A Day with the Sous Chef at One of America's Most Influential Restaurants

Someone once told me,

Your food should tell you where you are, when you are.

And Chez Panisse really embodies that.

Chez is an institution.

A lot of people know Chez Panisse

and think of Chez Panisse

when they think of the farm-to-table movement.

Sous in French means subordinate,

but I think the work of a sous chef is very important.

It's a very big piece of the puzzle

that helps bridge that gap

between the head chef and the prep team.

As a sous chef, I'll teach interns and new cooks

all of our techniques that I've been taught.

'Cause it's not just us, it's 50 years of Chez Panisse.

[upbeat music]

Good morning, I'm Ann Cromley,

sous chef here at Chez Panisse.

Come on inside and we'll start cooking.

It's about a 7:30 now,

I've gotta go iron my chef whites like every day.

Get to meeting, let's go.

[upbeat music]

I usually pull my chef whites from my locker, 77.

I've got a few different little menus from over the years.

Inspiration for the day.

An iron coat is a professional coat.

If we look nice, we're respecting the surroundings.

You know, we work in such a beautiful kitchen

with beautiful produce.

It's part of kind of the whole atmosphere of Chez

All right, my coat's ironed, I'm gonna put this on,

and head to the kitchen for our meeting.

During our prep meeting, we'll go over the whole menu.

Each prep cook will select or be assigned a dish

that they'll finish to completion

for the line cooks to then serve

during dinner service starting at 5:00.

The prep team has a meeting with the chef every day

at 8:00 AM.

Our menu does change daily based on the season,

so we're really at the whim

of what the farmers have on any given day.

As the sous chef, I'm the main note taker for the prep team,

and I'll post them up for the whole team

to reference throughout the morning and throughout the day.

Instead of fettuccine, we're gonna do casarecce

just because the egg shortage

that's kind of happening all over the place.

So we'll do our eggless pasta

extruded with fioretto cauliflower,

saffron, walnuts, marjoram, and ricotta salata.

[Ann] So the chef works tirelessly all week

managing this menu, making any adjustments

based on availability,

things that we couldn't find like eggs.

We're having a hard time finding eggs like everybody else.

So let's look at the cauliflower

to see how we should cut it.

Hopefully we can use a good part

of the beautiful tender stems.

Let's taste it to make sure that we're avoiding

anything that's too fibrous.

And I thought we could lightly blanch it

and then they'll saute it to order

to get a little bit of color.

Okay.

[upbeat music]

Welcome to our main prep kitchen.

Everyone in the prep team who attends the meeting

is given a menu for the day

and two printouts of all the list of ingredients

that we'll be working on throughout the day.

We have our first courses

from the salad station and wood oven on this side,

and then we'll be working mostly from this page

for the entrees.

We usually do one dish each.

Sometimes as a sous chef I'll take on two dishes.

I'm gonna do the braised lamb today

with red flint polenta, broccoli,

and then olive salsa verde.

I'm also gonna make a citrus beurre blanc.

It's gonna go on the petale sole.

Gonna pull out my knives.

Everyone's favorite knife of mine is this little guy

'cause it's so cute.

I peel garlic with this a lot, but I love it.

Starting a lamb braise

that's gonna be our first item of business.

All of our cooking projects really aim

to get done by lunchtime.

We always start our braises with fresh herbs

thyme, parsley stems.

We pick parsley for the leaves.

We'll save the stems for stocks, sauces, braises,

and that just helps to combat foodways.

The next we'll add our mirepoix.

So we've browned up onion, celery, and carrot.

The interns come at 7:00.

They help with a lot of important tasks

because we wanna get this into the oven as soon as possible.

Lots of garlic used at Chez.

We use the peels on the garlics.

The aromatics in the braise are all gonna be strained away,

so we're just trying to get the flavor in there.

Peels are fine.

Saves it a lot of time too.

This is a little bit of reduced red wine.

This will give a nice tang and acidity and beautiful color.

Next I'll add a little bit of lamb

and chicken stock we make here.

There are Chez Panisse cookbooks, but in the kitchen,

we don't really follow specific recipes.

We kind of work with the ingredients, and the vegetables,

and the meat to tell us what to do.

So this is actually just canned tomato that we've pureed.

That's gonna give it a little bit of body that we want,

and then I'll add the lamb.

You can always add more liquid,

but I don't want it to be too, too liquidy.

So I'll add the lamb first and then go from there.

This is the lamb shoulder from Full Belly Farm,

an hour and a half away.

Juicing tender, we will add

about halfway up the meat with liquid.

Cover it, put it in a hot oven.

We're gonna wait till the liquid part simmers,

starts bubbling a little bit.

You'll vent it, turn the oven down

and braise it nice and slow,

uncovering and flipping as we go

and I'll show you all those parts.

All right, let's head out to the produce walk-in

and grab some broccoli for our dish.

Fish order just arrived, so crabs today on the menu.

We have a few walk-ins throughout the restaurant.

This one is outside, so we get our steps in pretty easily.

You have to show how strong we all are.

We lift all day long.

I mean, this must be like at least 25 pounds.

So the next item on our dish is our broccoli.

We're just gonna do a simple blanch bigger.

I'm gonna try to make them all kind of the same size,

so that they blanch evenly

and so they sit on the plates nicely together.

This is gonna add up to a lot of waste from here,

so we would do compost.

We have two composts.

Why would we just throw it away?

You know, it can become broccoli again,

it can regenerate the earth.

So part of my role as the sous chef

is making sure everyone is feeling good

about their prep list on time.

You know, we are all watching the clock

and making sure each of our ingredients

are being prepped in a timely manner

and getting on or off the stove within our limit,

which is about 11:45 we'll start cleaning up.

Next on my prep list, I am going to finish up this lamb.

All right, we've got it to our simmer stage.

The meat is beginning at this stage

to loosen away from the bone becoming more tender.

So I'm gonna flip the lamb probably about six times,

15 minutes at a time.

Every time I'm at this station,

I am looking at everything on the stove.

I know what's on the menu,

I know who's working on each dish

in case I need to jump in anywhere

or just give a simple reminder or question.

We all have our eyes pretty much on everything,

but it is 100% part of my job to make sure everything

is running according to plan.

It is under season, so I'm gonna add

a little bit of salt for this next batch.

It has a nice little al dente crunch.

The line cooks are gonna saute the broccoli

with garlic on the line,

so I wanna leave a little bit of room for them

to cook it a little bit longer.

It really is the best produce.

We don't do a lot to any of it, really.

If you start with the best ingredient,

you're gonna get the best product.

We have nothing to hide and we want more so the opposite

is to show off the beautiful produce

that we get to work with.

All right, one final, hopefully, check with the braise.

Oh yeah, we're very strong.

Got a lot of tough ladies in the kitchen for sure,

and it's kind of always been like that

which is a really exciting thing for me as a female chef.

The strong female leadership at Chez Panisse

since the very beginning,

and having an amazing team of female line cooks,

prep cooks, pastry, chefs.

Alice leading the whole shebang.

Once all the braises are done

we can just check that amount

to see if it bring to the boil and add in depending on.

Okay.

Thanks for your support.

Of course.

So I am testing.

It should come out very easily.

There's a little bit of resistance there.

That means it's not quite done.

Some parts, you know, thinner meats

that's coming out nice and easy.

That's still a little tight.

So I'm gonna pop it back in.

We have one last project

cleaning up some fresh chanterelle mushrooms.

Sometimes we take care of project we have lots of hands for

that we can get done in a short amount of time.

Projects that would otherwise take a little bit longer solo.

Where are these forage from?

These are from Canyon maybe 30, 40 minutes away.

So we'll take off the outer kind of tough layer

on the neck or the body,

and then we'll rinse them in water, switch them around,

but being very careful not to damage them.

We have a potato and black truffle pizza

with chanterelle mushrooms.

Our lamb is done in the oven after flipping for a few hours.

It's just about falling off the bone.

I like to kind of test it.

If this bone comes out nice and clean, the shoulder blade,

then I know it's just about there.

We want it to remain in a nice chunk when we portion it up.

We don't want it to be like a shreddy type

of like carnita's braise.

I'm tasting for a nice balance of the tomato, the red wine.

Not too much salt.

I didn't season the liquid, remember?

It just came from the seasoning from the lamb,

so it's tasty.

You kind of wanna be able to want to eat

a bowl of that, and I do.

Next I'm gonna strain the solids from the jus

To make a heartier braise,

you could puree or food mill this mix.

We're gonna keep this nice and light.

Now it's time to take it off the bone.

It's been done for a while, so it's nice and cool.

Hands on is the way to go, can't do it anyway else.

Kind of try to find the bone and work with it,

you know, along the bone.

You don't wanna rip the meat

because you wanna be able to portion it.

So like that nice chunk,

that was really great to keep together.

Now I can portion that as I please.

I'm trying to do this gracefully for you.

Look at that.

Amazing.

I'm gonna get rid of these bones.

It is 10:30, so usually clean up about 11:45.

[upbeat music]

I'm just gonna pop in the walk-in.

The braise is done,

so that means I get to cross it off our list.

It's about 11:00.

We have about 40 minutes before we have to clean up,

so I'm gonna start our butter sauce, our beurre blanc.

First thing we need is shallot.

[upbeat music]

Grabbing shallots for the beurre blanc.

I have too large of a pan to take them back in,

but we'll be need about two cups finely diced shallots.

Ooh, it's cold.

Okay, a beurre blanc is a French butter sauce

with a base of shallots.

And today working with the seasons,

we'll make a citrus beurre blanc

with citrus zest and juice in the final product.

A citrus beuure blanc will be served

with local Petrale sole, fennel,

roasted potatoes, carrots, and spinach.

We'll finish it with a few citrus slices and send it out.

To get these shallots nice and thin,

I work at the horizontal

right on down to the end where the root is,

and then make tiny little cuts

on the vertical and then go back down.

I started as a prep cook

and a position labeled at that time pasta lettuce.

So I would make the pasta and wash the lettuce for the day

and then I moved up to prep.

Once you moved on from prep,

you'll work on the line upstairs

salad station, wood oven, grill, and saute.

And from there I've worked all the stations

and then hopped down into my role now,

which is sous chef of the cafe.

The shallots are gonna go in.

Gonna add a little bit of wine.

The wine will brighten up the sauce.

We'll reduce this on the stove till it's just about gone.

It'd be nice and sweet.

We'll add a little bit of citrus zest and juice at the end.

It's gonna take the outer zest and the orange.

You don't want to get too far into the pit, the bitter part.

Right before service I'll mount butter.

Once that's all mounted in,

we'll finish it on the line with citrus juice

'cause we want it to be as fresh as it it can be.

Going with that flavor to taste like we just put it in.

So we got all of our big projects done.

It's 11:40.

It's time to clean up.

We'll start gathering anything that's left

on the boards here.

We'll pick up the mats, take out the compost.

It's kind of a whirlwind type of time.

Everyone knows what to do, so kind of just get at it.

We'll break for lunch at noon,

and then we get to relax for half an hour.

[upbeat music]

It's 12:30 now.

Time to begin our non cooking projects and our butchery.

This is Juliet, one of our line cooks.

She's in the prep kitchen with us today,

and we're gonna be butchering some fish for our service.

So we have Petrale sole from Fort Bragg.

We're aiming for a five ounce portion.

Have a nice light, flexible knife for fish butchery.

The Petrale sole comes in filets,

so you wanna trim off the end here

if it's a little bit scraggly.

And then there's just a little triangle of bones

right in the middle that we're just gonna trim out.

Sometimes we'll make a fish stock

or we'll ask the downstairs cooks

if they want to use it on a bouillabaisse.

We're looking for 4.5 to 5 ounces and it's 4.72.

So that is gonna be a go.

This is just gonna be one portion,

and we're just gonna roll it up into a little rosette.

So we usually aim for a one or two per portion of fish.

How it came butchered from the fish market

is not always perfect, so we're trying to take away

any blemishes like that.

All the prep cooks do bring their own knives to work.

As we grow older in the kitchen and progress,

we learn more about what styles of knives

and become more into really making that our own.

Ann always has the sharpest knives,

so we steal them from her.

It's important to have sharp knives.

I mean, it's honestly makes a world of difference.

Remember to trim off the end though too.

You know, any like bloodline that still exists.

Yeah, just take that all off.

There's so much attention to detail.

There has to be.

Yeah, like I said

we're doing very simple things that aren't hidden by much,

so they need to be perfect when they're hitting the line.

The attention to detail to the food,

the attention to detail to the lighting,

and the copper, and the shining, everything.

You know, we need to make it feel

like someone's walking into someone else's home for dinner.

The pressure comes from me because I really respect

and I really understand and I really care for the history

that we're all a part of.

All right, Juliet's got the fish portioning under control.

I'm gonna start my olive salsa verde to go on the lamb

back up in the prep kitchen.

[upbeat music]

So it's just about 2:00.

I'm gonna do some of the finishing touches

on our lamb braised dish.

So that means I'll finish the olive salsa.

I'm using lost of fresh thyme, parsley,

and picholine olives.

The line upstairs will add shallots and red wine vinegar.

Part of the prep task for this dish is to pit the olives.

Our intern, Remi, did that today for me.

So that was very kind of him.

The olives are imported from France.

These ones often come in brine.

Sometimes they're a little highly seasoned.

I soak them like a caper

to take some of the salinity out of them,

and now they're perfect.

You know, you can't get the same level

of precision or just care

that you can with your hands if you use a machine.

We mostly use our hands for every job that we do.

It's very near and dear to my heart.

Just the connection between the farmer, the chef,

our knives, you know,

every part that makes it to dinner service.

I've only ever worked in one other kitchen other than Chez.

So you know, a lot of the people behind me

have taught me much of my knife skills.

So I'm gonna add some rough chopped capers.

They come packed in salt to preserve them.

So we have to have a bunch of forward thinking

to rinse and soak them.

It takes a couple hours to get them

to the right salinity for our salsa.

In the kitchen, chefs and cooks

have a higher tolerance for salt,

just because we use more during our daily cooking.

You know, we're cooking in large batch volumes.

If it's salty for us,

it's gonna be probably too salty for the customer.

The word tapenade derives from the French word for caper,

so there has to be capers in tapenade.

For this olive salsa not necessarily true,

but we like the way they taste

and they give a nice rustic feel to it.

So you notice I chop them a little more rough

than the olives 'cause I want them to be present.

So these are Spanish anchovies.

So I'm adding anchovy because it will add a nice richness.

Kind of another depth of flavor.

I'm just gonna add a few,

so that it doesn't overpower the lamb.

I'm gonna add some pounded garlic,

which I've pounded in the modern pestle.

Now we'll add our herbs, parsley and thyme.

The last ingredient will be olive oil.

So I'm using a nice finishing oil called Corsini,

and it's an Italian olive oil.

We use mostly Italian oils at Chez.

Using the freshest of the fresh

is really what we're going for,

and you can really, really taste it.

Nothing, nothing tastes like Chez.

I love it.

So I'll give that the final approval to send up to the line.

So it's 2:20 now.

I'm gonna gather the mise en place for the line cooks,

so we'll be here in about 10 minutes.

I'm gonna load it up on the dumbwaiter

right back behind me.

As the sous chef around 2:00,

it is my job to load up the dumbwaiter.

It's easier for me than the line cooks

to kind of ruffle through

and search for the ingredients that they're looking for.

More efficient if I do.

People go crazy about this thing.

It's a good workout morning, noon, and night.

All right, let's go upstairs.

[upbeat music]

So it's about 3:00.

I'll check in with the line cooks

who've gathered their mise en place

that I sent up on the dummy,

the dumbwaiter, dummy for short.

I'll check in, make sure they found everything,

make sure they don't have any missing pieces

to their mise en place.

This is the salad station.

All the first courses and the soup

will come off of here during service.

Our salads are one of the best things to begin your meal.

You know, they're so fresh.

Lots of the lettuces came in yesterday.

Some of the ingredients we cooked, especially for this,

they're always a bright, fresh beginning to the meal.

Spencer, do you have everything you need?

Yes, all the lettuces are washed.

Next is the saute station.

The Petrale sole dish and the pasta

will come from this station.

Raj is on tonight.

Do you feel good about all your prep?

[Anne] Yes. - [Anne] Fantastic.

Thank you. - You're welcome.

The saute station is kind of considered the leader

of the line.

They'll take in all the tickets for the hot food.

The salad station has their own ticket machine,

and they deal with all of their own tickets.

Raja, the saute cook will organize

and call the fires for the rest of the night,

communicate with the front of the house,

and make sure that everything

is coming out in a timely manner, plates are looking nice,

and kind of just gives the finishing check mark.

Two more.

Josh and Kayla on grill.

The lamb braise will come from this station and the chicken.

Do you feel good about your prep?

Yeah, we're putting it all together.

Fantastic.

The wood oven is responsible for two pizzas

and a wood oven appetizer.

Today it's a duck rillette crouton.

Hiromi's working the wood oven today.

How's it going?

[Ann] It's good. - [Ann] Good.

Everything's good. - Good.

The wood oven's a very fun station.

It's a hot station.

They feel good in the wintertime, but in the summertime

by the end of the shift it's to, you just need a shower.

Everyone feels great on the line.

This is kind of my final pass before tasters.

Right now, the prep team has done all that we can do.

So next up for the line cooks, tasters at 4:00.

[upbeat music]

Mira's finishing up the beurre blanc.

Sometimes at the end of the day

I'm running all over the place

and I have to delegate fairly quickly, different tasks.

So I started the beurre blanc,

but any one of our prep cooks can easily finish it.

We're mounting in four pounds of butter

per two cups of shallots and two bottles of white wine.

It's gonna be spooned right on top of the sole,

and it's gonna be so good.

At tasters, the chef will come up

and taste each dish on the menu that we've prepared.

Give their nod of approval,

make a little change if they need to,

pass it on to the front of house, my job is done.

All right, it's 4:30.

Tasters are done, chef approves of everything.

My job ends here.

Now that everything has passed its test.

I hope you got a glimpse into what it's like

to eat and cook seasonally with us here at Chez Panisse.

I hope you take that into the kitchen with you.

Go meet your local farmers and get to know them.

Am I tired?

I don't get tired.

[Staff] A little bit tired.

I'm joking.