At Esmé in Chicago, chefs elevate food to art. Its signature dish, the clay pot poussin, features a bird-shaped clay vessel used to bake partridge, making for a stunning presentation. Known for its artistic plates, this fine dining restaurant offers a menu rich in creativity, including rabbit consommé, almond fava bean tart, Dover sole rack, crab salad, and watermelon gelée.
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00Before the guests sit down, there's four different bites on the table.
00:02It varies in flavors and textures,
00:05but the first thing you sit down when you eat
00:06is a rabbit consomme served in a ceramic egg shell with a pea foam.
00:10Official on four eggs!
00:11Four!
00:12That's LTI!
00:13LTI!
00:15Each station is responsible for a contribution on the canapé,
00:18so we present a hasuntre.
00:19It's multiple bites.
00:20He has the plum and the fava bean tart.
00:22In here, he removes the seed,
00:25puts a little bit of heart of palm puree there.
00:27Then we have some kilimanjaro from Japan
00:29that's been cured in kombu for six hours.
00:32He takes that lid from the plum, and then he pickles it.
00:36He goes back and then shingles it together.
00:38After that, we move into an almond tart.
00:41Another labor-extensive process.
00:43We're basically highlighting fava beans and almonds.
00:46We take whole almonds, blanch them, slice them paper-thin,
00:50and then basically shingle it into a flour.
00:52Underneath that, we have a farmer's cheese that we make in-house,
00:55and then fold pureed fava beans into it.
00:57It's topped with some mustard and thyme.
01:00It's almost think like flavors of charcuterie into one bite.
01:03So here I am setting up the start of my wagyu tart
01:07with Japanese A5 wagyu that I slice very thinly.
01:11I pretty much roll these before service
01:14and then assemble as the guests come in.
01:17We have wagyu carpaccio, black garlic,
01:20strawberries that are finally just popping into season,
01:23and shiso.
01:24We're officially on two canapes.
01:26Two!
01:28We got bird out of the oven.
01:29Yes, sir.
01:30We got four eggs on deck. Fourteen, please.
01:33Two more fish on deck.
01:34Are you ready on twelve? Beautiful. Hands, please.
01:38I'm walking.
01:42Hi, guys. Happy Thursday.
01:44Happy Thursday.
01:46So we're starting breaking down our partridge here.
01:48It's going to be for our partridge and clay course.
01:50One of my favorite things on the menu
01:52that we constantly do and we've become a bit known for
01:54is baking in clay.
01:55We've done duck and pig and squab in the past.
01:57Currently we're using partridge.
01:59It's pretty unique.
02:00Most people haven't had it here in the Midwest,
02:02but really it just eats like Tucson or young chicken.
02:05We're butchering the birds now to put in our brine
02:07and they're going to sit in here for about 24 hours.
02:10So it's always important that we're like a day ahead.
02:12So everything that we butcher today
02:13is going to be used for tomorrow.
02:14And everything we took out of brine today
02:16is basically for service.
02:17So this is just our just butchered bird.
02:20So you can see a little bit of osmosis happening here,
02:22sucking in some of that salt and flavor.
02:24It's a little more plump.
02:26It's going to kind of retain that moisture after we roast.
02:30So we're going to go through the mousse making process.
02:32We stuff the birds with a sausage of morel mushroom,
02:36foie gras.
02:37And then we have kind of an array of spices and salt.
02:42Temperatures are really important.
02:44We want to make sure that we're getting the right temperature
02:47for our bird.
02:48Temperatures are really important.
02:50We basically spin this until it reaches 40 degrees.
02:53We're going to temp this several times during this process
02:56to make sure we're not bringing the sausage
02:58above a certain temperature.
02:5955 degrees is our kind of limit.
03:03So we're getting up to temp.
03:05So we're going to add our ground foie.
03:10We've completely emulsified our sausage here.
03:13And then again, it's really important to keep everything
03:15as cold as possible during this kind of full process.
03:18So always working onto a nice bath.
03:20After that, we're going to fill a pastry bag
03:22and then we're going to start stuffing our sausage
03:23in our cartridge.
03:25We're going to go through and kind of peel back
03:28some of the skin.
03:30It creates just a cavity between the skin and the breast
03:33where we're going to fill.
03:34We obviously want to keep the shape,
03:36but not penetrating the skin is what's going to kind of keep
03:39our sausage glued to our breast here.
03:43So we just work both sides of the breast.
03:46And then after we fill, we kind of reshape to kind of ensure
03:49that we're keeping that kind of natural form.
03:53I'm currently roasting off this lettuce for our partridges.
03:59This lettuce kind of acts as a nice little barrier
04:02between our clay and the partridge itself
04:05so that you don't have just a bird covered in clay.
04:09Even though it is edible,
04:10it's not necessarily the tastiest thing.
04:13And so what I do here is I kind of push it down
04:17with this quarter sheet tray just to kind of make it easier
04:21to form around the bird itself
04:24and also add a little bit of a char and flavor
04:27that will kind of add on to the partridge.
04:31So this is our clay for our partridge.
04:33We've used to sculpt these by hand with no mold
04:36and just use like compression mats for details.
04:38So we're kind of using this as our foundation
04:40to help streamline the process.
04:42We were by no means the first people to roast in clay,
04:46but probably the crazy enough to sculpt.
04:49I didn't think I'd be doing a lot of the things
04:51that I do in my life here,
04:52but that's kind of the beauty of working here.
04:55I get to do all sorts of weird stuff
04:58like working Arts and Crafts Station.
05:01But I think it's really cool
05:02because there's a lot of like legitimate technique
05:05that goes into this dish.
05:06If our final product wasn't delicious and cooked properly,
05:10then this is pointless.
05:12The bird needs to sit in there in a relative position.
05:15We don't have much wiggle room here.
05:16We try to have our purveyor send us a reasonable size
05:19that's consistent, but there's no guarantee.
05:23So this is kind of the part that matters the most.
05:28I mean, I guess they all do, but this right here,
05:30if you don't line it up properly,
05:32it will come out very uneven.
05:34Your bird might be popping out of one side
05:37and it's really important to really just kind of get
05:40on top of it and put it together
05:43or else it'll really fall apart.
05:47Time for the big release.
05:49Our bird comes out nice and pretty.
05:52The juice is worth the squeeze here,
05:54but there's just another layer to the flavor here
05:57just because it's like encased in itself.
06:00We just air dry them next to the stove
06:02and they sit here for a time and then we refrigerate them.
06:05It's really about kind of keeping the moisture content
06:07out of the clay because it'll pop and crack and explode.
06:10So we finally made one.
06:12You saw how long that took me to make.
06:14I have to make eight more of these.
06:17So it takes a while.
06:22Once you're entering like halfway through your menu,
06:24you're gonna receive something that's bright and refreshing.
06:26We wanted to have something
06:27that highlighted that, tomatoes, watermelon.
06:29I'm gonna hollow this out
06:31and then I'm going to set a tomato jelly.
06:33You've got this very beautiful, clear liquid,
06:36and then we're gonna use that to set in the watermelon.
06:38This is my tomato water.
06:39So this is after I process the heirloom tomatoes.
06:43I'm just boiling it with a little bit of agar there.
06:46I'm gonna let that come to a full boil, add some gelatin.
06:49We're gonna go ahead and just pour.
06:51It takes about maybe a good hour to two hours
06:53to properly set it all the way through.
06:55And then we go ahead and portion it closer to service.
06:58So this part of watermelon is going to be a sidecar
07:00that walks with the main course.
07:02This is going to eventually be hollowed out
07:03and it's going to work as a lid.
07:04It serves as a cover for the crab salad
07:07that is served on our plate.
07:10We always try to have bread service here.
07:11Our laminated cornbread has kind of become a staple,
07:14but it's really the best of both worlds
07:16when it comes to bread, in my opinion.
07:17Kind of this love marriage between cornbread and croissant.
07:21So active dry yeast water and a bit of sugar
07:23just to kind of kickstart the yeast process.
07:26And then we'll just go through the mixing process
07:27while our yeast blooms.
07:30So bread flour that's been sifted, salt and sugar.
07:35And then we hydrate cornmeal and let it sit over the day.
07:39And then it basically hydrates some of it
07:41to take away some of the chew.
07:46So we're going to start by adding our eggs.
07:47We're going to do this in phases.
07:51And we're going to do the same process with our butter.
07:55So we're going to start emulsifying our butter in
07:57slowly but surely.
07:59And then this is going to mix for about 20 minutes after.
08:02The most important part about this
08:04is the butter.
08:05You need European butter
08:06because there's not a lot of water content in it.
08:09Most American butter, they put water in it.
08:11It's really important that you just have fat here.
08:13Makes it less brittle when you're laminating
08:15and folding it on top of one another.
08:17So we're done mixing.
08:18We're going to bulk ferment in the cooler overnight
08:21before we start our lamination process.
08:25So now we're moving to our Dover sole.
08:27We turn this into like a rack,
08:29a Dover sole rack, almost like a tomahawk.
08:31It is going to be one of the main entrees
08:33that you see on the menu.
08:34I start over here by just skinning it.
08:37The part that I'm showing right now
08:39is the bones I want to leave on.
08:41So I'm going to do the same thing on the other side.
08:44And you have like almost this fan at the end of the fish.
08:47We cut that off
08:48because that's where the bone starts to get real fragile.
08:51So basically we get it to this stage
08:53and then I just run the scissors right along with it.
08:55And now you can see that our rack
08:57is starting to like take shape.
08:59So now that I have like my whole rack fully developed,
09:03I'm going to season the inside, some salt.
09:06So I think Peter Luger was like one of the first chefs
09:08to do a fish chop or fish steak.
09:10And this was like in the nineties.
09:11And then Thomas Keller obviously is famous
09:13for the salmon chop where they took the collar
09:15and kept it on the bone.
09:17But I think this just drives home
09:18like the understanding of butchery here
09:20that Gustavo has with sole.
09:22So what we're doing now is we're going to build a mosaic
09:24that's going to decorate the sole.
09:26So what we're doing now is we're going to build a mosaic
09:27that's going to decorate the front side of the fish.
09:30I like to start with the zucchini
09:32and then I just shingle my way all the way down.
09:35Yellow squash.
09:37And I just keep repeating this process
09:38until I have a mosaic big enough, cover the whole fish.
09:42We're almost there.
09:44There we go.
09:44So now that we have our mosaic built,
09:46I'm going to transfer it to the fish.
09:48Try my best to keep it as intact as possible.
09:51I'm going to go ahead and wrap it in some plastic
09:53to guarantee that it stays on.
09:55Gentle wrap, not too tight.
09:56We're going to cryo bag it anyways.
10:02So by putting it face down,
10:04it guarantees that the zucchini and the squash
10:06lines perfectly where the rack starts up here
10:09because eventually I'm going to do a trim the bottom
10:11so I'm able to allow the fish to stand after we portion it.
10:14So we're going to sous vide this
10:16and probably do it a hundred more times
10:19So something that's really important here
10:20is that every four months,
10:21we collaborate with a local artist.
10:23We bring in their work
10:24and this place kind of dubs as a gallery.
10:26Right now we're featuring Megan Borah.
10:28She's a local Chicagoan.
10:29So we collaborated on some plateware
10:31and service ware for our salad course.
10:32What really helped me is when chef sent me
10:34the palette of the salad dressings.
10:37Before I had any color scheme,
10:39it was sort of hard to come up with the image
10:41of what I wanted to do.
10:42So I just kind of went with the color scheme
10:44and then I just kind of went with the color scheme
10:46It was sort of hard to come up with the imagery.
10:48And then once I had the specific colors,
10:51I was like, oh, okay, I'm going to incorporate yellows,
10:54more greens, more summery palette.
10:57And then I found it was much easier to paint the rest.
11:02So this is one of our local farmers here, Mike Murphy.
11:06One of our courses that we wanted to highlight
11:08Megan's work for our salad is really about
11:10just seeing what we can get in daily or weekly
11:12and kind of riffing off that.
11:14So assessing what he's bringing in for us.
11:16We get to kind of pick and choose
11:17through this array of herbs and flowers
11:19and assemble kind of daily on what's available.
11:23So now we're putting together a salad course.
11:26We usually just kind of start by having like a foundation
11:28or base of something that's a little more hearty.
11:31That's where the romaine's coming into play.
11:33And then we're just going to kind of start
11:35building our bouquet.
11:36I've got three different types of pea tendrils here,
11:38Kelvin, Verde, and some yellow.
11:40So we're just going to start by layering those.
11:42For me, a salad's always three things.
11:45Something acidic, something sweet, and something herbaceous.
11:48So it's accompanied by three different purees
11:50that are on the plate that are kind of meant to
11:52riff off the color palette that Megan used in her work.
11:54So we just have some blanched chives.
11:56That's essentially what's going to allow us
11:58to kind of bind our white here
12:00and allow the guests to kind of pick it up.
12:01There's a science to it.
12:03I very much so appreciate florists.
12:08This is my second Verde I guess today.
12:12And one of the problems that you face with this project
12:15is sometimes something will poke out
12:17when I'm cleaning it off,
12:19which means that I now have to fix that.
12:22So the clay didn't come together separately.
12:25So now you kind of have to problem solve a little bit.
12:29I take a little bit of clay.
12:30It's like a Band-Aid, yes.
12:32And that kind of is a really easy fix
12:35to this almost terrible problem.
12:39Because if I didn't fix that up,
12:41this whole Verde wouldn't cook properly first and foremost,
12:44but it also would be like falling apart
12:47when we bring it out to the table.
12:49Tonight we have eight tables with 29 guests.
12:55And that means that I have to do eight Verdes in clay
12:59and I will pick the rest up in a pan.
13:03It's a very physical process to make these.
13:09I'd say I've lost like 30 pounds
13:12just working the clay station.
13:16So our dough both fermented overnight.
13:19It's nice and cold.
13:20And then we're gonna start the lamination process.
13:24We're just gonna roll this out to a nice long rectangle
13:27and then place our butter block in here.
13:30It's really important that you just take the extra time
13:32with sizing here and making sure your dough
13:37is the right length and thickness.
13:39So we're gently just kind of pounding out our butter.
13:41This is gonna just prevent any cracking
13:44if our butter's too cold
13:47and just kind of provide even distribution
13:50of that butter block in the middle.
13:53And see kind of all these beautiful layers
13:54with the kind of cornmeal studded throughout.
13:57Now we're gonna roll it out to kind of our desired thickness,
14:00start cutting and portioning into the size and shape we want
14:03and we're gonna actually braid these today.
14:05We decided to braid it because we really wanted
14:07to exaggerate all the work that went into it.
14:09And this kind of allows that to be shown
14:12or seen from the diner.
14:14So as it's gonna proof, the dough is gonna expand
14:18and then all those layers of butter will be exposed.
14:22The team comes in at 11.
14:23We do a full breakdown at 2.30.
14:24By three o'clock, staff meal comes out.
14:26The team takes 15, 20 minutes to eat.
14:29We come back into the kitchen
14:30and finish the final steps of service.
14:32Let's go, break it down.
14:34Break it down.
14:38So every day at four o'clock,
14:39we run through all the sauces, purees,
14:43anything that's on the menu and go through a tasting.
14:45It's always important to have more
14:46than just the chef's tasting throughout the day.
14:50Just a kind of final approval.
14:52And more importantly, I think it's important
14:54that it's not just me, that we get as many mouths
14:56on each bite or sauce as possible
14:59to make sure there's nothing out of whack.
15:02Consumers good.
15:04Manny.
15:05Yes, chef.
15:05The rose needs acid.
15:08Sasha.
15:09Yes, chef.
15:10Your melon doesn't taste like anything.
15:11Yes, chef.
15:13Get the chartreuse.
15:15Taste this.
15:16Yeah, your fennel puree, Isaac, needs salt.
15:18Noah, make sure your soup's the right consistency
15:21if that's the way it's seasoned.
15:23Great.
15:24So right before we get to five o'clock,
15:25if we haven't seen them come back with the adjustments,
15:27then we go over there and ask for it one more time.
15:29But for the most part, they're very good
15:30at, like, fixing it.
15:34So the doritos is not out.
15:35Isaac's going to go ahead and get it started.
15:37So it cooked for about 28 minutes.
15:39Cleaning the bones is definitely the harder part
15:41because it takes a little bit more finesse.
15:43I'm trimming the bottom
15:44so it'll stand upright on the plate.
15:47And then I'm gonna blanch the bones for a couple of seconds
15:49just to loosen up that meat.
15:51This helps to release the meat in between the bones
15:54so you get a cleaner end product.
15:56One by one, the bones expose that tomahawk.
15:59The fish is basically almost all the way cooked.
16:01It's more like a medium-rare right now.
16:03And then we temper it,
16:05and then on the official, we flash it on the steamer.
16:08So he got to clean the bones,
16:09and then we portion it, and then that's it.
16:11And I'm just coming back with my knife here,
16:12and any tendon that's still on the bone,
16:15I'm trying to scrape off.
16:17We usually get about four to five portions per.
16:20It's not necessarily about
16:22how many bones are in each portion.
16:24That's why sometimes we may lose a head or a tail.
16:27We find that it's best to portion from within the fish
16:30rather than coming in from the top.
16:32So instead of cutting through bone,
16:33he's actually cutting through the membrane
16:35that's holding it together.
16:36That way, we also avoid any, like, chips,
16:39any bones that chip and people bite into it.
16:41Like, we don't want that,
16:43since the entire inside of the fish is now,
16:45there's, like, no bone, you know?
16:46The only bone you see is the only bone on the fish.
16:50The cook on the fish is just enough to allow us
16:53to put it in the steamer one more time
16:55before it gets put on plate.
16:57It's just like a lamb chop on the bone.
17:00The bones don't run all the way through the fish,
17:02but are kind of exaggerated off of one side.
17:06And then we're kind of riffing off of Saul Véronique.
17:09As we talked about,
17:10there's always a lot of French influence here
17:11with Midwest or other flavors.
17:14For our salad, of course,
17:14we're always balancing three things,
17:17sweetness, acidity, and herbaceousness.
17:19So starting with the orange,
17:20we have a cellar-aged carrots and fermented honey.
17:24And finally, some acid from rose and beet.
17:28Our salads are dressed in yuzu and some olive oil.
17:31So the guest is instructed to kind of pick up the bouquet
17:34with their hands and swipe or paint,
17:36and then kind of taste those three elements
17:38separately and then all together.
17:40Chefs, are we ready?
17:41Ready!
17:42Chefs!
17:43Chefs!
17:44Doors!
17:44Doors!
17:45We're official on two canapes.
17:47Two by two.
17:48Two eggs on deck.
17:49Hands, please, one person.
17:50Two canapes to 17.
17:51Four scallops on deck.
17:52You're going two eggs to 13.
17:54You're gonna go two canapes to 17.
17:56I need another tart on the fly, please.
17:58Well, this is for our clay partridge course.
18:00So the rest of the bird's processed back here
18:02before it goes out to the table.
18:04The legs were cone-feed,
18:05and then we're gonna roast them in the same pan
18:07to kind of get some of the same flavors
18:09into our chanterelles.
18:12I'm wrapping these birds right now in tinfoil
18:14because they need to not blow up in the oven.
18:17That's kind of our main goal.
18:18So as soon as guests arrive,
18:20that's essentially our cue to throw them into the oven.
18:23We've got it timed pretty good.
18:24They're roasted for about 45 minutes to an hour.
18:27And after they come out of the oven,
18:28the clay is presented,
18:29or the sculpture is presented table-side.
18:31We put a napkin over it,
18:33break it open with a hammer,
18:35and use this kind of dramatic reveal of what was inside.
18:38We always sculpt to represent what's inside.
18:41So kind of the guest gets to see that
18:43and feel that at the table.
18:46So now we're moving on to the plating for the watermelon.
18:48So here's the crab salad.
18:49This is mainly where the acid on the dish is coming from.
18:53Now we have a little bit of a crunch and heat.
18:55So we have our XO sauce,
18:57some of the mustard from the crab.
19:00We use it to turn into this dressing.
19:02So we take all the scraps from the roasted watermelon
19:05when we're trimming it and portioning it,
19:07and we're able to blend that with the mustard
19:09until it cooks in the blender.
19:11Roasted watermelon sheet,
19:13we roast this for two hours.
19:14All the natural sugars on the watermelon caramelizes,
19:17and then we're able to go back and slice it
19:18almost like tuna.
19:20The liquid that comes off the watermelon,
19:21we save it, make a syrup.
19:24So we have our watermelon jelly that we set earlier today.
19:30That's it.
19:31Then we're gonna take this to the table,
19:32we present it, and then we pour our broth.
19:38So we have our watermelon jelly.
19:40Our broth.
19:45So I don't know if food is art.
19:47It's a conversation that's often had here.
19:49You know, I feel like at times it can be,
19:51but I feel like I love the craft so much
19:53to ever want to consider myself an artist.
19:55That would be odd and uncomfortable.
19:58But you know, it's something that we consider.
20:00I feel like we're an extension to the artists
20:02that we're trying to highlight here,
20:03and the food is an extension of that.
20:05But I guess there is something therapeutic
20:06about coming out to the table and ruining a piece of art
20:09for the sake of eating.
20:09And that's kind of just always the driving force
20:11in the conversation we're trying to have
20:13and make our guests think about.