At L'Avenue at Saks in New York, the chefs pride themselves on making every element of their signature cheeseburger from scratch. Watch executive chef Cedric Domenech show us how each component of the burger is made step-by-step — grinding Angus beef into perfectly portioned 6.5-ounce patties, baking soft potato buns, and finishing the burger with creamy avocado, spicy mayo, baby gem lettuce, applewood bacon, heirloom tomato, and Gruyere cheese.
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00:00Here, we have a premium hunger stack.
00:03That's what we're using for a burger,
00:05where we choose because it's more flavor,
00:07where they have 80% of meat and 20% of fat.
00:12Now we're gonna start to clean them.
00:14We need to take all the nerves out.
00:16If we keep this one, the burger will be chewy.
00:19As a chef, quality is the more important.
00:23♪♪
00:31♪♪
00:38When we're done with cleaning the beef every morning,
00:41we're gonna grind them in a portion 6.5 ounce.
00:45We don't want to go over-grinding.
00:47We see a little bit of fat, a little bit of meat,
00:50and when we're gonna cook this one,
00:52it's gonna stay all together.
00:54We make the ball, then after we have a ring
00:57where is the size of the burger bun, it's pretty big.
01:01All the juicy, all the flavor
01:03is gonna stay inside of the burger.
01:06We decide to have 6.5 ounce
01:09because most of the places, they have an 8-ounce burger.
01:13We prefer to reduce a little bit.
01:15The customer enjoy the burger from the beginning to the end.
01:20When we finish with the grinding
01:21and making the portion of the burger,
01:23we leave to rest for overnight.
01:25This tray is what we do today,
01:28and this one is the one we do yesterday.
01:31And you can see between this one and this one,
01:33this one is get a little bit drier.
01:36This one is gonna be more easy to cook during the service.
01:39The first thing in the morning we do
01:41is we start the potato bun with the pastry chef Victoria.
01:46We're using Idaho potatoes,
01:47and we find that this potato with the starch content
01:51makes the best potato bun.
01:53Potato bun just feels classic.
01:55So right now I'm just weighing out 900 grams of potatoes,
01:58and then just gonna dice them
02:00and bring them to a boil for about 20 minutes.
02:03So now that our potatoes have come to a boil
02:06and they're soft, we're going to drain the water,
02:08mash them, and add in our butter.
02:12I'm just going to add my potato and butter mixture
02:14into my flour mixture.
02:17We're looking for it to come together into one big ball.
02:24And now I'm just gonna cover it with plastic wrap,
02:26let it rise in a warm area for an hour.
02:30As a chef, it's really important for me
02:32when we decide to add the burger on the menu
02:35is to make everything nice.
02:37We're doing everything.
02:38We're doing the buns, we're doing the patties,
02:41we even do the fresh mayonnaise
02:44where we use white miso.
02:47We added samba sauce.
02:49It's a mix of chili and fermentation.
02:52The scallion gives the twist.
02:55Asian flavor began from the bun of the restaurant
03:00where they have a flavor of Asian and French technique.
03:04For me, all the burger need to have a good condiment.
03:09The combination of every toppings
03:12is gonna give us a beautiful burger
03:14with freshness, moisture, texture.
03:20Here, we're gonna make the condiment,
03:22the avocado, the creamy avocado.
03:25We're gonna add in some spicy mayonnaise,
03:28then some baby jam into it.
03:31And we decide to have avocado to have the flavor,
03:34the creaminess of the avocado
03:36mixed with the spicy mayonnaise
03:38on every bite of the burger.
03:40We want to enjoy.
03:44It's been about an hour,
03:45and as you can see, the dough has started to proof
03:47and it's risen to the top.
03:48So now we are ready to portion it out.
03:51I'm portioning these out to 75 grams
03:54to match the size of the burger patty
03:56that Chef Cedric makes.
03:58We want everything here to be consistent
04:00and the right proportions.
04:02So we're making them into perfect circles.
04:04How you shape them is how they're gonna proof.
04:06If I shape it and it's a little wonky on top,
04:09then when the dough rises,
04:11it's gonna keep that wonkiness
04:12and it's not going to have the perfect top.
04:15So I just want to make sure
04:16that everything is smooth and consistent.
04:21And now she's ready to proof for one more hour
04:24and then she'll go in the oven.
04:25We're gonna finish to prep the French fries.
04:29We try to replicate the same fries as L'Avenir in Paris.
04:34We peel the potato, we wash them,
04:36and we cut five millimeter.
04:38When we decide to add the potato buns,
04:41we're trying to use the same potato
04:43for making the burger buns.
04:45We're gonna find the same flavor of the potato
04:49in the burger buns.
04:52We take all the fries, we dry the fries.
04:54We take all the water out from the potato.
04:57When we're gonna blanch them,
04:59they're not gonna stick together.
05:00We blanch at 160 degrees.
05:04We're gonna leave them cook and we're gonna take one
05:08and when it's gonna start to break,
05:10it's gonna be ready.
05:12You can see, it's softer.
05:15Then we leave to rest for an hour or two
05:19and we can use to finish at the service.
05:26These guys are all proofed and ready to be baked,
05:29so I'm just going to egg wash them really quickly
05:32and then throw them in the oven.
05:33Our egg wash is really to give the nice shine
05:35and golden when it comes out of the oven.
05:38We're gonna bake it for 10 minutes at 204 degrees Celsius
05:41and then flip it once it's done,
05:43an extra five minutes and they should be perfect.
05:48Fire next table, four burger.
05:51Here is how we're gonna cook the burger.
05:53We're seasoning with fleur de sel.
05:55We're gonna sear both sides.
05:57We give a nice coloration on both sides.
06:00We're gonna seasoning the second part.
06:03We're gonna put applewood bacon.
06:05We're gonna sear on the planchette too,
06:07where it's gonna give a little bit of flavor to our burger.
06:11First, we're gonna sear and we're gonna finish on the oven.
06:16The potato buns we make this morning,
06:18we're gonna sear this part to give the crunchiness.
06:23Timing of cooking is timing of resting.
06:26For any kind of meat you cook,
06:28you cook for five minutes,
06:30you need to leave to rest for five minutes.
06:33We give another coloration to give crispiness.
06:37Then we flip, then we're gonna add in the Gruyere cheese.
06:41Why we choose the Gruyere cheese
06:43is to have the flavor of the French cheese.
06:45When it's seared, we're gonna finish
06:48under the salamander to melt the cheese.
06:52And we're gonna finish with the bacon
06:54and we're gonna start building avocado and salam.
06:59We're using the heirloom tomato, our party,
07:02fresh from this morning, applewood bacon.
07:06We're gonna finish with our crispy French fry.
07:09We're seasoning with salt.
07:10We're gonna try to keep the best long fries.
07:15Here is the beautiful burger of La Venue at Saks.
07:20When people coming to La Venue at Saks,
07:22for me, it's really important they will enjoy the meal
07:26and to feel like they are home.