Chef Christophe Bellanca still does his own mise en place every morning so he can show his staff how to execute the careful techniques that go along with every dish. He believes that standout dishes only require the most essential elements. This can be seen in how Bellanca and his team prepare dishes like the scallop with black truffle, Comté cheese souffle, wagyu beef cap, and more.
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00We do a scallop dish.
00:02Scallop, cabbage, black truffle, okay?
00:04All the philosophy of the food here is this,
00:09quality of ingredient.
00:11Today, we buy 20 scallop.
00:13Why 20 scallop?
00:14Because this is just what we need for tonight.
00:16I butcher all the fish, all the meat, from day one.
00:20Look, for me, it's not a job.
00:21You know, it's my passion.
00:23I love that.
00:24I'm lucky.
00:25I still have some energy to do it.
00:30♪♪
00:40We're gonna start with the base scallop.
00:42So this is for the mousseline,
00:44and then we're gonna add the egg white.
00:46It looks so simple, but it's like a bomb of flavor.
00:50One bite, it's like it has the mushroom,
00:52the forest, and the cabbage,
00:54crunch, smoothness, everything.
00:56This is, like, what Chef calls, like, the critical part of it,
00:59because you don't want to over-whip the cream.
01:02Usually, when I do it, I just count, like,
01:05five seconds, and it's done.
01:07You have to pass everything into a sieve
01:10to ensure that the texture will be smooth.
01:12So she put the scallop base, truffle jus, black truffle.
01:15The dish will look very simple, but it's very technical.
01:19There are a lot of different steps.
01:21All this detail is very important in here.
01:23This goes in the middle.
01:24You just sandwich the truffle with the sliced scallop.
01:31We put all this cabbage around the mold.
01:34We put this scallop mousseline.
01:36We put this cabbage marmalade,
01:38and in the middle, we put the whole raw scallop,
01:43so cut in the middle with a black truffle,
01:45and we cover with the mousseline.
01:46And after that, we're gonna cook on a steam oven.
01:559 a.m., start my day at Essentiel restaurant.
01:59First steps, I'm gonna cut some fruit
02:01for the pastry, for the galmanger.
02:03I love to do my mise en place.
02:05I love to be in the kitchen with my team.
02:07Some chef friends think I'm crazy
02:09to still do all this mise en place every day.
02:12This is the way I learn, and this is the way I like to work.
02:15This is the way I show my team also, you know?
02:18Little beautiful cube.
02:20This beautiful cube will go with the iramacha,
02:22and this one go for the langoustine tasting menu.
02:25Okay, I'm gonna clean up here,
02:26and I'm gonna move on to the fish.
02:28I'm gonna do my butchering, fish, meat.
02:31Here we have the iramacha for the appetizer.
02:34Tonight, we probably do 15 portions with the fish.
02:38I always love to butcher the fish.
02:40We remove the bone here.
02:42We portion also when we have the order.
02:44Table of two, two iramacha.
02:46We cut the iramacha for two people.
02:49So, doversol.
02:51So, this doversol is coming from Mediterranean.
02:55I remove the fillet from the bone
02:57because after that, I'm gonna put on a brine,
03:00and we're gonna cook under the salamander.
03:02Doversol going to the brine.
03:04Why we put on a brine?
03:05To seasoning the fish,
03:07and also the fish are more moist.
03:10Now we do the black bass.
03:12The black bass, the bone there is not straight.
03:15It's a little bit curved, you know?
03:16We have a technique to remove the fillet.
03:20So, you go through the bone.
03:22I put my knife here, and I'm gonna grab the bone.
03:25When I'm in a restaurant,
03:27I try to be focused 100% at the restaurant.
03:35If I do this, and I have something different in my head,
03:39it's better for me to stop, to sit down on the table,
03:42to accomplish what I have in my head.
03:44Like, what I have in my head is this at the moment.
03:47So now we have our fillet.
03:54This is Daron.
03:55Daron worked with me for many, many years.
03:57Now he's my right hand.
03:59Previous, every day, we cleaned the langoustine,
04:01what we need for tonight.
04:02We use a lot of langoustines.
04:03We remove the head.
04:05We keep this for bouillon, for sauce, okay?
04:08I mean, what I don't like, I don't do.
04:10What I don't like to eat, I don't put on the menu.
04:12What I don't like to do, I don't do it.
04:13When I decide to open my restaurant,
04:14I decide to do what I love.
04:16Everything I serve for my customer
04:18is everything I like to eat.
04:20So Daron is going to finish the langoustine,
04:22and I'm going to start to do some meat butchering.
04:26So guys, we have the venison rack.
04:28We're going to have this venison on the menu
04:30for a couple more days,
04:32and after we're going to switch with the beef.
04:34Beautiful piece of meat.
04:35We're going to put this one in the marinade
04:37for a couple days,
04:38and after we're going to serve to the customer.
04:44So we have the beautiful poulard.
04:48Very difficult to find in America with the head on.
04:51We remove the legs.
04:53We remove the head,
04:54and normally we let the breast
04:57to dry a little bit for one day,
04:59and we're going to stuff the breast.
05:01It's a two-day process.
05:03Every morning, we have Charlie, Ayako.
05:05They're here around 6.30, 7 o'clock in the morning.
05:08They start to make the big prep.
05:10Here, she prep for the poulard.
05:12She's removing all the nerve
05:14because after we're going to stuff the breast.
05:16So we're going to roll the poulard.
05:18She put the chicken in the brine before,
05:20so it's very important to tie it correctly.
05:23This is Charlie.
05:24We worked together for many, many, many years.
05:27The thing I like about Chef,
05:28everyone is on the same level,
05:30and you barely find that anywhere.
05:32So this is our last big project.
05:35Here I have a pot full of boiling water,
05:38and the objective is to open the pores,
05:40and we have a timer here,
05:41and they're going to go for a minute, 15 seconds.
05:44My friend Chris Lim and Laurent Rondelle
05:47showed me many years ago this technique for the duck.
05:50No one was good like this one.
05:52I'm honest.
05:53See, it was not my recipe.
05:55They showed me that.
05:56We're going to drain all that hot water out of there.
06:00I'm going to let them rest for a second.
06:02So here, we're going to just trim off the excess fat.
06:05So inside here, you see the carcass.
06:07We have all this left over.
06:09So this here has to come out
06:11because this will spoil before anything.
06:14So over here is the special spice.
06:17The main ingredient is tea.
06:19It's earl grey tea,
06:20so it's the bergamot that we have in this mixture.
06:23So now, it gets dusted just like this.
06:27And actually, the mix of the spices
06:29comes from my Chinese friend Chris Lim
06:31and Laurent Rondelle.
06:33So basically, we dry age this duck.
06:36So these are the ducks that just came in today.
06:38They're going to sit here for a minimum of four days.
06:41So these have been sitting for six days now.
06:44It's really important you wipe all the spice off
06:46because this will get bitter when you sear the duck.
06:49This helps the rendering.
06:50We go a little under here
06:53because here, there's always a little more fat.
06:55Then we cut it off like that.
06:57Now, this is ready for service.
06:59Okay, guys, 2.30, 2.30 to 4.
07:01We adjust all the mise en place.
07:03And here, we're going to do the cheese souffle.
07:05The first step, we do the panade.
07:07We put the milk, the butter.
07:09So we're going to boil the milk and butter, okay?
07:12After that, we're going to add the flour.
07:14So the cheese souffle is one of the more
07:16complicated and technical things we do every day.
07:20It looks so simple,
07:21but you don't see the technique behind.
07:24What I do, I take my finger,
07:26and when you pinch with your finger
07:28and nothing's attached to your finger,
07:30this is good, okay?
07:32Here, we're going to add the eggs.
07:34So we mix the eggs before, okay?
07:36We put a little bit of chicken.
07:37We measure the seasoning, salt and pepper.
07:40After that, you put your egg white.
07:42Here, you mix very well.
07:43Now we're going to add the cream.
07:45So we need to be careful not to over-whip.
07:48This is nice and shiny.
07:49There's no over-whip.
07:50After, I'm going to use the same bowl
07:53to put some panade inside.
07:56After that, we add the panade.
07:58And here, as soon as you add the cream, you stop.
08:01It looks easy when I make it,
08:03because I make it for many years.
08:05Why I put this cheese souffle on the menu?
08:07Because people love French onion soup.
08:09And this French onion soup is cheese, caramelized,
08:12and onion flavor.
08:14Tonight, we're going to serve this cheese souffle caramelized.
08:17We steam the cheese souffle,
08:19but we caramelize under the salamander.
08:21And we just serve this cheese souffle caramelized on the plate
08:24with no sauce, no jus.
08:27And we have this caramelized onion jus
08:31come on the side,
08:33and the captain will put all the jus around.
08:40So this is a piece of Wagyu.
08:43Snake River, Gold Label, Cap.
08:46When we work on a new dish,
08:48it takes us two, three weeks.
08:49And after, we remove what is not necessary, you know?
08:52So we're going to sear this one with some delicatessen,
08:56because if you sear too much,
08:58it's no good for the meat, you know?
08:59So this is for the new dish.
09:01Go live probably end of the week,
09:03or beginning of next week, okay?
09:06We want to do a beef here.
09:08When you come to eat here,
09:09you need to remember the beef you will eat.
09:12The best beef cut for me,
09:14the beef cap from Snake River, American Wagyu.
09:18So we decide to put the beef cap on the menu.
09:21Here we have the beautiful piece of beef.
09:24Here we have some candle pasta with eggplant miso inside, okay?
09:28So we put a little bit mashed potato on the plate.
09:30Here we're going to put some black garlic aioli.
09:34This one is a red porto.
09:35We're going to put this beautiful piece of Wagyu.
09:38We're going to put this pepper sauce with some sake.
09:42The capitan will drop the sauce a little bit on the top.
09:45I mean, the piece of the beef is fantastic.
09:47The real question is what we can remove to be more essential.
09:51Maybe the red porto.
09:52The red porto.
09:53Yeah, the red porto is not necessary.
09:54Look, the idea behind this is steak au poivre.
09:57Everybody knows steak au poivre.
09:59This is a steak au poivre, but from essential by Christophe.
10:08So we are 30 minutes just before the service,
10:10and we start to sear some duck breast.
10:13We don't pre-cook the duck, but we cook very, very slowly,
10:16and we start with a coal pan to remove all the fat.
10:20You want to start on a coal pan,
10:21and then the fat will render, and you pour out the fat,
10:24and then you take another coal pan,
10:25and you repeat it again and again and again.
10:28If we rush the cooking process for the duck, it is not correct,
10:33and the duck has no time to rest.
10:40Everybody is ready for the service.
10:42It's going to be like three, four-hour service.
10:44It's going to be beautiful.
10:45This is all what we do all day.
10:47Now it's like a show.
10:49Ordering one langoustine à la carte, one langoustine menu,
10:51followed by Dover sole and duck.
10:54Dover sole is exclusive fish.
10:56We call this one au plat.
10:58I think why this restaurant is busy every single night,
11:00because we do what the people like also.
11:02They recognize that.
11:03They love this type of dish.
11:05In the end, you have the beautiful poulard with the crispy skin
11:08with some black truffle,
11:10and you have the fantastic albuferra sauce and the mashed potato.
11:14So the black bass, I mean, I love this fish because it's local.
11:18It's wild also.
11:19It's one of my signature dishes for many years,
11:22and this dish is me, you know?
11:24Everything I love is very flavorful,
11:27and I put some raisins with this.
11:29This dish is from day one on the menu, and we cannot remove.
11:32First, langoustine à la carte. Let's go.
11:34In France, we have a classic langoustine mayonnaise.
11:37So it's a warm langoustine, just lightly cooked
11:41with mayonnaise on the side,
11:43arugula, and pepperade in the middle.
11:49Essentiel is the philosophy of the whole restaurant.
11:52The philosophy of how we cook,
11:54but I focus on the quality of ingredients and on the execution.
11:58This is very, very important for me.
12:00I mean, if you see my food today, it's way more simple than 15 years ago.
12:03And we try to, every day, to go to the essentiel in the dish.
12:11Basically, essentiel is to remove what is not necessary.
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