Tag: chef

The Shift List – Miles Thompson (Michael’s Santa Monica) – Los Angeles

Posted on by Chris Jacobs

When Chef Miles Thompson describes food, it can sound like jazz – “salt, umami, acid, SUGAR, spice, crunch!” His Shift List includes the trippy guitar stylings of Bill Frisell, the rootsy wanderings of Jason Isbell, and classical suites from the likes of Debussy and Isaac Albéniz.

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Miles Thompson is the Executive Chef of Michael’s Restaurant in Santa Monica, a mainstay in the modern Californian cuisine movement for almost 40 years, having acted as a springboard for the likes of Nancy Silverton, Jonathan Waxman, Brooke Williamson, Sang Yoon, and more.

Originally from New York state, Thompson moved to LA over a decade ago to work in the kitchens of NOBU, Animal, and Sonofagun, respectively, before venturing out on his own to start the wonderfully-received pop-up series called The Vagrancy Project, a supper club that he ran out of his tiny Hollywood apartment for about 8 months.

The Vagrancy Project ultimately led to Thompson opening his first restaurant as head chef at the now closed Allumette restaurant in Echo Park, which was selected by Bon Appétit as one of the Best New Restaurants in 2013.

After a brief stint away from Southern California, Thompson returned in 2016 to take the helm at Michael’s, after founder Michael McCarty’s son Chas convinced his father to bring on the young chef, telling him they needed to “take things to the next step” at the venerable restaurant.

Two years in, Thompson continues to push forward the restaurant’s legacy as an icon of Southern California’s restaurant scene, coming up with many of his most innovative recipes while listening to music during his sometimes 90-minute commute from East LA to Santa Monica on the 10 freeway.

Photo by @rjacobsonphoto

Chef Miles’s Shift List
Agustín Barrios Mangoré – Julia Florida
Jimi Hendrix – All Along The Watchtower
Bill Frisell – Telstar
Bill Frisell – Del Close
Nob Sugino – Cloud In Rose
Al Green – I’m Still In Love With You
The Beatles – Savoy Truffle
Jason Isbell – Goddamn Lonely Love
Kurt Rosenwinkel – Minor Blues
Albert Nieto and Isaac Albéniz – Mallorca
Iron & Wine – Boy With a Coin
Derek & The Dominos – Layla
LCD Soundsystem – Home
Claude Debussy – Preludes, Book 1: No. 10 La cathedrale engloutie

The Shift List – Andy Kadin (Bub and Grandma’s Bakery) – Los Angeles

Posted on by Chris Jacobs

Baking bread is a 24-hour affair, so mellow Kraut rock in the early-morning helps to get the day started. Listen to Andy Kadin’s Shift List for the music that fills his bakery throughout the day, providing bread for some of LA’s best restaurants.

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Andy Kadin is the founder, owner, and head baker at Bub and Grandma’s, a wholesale bakery that provides loaves to some of L.A.’s best restaurants, including Osteria Mozza, Petit Trois, Kismet, and Sqirl.

After 10 years of writing for TV and advertising in Los Angeles, Kadin decided it was time for a career change.

Being from New Jersey, he always had a deep love for sandwiches — so much so that his nickname became ‘Lunch’ at a previous job…so while dreaming of someday opening a sandwich shop in LA, he decided that he first needed to learn how to bake bread.

He eventuatly commited himself to baking loaves every day in his home kitchen, giving them away to friends, and one such loaf got into the hands of Scott Zwiezen of Dune, home to some of LA’s best falafel and other Mediterranean bites. Zwiezen was so impressed that he convinced Kadin to supply Dune with their daily ciabatta, essentially turned his home kitchen into a commercial kitchen for the six months that would follow (something he would not recommend doing ever again, by the way).

Now baking in a warehouse east of downtown LA with 12 bakers by his side, Kadin and his team produce more than 600 loaves a day, making Bub and Grandma’s one of the best premium small batch wholesale bakeries in the city.

Andy’s Shift List
Neu! – “Isi”
Can – “Vitamin C”
Freddie Hubbard – “Uncle Albert / Admiral Halsey”
Manuel Göttsching – “Deep Distance”
Brian Eno – “Ambient 1 Music For Airports: 2”
Juno Presents Wins The World Cup – “Dangerous Match One”
Gregory Isaacs – “Night Nurse”
The Saints – “I’m Stranded”
Mastadon – “Blood and Thunder”

Andy’s Shit List
Shania Twain – “Man! I Feel Like a Woman!”
Alanis Morisette – “Ironic”

Bub and Grandma’s

Theme Song: Jamie Drake – “Wonder”

The Shift List – Lauren and Peter Lemos (Wax Paper) – Los Angeles

Posted on by Chris Jacobs

Lauren and Peter Lemos share a number of meaningful tattoos, many of them music and food related. They talk about why perhaps so many chefs and musicians share a love of tattoos, plus dive into some of their favorite music to play at Wax Paper, their sandwich shop in Los Angeles.

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Lauren and Peter Lemos are the co-owners of Wax Paper Sandwich Company – a small but mighty sandwich shop operating out of LA’s Frogtown neighborhood since 2015.

Now married, they met back in 2012 while working in a restaurant in Downtown Los Angeles.  Peter cooked, and Lauren served.

Since then, Peter has cooked in some of the finest kitchens on the California coast, such as SPQR, Étoile, Craft, Bazaar, and L&E Oyster Bar, and even had the pleasure of competing on Food Network’s Chopped, while Lauren worked in the front of the house at many places around Los Angeles such as L&E Oyster Bar,  The Ace Hotel in DTLA, and Sweet Lady Jane.

Wax Paper evolved from Peter and Lauren’s dream of opening a simple, but delicious neighborhood sandwich shop. Guests are always greeted with a welcoming smile from the couple, who often work together in the combined 226 square foot kitchen and counter service restaurant, and music is always a constant source of inspiration in such an intimate space.

Lauren and Peter’s Shift List
Metallica – “One”
Nick Kershaw – “Wouldn’t It Be Good”
Pusha T – “If You Know You Know”
MF Doom – “Bomb Thrown”
New Found Glory – “Happy Being Miserable”
Taking Back Sunday – “Tidal Wave”
Ronnie Hudson And The Street People – “West Coast Poplock”
Home Improvement – “Theme Song”
Curb Your Enthusiasm – “Theme Song”
Jimmy Eat World – “For Me This Is Heaven”
LMFAO – “Yes”

Wax Paper: waxpaperco.com

Theme song – Jamie Drake – “Wonder”

Photos @seekandfeel/@mariellevchua and @meetjakob (Jakob Layman)

The Shift List – Matt Orlando (Amass, noma, Per Se) – Copenhagen

Posted on by Chris Jacobs

Chef Matt Orlando’s Amass Restaurant in Copenhagen is a fine dining establishment located in a sprawling industrial warehouse covered in graffiti that proudly blasts obscure and sometimes aggressive hip hop. His Shift List includes Bay Area hip hop legends Hieroglyphics, plenty of Wu Tang Clan, and Scottish reggae music to round it all out.

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Matt Orlando is the head chef and founder of Amass restaurant in Copenhagen’s Refshalevej neighborhood, a somewhat secluded post industrial part of the city that you can choose to arrive to by public ferry.

Orlando opened Amass in 2013, which is a relatively short distance from both locations of Noma, where Orlando previously worked.

It turns out he actually spent two periods at Noma. His first post was sous chef in the mid 2000s, but he departed briefly for New York with his wife – who’s Danish – to take an opportunity as Sous Chef at Thomas Keller’s Per Se. Longing to return to Denmark, he got a call from Rene Redzepi after a couple of years in New York asking him to serve as NOMA’s first executive chef, a post he accepted and kept for three years prior to leaving to start his own restaurant down the street, an endeavor Redzepi was characteristically enthusiastic and encouraging of.

The result was Amass, a fine dining establishment located in a sprawling industrial warehouse covered in curated grafiti and proudly blasting often obscure and sometimes aggressive hip hop.

The juxtaposed restaurant is an extension of the chef himself, a San Diego native who grew up skateboarding and skiing amidst the graffiti’d culture of bay area hip hop legends Hieroglyphics before taking up a distinguished career in fine dining.

Chef Matt’s Shift List
Hieroglyphics – “You Never Knew”
A$AP Mob Feat. Wiz Khalifa – “Molly”
GZA – “When The Fat Lady Sings (Madlib Remix)”
Mungo’s Hi-Fi – “Scrub a Dub Style (Prince Fatty Mix)
Gentlemen’s Dub Club – “High Grade”
Tool – “Sober”

Chef Matt’s Shit List
Rasmus Seebach – “Lidt I Fem”
Arcade Fire – “Wake Up”

Amass Restaurant: http://amassrestaurant.com
Amass Restaurant’s Spotify Playlists: https://spoti.fi/2Pa8q9w

Theme Song: Jamie Drake – “Wonder”

The Shift List – Philipp Inreiter – Copenhagen (Slurp Ramen, RELÆ, Noma)

Posted on by Chris Jacobs

Old school and contemporary hip hop fills Chef Philipp Inreiter’s ramen shop in Copenhagen. Beastie Boys, Wu Tang Clan, Homeboy Sandman, Dead Prez – it’s all good at Slurp Ramen Joint.

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Philipp Inreiter opened Slurp Ramen Joint in 2017, a shop near Copenhagen’s city center that merges Japanese ramen with Danish design and ingredients.

Originally from Austria, Philip has worked in kitchens around the world, most notably getting his start at noma, which originally brought him to Copenhagen, and took a detour to work in Tokyo where he discovered his love for ramen while apprenticing at Konjiki Hototogisu, one of the best ramen shops in Japan.

He soon returned to Copenhagen and worked for a while at Chef Christian Puglisi at Relae, and opened Slurp Ramen soon after to fill what he considered to be a void on the wintry city’s culinary scene.

The result is an exceptional bowl of noodles, served in a relaxed, fun, and tight atmosphere, and going through the experience of opening his own restaurant has led Chef Philipp and his collaborators to start an entirely new project called Informal – a tech-forward company that aims to be the Airbnb of the food world.

Chef Philipp’s Shift List
Orgone – “Look-A Py Py”
Lana Del Rey – “Ultraviolence”
Beastie Boys – “Super Disco Breakin”
Homeboy Sandman – “The Carpenter”
Wu Tang Clan – “Protect Ya Neck”
Dead Prez – “It’s Bigger Than Hip-Hop (Hip-Hop Remix)”
Christina Aguilera feat. Missy Elliott – “Car Wash”
Robbie Williams – “Rock DJ”
Wa Dai Ko Matsuri Za (Japanese Drums) – “Kabuki Gomen-Jyo!”
Iron Maiden – “Aces High”

Slurp Ramen Joint: http://slurpramen.dk • Informal Foods: https://informal.com

Theme song: Jamie Drake – “Wonder”

The Shift List – Jonathan Tam – Copenhagen (RELÆ, noma)

Posted on by Chris Jacobs

Chef Jonathan Tam begins his shift with Italian love songs (against his will), ends it with R. Kelly, and puts a permanent moratorium on Johnny Cash.

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Jonathan Tam was named executive chef at Copenhagen’s Restaurant Relæ in 2016.

Relæ was the first restaurant opened by Chef Christian Puglisi, and Tam’s been with him from the start.

Trained at a culinary school in his hometown of Edmonton in Alberta, Canada, Jonathan, he landed an internship at NOMA in 2007 and has been in Copenhagen ever since.

His elevation to executive chef at Relæ was a natural progression, as he’s been creating menus at the restaurant with Puglisi from day one back in 2010.

Restaurant Relæ: http://www.restaurant-relae.dk • https://www.relae.community

Chef Jonathan’s Shift List
Andrea Bocelli – “Con Te Partiro”
Gali – “Zingarello”
Fleetwood Mac – “Everywhere”
Gang Starr – “Full Clip”
Duck Sauce – “Big Bad Wolf”
Johnny Cash – “Ring of Fire”
Hailu Mergia – “Sintayehu”
David McCallum – “The Edge”
R Kelly – “Ignition”
Gang Starr – “Mass Appeal”

Theme song: Jamie Drake – “Wonder”

The Shift List – Tom Harris – London (The Marskman, St. John)

Posted on by Chris Jacobs

Chef Tom Harris explains what a proper English pub is, throws down some amazing jazz funk playlists (among others), and explains why recipes should be described in musical terms.

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The Marksman pub in East London has been around for over 150 years, exemplifying what a pub should be – cozy wood paneling, regulars that have been stopping in for decades, comforting food and quality local beer – English hospitality at it’s finest.

Chef Tom Harris took over the place with his co-founder and co-chef Jon Rotheram in 2015, and perhaps their greatest achievement, aside from being named Michelin’s pub of the year for 2017 (the first time a London pub was awarded the accolade), is that they kept the historic pub…a pub. 

They could have easily turned the space into a fine dining establishment only –  given that Chefs Tom and Jon met while running the St John Hotel restaurant together and worked previously at London’s legendary St John restaurant under head chef Fergus Henderson – but with the Marksman Public House, they managed to leave the bar downstairs relatively unchanged and converted the second floor into a stylish yet casual dining room to showcase their English cooking.

marksmanpublichouse.com

Chef Tom’s Shift List
Johnny “Hammond” Smith – “Shifting Gears”
Joubert Singers – “Stand on the Word”
Fela Kuti – “Mr. Follow Follow”
Idris Muhammad – “Piece of Mind”
Roy Ayers – “Everybody Loves The Sunshine”
Eddie Hazel – “California Dreamin’”
The Allman Brothers Band – “Blue Sky”
Moses Boyd – “Rye Lane Shuffle”
James Brown – “I Got The Feelin’”
Eek a Mouse – “Wa-Do-Dem”
John Mayall & The Bluesbreakers – “You Don’t Love Me”
The English Beat – “Mirror in the Bathroom”
Charlie Parker – “Ko-Ko”
Neil Diamond – “Desiree”

Chef Tom’s Shit List
Arcade Fire – “Wake Up”

Theme song: Jamie Drake – “Wonder”

The Shift List – Rosio Sanchez – Copenhagen (Sanchez, Hija de Sanchez, noma)

Posted on by Chris Jacobs

Chef Rosio Sanchez talks techno, salsa, disco, and why ranchera music is played in the restrooms at her Mexican bistro Sanchez.

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Rosio Sanchez is a Mexican-American chef from Chicago who’s now spent nearly a decade in Copenhagen.

Soon after working her first job at New York’s WD-50 with pastry chef Alex Stupak, she joined Rene Redzepi’s team at Noma, eventually becoming head pastry chef there while in her 20s.

After her time at NOMA, widely considered to be one of if not the best restaurant in the world, she struck out on her own to open a taqueria in Copenhagen – Hija de Sanchez – showing Denmark how delicious tacos made the right way—with fresh ground masa for tortillas imported from Oaxaca for starters – can really be.

In 2018 she launched Sanchez in Copenhagen, which she likes to describe as a Mexican Bistro, expanding the versatility of what Mexican food can be for the country of Denmark and beyond.

Rosio’s shift list includes techno, salsa, disco, and reveals who she’d most want to sing like if she wasn’t a chef (it’s Mariah Carey).

Chef Rosio Sanchez’s Shift List
Acid Polly – “I See a Darkness”
Cafe Tacvuba – “El Aparato”
Sister Sledge – “He’s the Greatest Dancer”
ABBA – “Dancing Queen”
Buena Vista Social Club – “De Camino a la Vereda”
Margarita y Su Sonora – “Mi Bom Bon”
Los Angeles Azules – “Mis Sentimientos”
Daft Punk – “Instant Crush”
Jenny and the Mexicats – “Verde Más Allá”
Rocio Durcal – “Me Gustas Mucho”
Selena – “Enamorada de Ti”
The Distillers – “Hall of Mirrors”
Mariah Carey – “Honey”

Hija de Sanchez
Sanchez

Chocolate Pudding Cake with Caramel Sauce

Posted on by Editor

I have never in my life experienced a total flavor hole-in-one like this dessert. That is not to say there isn't another dessert that tastes this good. It would just be a challenge to find one that had all the mandatory components of a perfect dessert like this one: gooey chocolate cake that is served still warm, fluffy around the edges and soft in the center … add to that the heavenly mouth feel and buttery snap of home made caramel sauce and FORGET. ABOUT. IT.

This is a one-two punch of just what you're looking for in a holiday dessert — maybe even in life, in general. To lighten the mood just a bit, I add a nice, puffy cloud of hand-made whipped cream with just a hint of vanilla to the top of this beautiful inferno of sugar and joy.

To hear about this perfect creation and the love it spreads is made all the more ridiculous by one very important fact: A warm chocolate pudding cake with caramel sauce and vanilla whipped cream IS SO EASY TO MAKE, YOU ARE GOING TO CRY. Weep with Joy. It will renew your faith in mankind and have you shouting from the roof tops, "HAPPY HOLIDAYS … everyone!"

Let's get this party started … with a little help from Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings!

Warm Chocolate Pudding Cake with Caramel Sauce and Whipped Cream

CARAMEL SAUCE INGREDIENTS
1 cup packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup heavy cream
4 tablespoons of SALTED butter
Pinch of sea salt

DIRECTIONS
Mix the brown sugar, heavy cream, butter, and salt in a thick-bottomed sauce pan over medium-low heat. Cook while whisking gently for 5 to 7 minutes, until it thickens and slowly moves down the back of a metal reason. Turn off the heat, cool slightly, and pour the sauce into a jar. Refrigerate until cold.

Make this first so it can cool while you make the cake.

CAKE INGREDIENTS
Butter, room temperature, for baking dishes
1 cup granulated sugar, plus more for baking dishes
7 large eggs, room temperature, separated
6 ounces, semisweet chocolate, melted
6 ounces, milk chocolate, melted
1/2 teaspoon salt
6 4 oz soufflé cups

DIRECTIONS
Preheat oven to 350, wipe the inside of the soufflé cups with butter, and tap in a layer of sugar to coat the inside.

Separate egg whites and yolks. Mix the yolks, salt, and sugar together until smooth and set aside.

Melt the chocolate and add slowly to the egg mixture in small spoonfuls. (You don't want to scotch eggs with hot chocolate, so you add it slowly to temper the eggs.)

Let the mixture sit for a moment and rest.

Using an ice cream scooper, scoop mixture into soufflé cups. Let the cups sit in fridge for about 5 minutes then bake for 15-20 minutes. Adjust time, if your oven runs hotter or colder.

SPICED WHIPPED CREAM INGREDIENTS

1 pint of heavy cream — very cold
1 teaspoon vanilla
One teaspoon cold coffee
Pinch of cinnamon
Pinch of ginger
1/2 cup confectioners' sugar

DIRECTIONS
Mix ingredients in a blender, food processor, bowl, electric mixer, or KitchenAid until light and fluffy.

Eat it on everything!

 

Chef Saskia Nugent is a native of Cape Ann, Massachussetts, a mom, a wife, an animal lover, a part-time comedian, and a full-time flavor junky.