnut into there as well.

And then we can plate that up nicely with a pear chutney

in the middle on the farmer's cheese.

Maybe like a little bit of orange zest on there.

And then we'll just finish it with the date vinegar

and if you guys wanna work on plating on that one,

that would be nice.

So 86 the pear chutney off of the quail.

We'll do the cider glaze on this bad boy.

We're going to, let's smoke it.

We'll get Conrad smoking that right now

and then we'll do the cider vinegar.

I think that'll be nice.

All right, cool.

Let's do it.

[Chef] Alright, thank you.

So now that we got the menu set for tonight,

time to get in here and I'm gonna start cutting some fish

and portioning some fish.

[mellow music]

Before we start cutting this fish.

Let's not disrespect the fish, let's get these knives sharp.

So this is a Japanese waterstone.

We sharpen all our knives by hand, obviously.

I think everywhere does that.

And this is a sujihiki,

which is like a western style slicer.

This is what I like to use for breaking fish.

So like breaking down bigger pieces of it.

I think a good way to test is you go like this on your thumb

and press and if it slips, that means that part of the knife

needs to be sharpened more.

So this one's feeling pretty good.

I'm gonna run it for one more second

and I'm left-handed, so I sharpen about 70% on this side,

about 30% on this side right here.

I think we're a little sharper than we were when we started.

So let's go.

So this is the wild Boston bluefin Tuna,

really special fish.

All tuna is special but this one has really great flavor,

really good fat.

A lot of umami in the lean sections too

and it's not available very often.

So it's like when when we see it, we'll get it.

This paper that they wrap it in right here,

it's like it absorbs a lot of moisture

and like one of the keys, is just making sure

that you're removing as much moisture as possible

because like the juice is like

what starts to get weird first.

So like every fish is different.

So I think it's really important to like have a little bit

of a game plan before you just start cutting into it.

So I think for this one I'll start right here

with a bloodline.

We're just gonna get that out.

You just wanna be really, really gentle with the fish

'cause it's very delicate and it can be like busted up.

And I think texture, when it comes to raw fish especially,

is really, really important.

We're looking good.

If you see right here, like right here, right here,

this area is gonna have a little bit more sinew.

So I'm gonna go ahead and I'm gonna take this section off

so we can just remove this, roll it off.

You really want to clean as you're going,

'cause scales will get on here

and you don't wanna be picking that out of the meat.

We'll probably cut it into blocks going this way

and then we'll split 'em.

So we're gonna serve this sliced and raw

with a little bit of anchovy infused olive oil,

which we like to call saletta

and then we're just gonna garnish it with like a little bit

of chive, a little bit of lemon zest and a cured mullet rub

or bottarga that our buddies in Santa Maria Island,

Florida at Cortez Seafood, they do a Florida bottarga

out of a wild Florida mullet.

All right, so the bluefin is all cut and organized.

We're gonna get it into the walk-in to kind of air dry

until the end of service.

Then we'll wrap it up in there.

I'm gonna go check on these little quails

smoking in the hearth.

[mellow music]

All right, so it's coming up on two.

This is our little smoking technique that we came up with.

No room for a real box smoker or anything like that.

So basically what we did here is we just moved grill

implements over here with a water bath to protect it.

We wrapped the whole thing and then we kind of buddy up

some sheet trays to kind of hold everything together

and just let it go.

It's really important to keep an eye on this though

'cause if this lights up on fire,

you're gonna get like a lot more heat than you want.

And then the quail are gonna cook all the way through

and that's not the point of the dish

'cause we still cook the quail like medium or so

on the grill.

So we just wanna make sure

that it's like a really gentle smoke.

Alright, quail's looking really nice.

So we're gonna get over here

and we're gonna start making the cornbread batter.

[mellow music]

Right here is Anson Mills' cornmeal, baking powder,

baking soda, and salt.

We're gonna get this into a bowl just to incorporate it.

This part's really important,

even just mixing the dry properly

'cause you really want you, you don't want any like clumps

of cornmeal in there.

Otherwise that translates into the actual finished dish

and nobody likes lumpy cornbread.

The dry is all incorporated.

You really want this smooth to begin with

before the milk goes in.

So this is an adaptation of an old Edna Lewis recipe

that I pulled out of an old book a long time ago

that we kind of worked on.

And then we mashed it up with chilies and cheese,

which is the way that my mom used to make cornbread.

So it's kind of like a mashup

of Edna Lewis's classic sour milk cornbread

and my mom's chili cheese corn bread.

All right, so the eggs are nice and beaten up.

So here we're gonna take our buttermilk.

We're gonna go in.

[employees chattering]

We're just gonna whip this up just a little bit more.

[batter sloshes]

I like to add the cornmeal into this little by little,

just so, again, so there's no clumps.

So the ideal texture on this for the end product

is gonna be as smooth as humanly possible.

This is a two year aged Hook's white cheddar,

which is really nice, really nice and sharp.

We've tried other cheeses,

but this is what we like the best.

So just give this a little mixing.

And then these are New Mexico green chilies.

If you look here, this is the finished product

and it's just gonna come together more

as it sits before service.

So I'm gonna go ahead and pass this over

to the wood oven station, let it kind of come together.

And then in a couple hours we'll start firing 'em off.

And we serve 50 to 75 cornbread a night.

Even on a mellow night, like pretty much every table

has a cornbread.

So thank you Edna.

[mellow music]

We are gonna do our final checks,

make sure everything's good to go,

and then off to the races.

[mellow music continues]

When people walk into this restaurant,

we want them to feel like they're walking into

their own home or a friend's home.

This is like their little happy place,

or at least that's what I want it to be.

All right, y'all, thank you so much for spending the day

in the kitchen with us at Dunsmoor.

Now get outta here.

We got work to do.