A Day at Chicago’s Only Michelin Star Indian Restaurant

[bright jazzy music]

Indienne is unique in the way

that we do offer four different tasting menus,

one being vegetarian, another being non-vegetarian,

our vegan menu and our pescatarian menu.

Everybody in this kitchen

has so many preps needs to be done.

It's about being efficient.

Getting a Michelin star is not just about having good food,

it's also about how precise everything is

in terms of taste, balance of dishes.

My role currently is to take care of entree section.

Chef de partie literally translates to chef of the sections.

Anything that's coming out of that particular section,

it's completely you who's in charge.

[mellow jazzy music]

Good morning, I'm Akshay, a chef de partie at Indienne.

It's 8:30 in the morning, I have a lot to do, let's go.

[gentle percussive music]

[mellow jazzy music]

We are going to start with our paneer dish,

so I'm just gonna grab my paneer.

It's a really firm Indian cheese.

What we are gonna do first is slice these paneers.

So this is a paneer roulade.

It's basically paneer that's been sliced very thinly.

The reason we don't make fresh paneer is,

fresh paneer tend to be really soft,

because if the paneer is firmer,

we can actually slice it really thin.

We can fill it up with whatever we need.

So at Indienne, we do have four different menus.

This particular dish goes on the vegetarian menu.

We want our menu to be more accessible to more people,

and in India, we do have a lot of people

that follow vegetarian dietary restrictions.

There are a lot of other people

that's involved in doing this dish.

As you can see in the back, we do have my whole team here.

This particular paneer dish will at least need

one, two, three, four people.

Including me, it's five people's hands

before that dish hits on the table.

Hierarchy wise, almost everybody's chef de partie.

It's just a fancier word of calling a cook a cook.

You are in charge of one particular section.

When I came in, I started in the cold section.

Almost six months in, that's when I switched it to entree.

Now that I've been in entree for almost six months,

next probably for me would be sauce station.

We are done with the paneer slicing,

so right now, what I'm gonna do is

I'm gonna make the filling of this particular roulade.

This onion paste requires almost three hours of making it,

so this is something that we do a day before.

It has a bunch of different spices that we use.

It's been blended, and then the next component is the mix

of three different nuts.

We're using almonds, we're using cashew nut

and using pistachio.

Cilantro. Salt now.

Paneer doesn't particularly have any flavor to it,

it is more of a textural thing,

and paneer has this tendency,

no matter how much you try with paneer,

paneer doesn't absorb any flavors.

We'll make sure that seasoning is on the higher side.

I don't have OCD, but I try to do it everything symmetrical.

Getting a Michelin star is not just about having good food,

it's also about how precise everything is.

We should approach every dish or every action

in a more responsible way.

Currently in the United States,

we have three Indian restaurants that has one Michelin star.

It's about being efficient, because everybody

in this kitchen has so many preps needs to be done,

because as we know, we do have four different menus.

Everything that we do should matter.

Paneer particularly goes really well

with certain combinations,

so this flavors, that's something that goes

with paneer that we already knew.

We're just trying to bring those flavors in a different way,

so finally, we have something that's visually so different,

but at the same time, in comes to taste,

it's something people have eaten before.

Trying to bring in like a modern twist to what we are doing.

Now I'm gonna roll these guys up.

I came in early today, because this dish particularly

takes quite a long time for me to make.

This way, the kitchen is sort of empty

and I have my own peace.

I don't really want to say it out loud

why I know how to roll these ones,

but I think I shouldn't.

So this is the first roll, and these paneer are going

to get rolled again with a Swiss chard.

So anything green vegetables goes really well

with paneer as traditionally done.

I try to choose the best Swiss chard I can possibly

for this dish, and this process needs to be done every day,

because the color doesn't retain that long.

So I'm gonna blanche it real quick.

Once I make a quick dip,

then I put it back in the ice water,

shock it so the color retains.

The chlorophyll, the moment it hits the cold water,

it just brightens up.

I do add sugar and salt in this

so the color retention is much better.

Chef Sujan knows his colors.

It's just not about texture, it's just not about taste,

it's also about the color.

There will be a little more water left in it,

but that sort of keeps the paneer soft.

The reason I like tasting menu is,

it's something that needs to be changed more often

than traditional a-la-carte restaurants.

I really like to change up what I'm doing every few months,

because it's boring.

[mellow jazzy music]

Now these guys are rolled up, I'm gonna chill these guys.

So it's 10:30 now.

I just got another deliveries here.

We're gonna quickly go do the delivery check

and then come back.

[groovy music]

We do have four to five different vendors.

You can put it around here. Awesome.

Every ingredient that comes in,

it's sort of part of everybody's responsibility,

it's just not one person's.

At that moment in the day, right now,

I am the one who's receiving it, so I wanna make sure

that everything is received the right way.

This morel's just in the season right now.

Whenever he has something new, he tries to bring it to us

and we try to figure out

whether we can do something with it.

I do wanted to ask you about the mussels.

Where are they from?

They're from Prince Edward Island,

so they're Confederation Coast,

so super nice rope grown, real beautiful.

The last time you gave us the Mexican.

Yeah, from Baja, California.

I did use those for the trials.

How'd they go?

For me, it was more the shell

that attracted me. Yeah.

The shell is a beautiful blue collar.

Oh yeah.

'Cause I'm trying to use that as like a presentation tool.

Lemme know how those go.

I think it'll be a great fit.

How's your day been? Good, man. It's been busy.

Blue fin season just opened on the East Coast,

so we've been rocking and rolling.

Should be good. Here you go, man.

Thanks, guys.

Have a lovely day. Thank you so much, man.

I do have a turbot that I just received.

A turbot is something that I'm trying to work on

for the new summer menu.

I try to look in the gills,

as if that is fresh enough or not,

if it's red enough or not.

Just looking if there are any bruises in it.

Making sure the scallops, the shells are completely shut.

Like, just making sure that they are

in the right size that we need.

[mellow jazzy music]

It's 11:00 right now.

I made some time today to work on a new dish.

Being a cook is great.

You learn a lot, but it comes to a point

where you want to start doing your own thing,

you sort of wanna bring your own voice to the picture.

Chef Sujan, he's the founder and the head chef of Indienne.

He is the soul of the restaurant, basically.

This dish is something I want him to taste today.

I want him to taste this,

because the new summer menu is coming in

almost in a month's time.

I've been working on this

for the last almost four weeks now.

Basically what I'm doing is,

I'm trying to make a filling of this.

It's gonna be filled inside a deep fried batter

that's coming out of a siphon.

I am in a good space now.

That's why, today, I feel

like I can make Chef Sujan taste it.

The smell of curry leaf is just [beep] amazing.

Back home, we have a curry leaf plant.

Curry leaf is one of those ingredients

that's prominently used in the southern part of India.

Curry leaf and coconut oil, a love of my life,

something I would die for.

A good coconut oil slaps.

It's slaps so beautifully.

The fat that I'm gonna use right now

for this dish is coconut oil.

I generally go with first the flavors.

Once the flavors are in the picture,

then I weigh everything out

and then create a recipe out of it.

And I like to be a little more freehanded

when I try to create something.

So the ginger that I'm using in America,

it's not as strong as Indian gingers are,

so we need to use a lot more

than would be used generally back in India.

I learned that after coming here, for sure.

I started cooking with it, my Chef was like,

Dude, why aren't you putting enough ginger?

I'm making a masala, a dried roast masala,

which is basically onions, ginger, curry leaf,

along with some Kashmiri chili powder.

Kashmiri chili is one of those dried chili powders

which has lot of color in it,

but doesn't have a lot of heat to it.

This is getting blended, I'll go

for a little bit of turmeric.

So what I'm gonna do is

I'm gonna saute this mussels really quick

so that it opens up.

90% of the food that's been made in Kerala uses coconut oil,

and that's something that we don't get a lot

of chance to show to the world.

[metal clangs]

[mussels clatter]

Traditionally, this dish is made of clams.

In Kerala, we have something called toddy shops

where they sell coconut liquor, basically,

and clam roast is something

that is eaten in those toddy shops a lot.

It sums up Kerala's all the flavors.

For me, I'm just using mussels in the scenario

is because when I came to Chicago,

that's when I was actually introduced

to mussels for the first time.

What I've realized is,

Americans and somebody who's from India tasting the dish

should both be able to relate to this idea.

I can quickly open these guys up and take it out.

Inspiration for me with these shells,

the beautiful blue tinge that you see inside is something

that inspired me to like,

want to create something out of this as my plate.

So once that's done, there's the liquid

that comes out of it.

I'm gonna reuse this liquid in the sauce.

The flavors of the mussel stays in the dish itself.

So because it's a filling, I don't need the texture per se,

it's the flavor that matters to me.

Hi, so my truffle guy is right now here.

How you doing, man?

What have you got today?

We do get raw truffles almost two days in the week.

So these just arrived.

Every time that he gets the best,

he just comes to us first.

At least that's what he tells us.

I mean, look at this.

What's better than this?

These are Italians.

Umbria. Uh-huh.

Summer black.

So generally, we do take around two pounds of it.

I try to take the smallest guys out, to be honest with you.

I don't like the big ones, because the smaller ones

are much easier for me to work with.

I do this in Chicago for 10 years,

while the family Caporicci is doing that

for four generation.

That's all yours.

Pleasure is mine. Have a great day.

So we're gonna get back at the R&D.

I'm just gonna quickly finish this, guys,

'cause my time is running out.

I have literally 10 minutes left on my clock right now

to finish this dish up.

This should be good.

[upbeat jazzy music]

Now the mussel is sort of incorporated

in the basic masala, that's how I call it.

The shells just look too beautiful to just throw them away.

So this batter was made in the morning.

It needs to be freshly made,

and it has to be really precise.

We are basting it right now.

The thing with R&D is it's a lot of uncertainty.

I don't know what I'm looking forward.

There are ideas in my head.

I'm trying to bring it all together.

We can get Chef Sujan right now.

Hi.

What's up? Hey, Chef.

How are you doing, Chef?

Good, good, good, good. How was your trip?

[Sujan] Good.

This is a snack that I was thinking by itself

in the beginning of the course.

I know it might need a little more acid,

it might need something more, I understand.

It's crunchy, the filling is good.

We need some chutney on top.

Some chutney on top of it's gonna give you--

Yeah, like a coconut or tomato chutney,

that sort of acid. Yeah, the acid,

for the color as well for the presentation,

and then if we add little bit of,

in a small [indistinct]. Yeah, [indistinct].

And then some edible flowers.

Just elevate it a little more better, yeah.

Thank you. But the flavors are great.

As I said, I'm committing.

See, the breakfast with the mussel bun, it's good.

For me, right now, I'm happy at least the fact

that he likes the flavors, he likes the idea that I had.

I was able to translate that.

I think that's a good start for me.

I feel really satisfied about it.

[mellow groovy music]

So it's 1:00 now.

It's the time for the reservation meeting.

It's pretty much what we get to know

how to go about the day,

the restrictions that needs to be followed today.

For tonight, we have about 10 vegetarians,

34 non-vegetarians, no pescatarians, uh, no vegan as of now,

and nine pescatarians,

and there's one guest lactose intolerant,

but butter is okay.

So we do scallops without Balchao butter,

and green pea puree instead of the cauliflower puree,

and sea bass to be finished without butter on the top.

[Akshay] So this meeting is

with the entire back of the house

so that everybody exactly knows what they need to do.

For tomorrow, we have about 96 covers with 88 tasting

and eight top prix fixe.

Friday, we are at 118.

Gourmet Botanicals has been ordered, it's on the way.

It might come about 5:00 PM-ish,

so be ready for the last moment preparations,

and let's have good service, guys.

Thank you.

[mellow jazzy music]

I'm just got done with my reservation meeting.

I need to like, now move, because I have like,

easy now two hours to finish all my prep

and then move to my service.

So I'm gonna start cleaning my scallop now.

These are from Boston.

So where we use this is in our non-veg tasting menu.

I clean these bad boys up.

So the shells is then reused again.

We use the shells as sort of like the plateware

for this particular dish.

So shellfish allergy is one

of those most prominent allergies.

Any utensils I'm using, I'm not reusing that anywhere else.

Right now, everything that I do would be only seafood.

So now I'm just gonna rinse these scallops in cold water

so that all the dirts that's on it can be quickly taken off.

There's an extra muscle

that's always attached to the scallop.

We tend to take that out,

because as soon as it hits the pan,

that tends to tighten up really quicker

than the other parts of the muscle.

So basically I'm arranging these bad boys for the service,

because I know exactly how many I need.

Just before the service, I take them out

and then I cook them.

So now I'm done with scallops,

the next thing I'm gonna go for is sea bass.

Just make sure that every seafood prep is done together.

It is specifically for the pescatarian menu.

So this is the sea bass I've got.

I'm basically gonna remove the center bone.

It's a huge bone.

I try to get the most out of it

where I'm not wasting it out.

So now this bone actually gets all the way here.

I'm trying to get at least three different roulades

out of this.

[Producer] So this is your second roulade dish?

It is.

I think I am on a roll. [chuckles]

What I'm gonna do is take out a little bit on the sides,

so that it just curves in, and take the cling wrap.

So the idea about making this roulade, we do it a day prior,

we keep it overnight in a chiller

so that it retains the shape that we need.

We're trying to create a circular shape on it

so that when we sear it,

it's this sort of like, circle that's on the plate.

So now I'm just gonna tightly wrap these guys,

and as you can see, it's taking a shape of a cylinder.

Once this is tied up, I take a cake tester.

We just take the excess water,

so as you can see, the excess water comes out of it.

At the same time, if there is any excess air

that's sort of pockets comes out of it,

and that way, when it's cooked, it's cooked right.

We're going to vacuum pack this and then sous vide it

and then finish it with searing the meat.

[mellow jazzy music]

So it's 4:00 now, I have a lot of things to be done.

I need to set my station up,

I'm gonna grab everything that I need for my setup.

If without these guys, I am screwed,

and if I don't collect these guys before the service starts,

during the service, it's just gonna be chaotic as hell.

It's pretty much all the trays that I need for the setup.

So if I'm using blue,

if any seafood that needs to be handled,

I use this to be handled.

Any red meat that needs to be handled, I use this.

Setting up station is something that's very personal,

so everybody has their own way of setting their stations up.

So even the same station is not set up

the same way by two different people.

So when I try to organize things,

there is precise spaces where I keep my stuff.

It's always in the same place

so that it's the muscle memory that comes in the picture.

[Producer] Do you ever hide one just to have it later?

We sometimes do hide one or two things.

You gotta do what you gotta do,

and you have to be ready for service

regardless of what it is.

[mellow groovy music]

This is one of the final prep

that I need to do before my service starts.

This is basically scorched blossoms.

Because this is very delicate,

the grilling needs to be done really precisely,

because otherwise, the flower gets ruined completely.

So these goes with the sea bass.

I'm gonna make a filling that's made of crab.

So this is basically onions that's been cooked

with a lot of black pepper and curry leaf and ginger.

I'm gonna add the crab mix to this,

and I'm gonna fill it in a piping bag.

I'm gonna fill my zucchini blossoms with this

and then give it near the grill section so they can grill it

and pass it back to me before the service starts.

This is Chef Sonu.

Hey bro, how are you doing?

So he's the one, he in charge of the grill.

[gentle jazzy music]

So it's almost the time for the service.

I'm just portioning the fish that I did earlier on,

searing off some scallops,

so as soon as I'm done with this,

we'll be doing the final tasting,

and then it's the service time.

[mellow groovy music]

So before we start the service,

we taste each and every sauces,

also few other things which cannot be rectified later.

It's a little too sweet.

Also the color,

a little more bright.

Maybe touch of chili, just touch.

And the pani puri is too sweet.

So rest everything is okay.

Let's get back to service.

[Pani Puri Chef] For the pani puri, since it was sweet,

we add some chaat masala, black salt,

little bit more of acid.

That's how we rectify it in the next 30 minutes,

and then our service starts.

So it's 5:00, it's time for my service to start now.

I would ask you to kindly leave.

Thank you so much for spending the day with me.

[gentle music]