This Neighborhood Restaurant Has Kept a Michelin Star for 11 Years

To retain a Michelin star,

I think you have to continuously be creative

while maintaining your standard.

We have retained our star for 11 years,

12 will be this year.

Musket Room is the only Michelin star restaurant

that is managed by a complete woman led team.

As an executive pastry chef at a Michelin star level,

a big part of my role here is to develop menus.

I feel like it is my responsibility

to always push the envelope and take classic desserts

and put my own spin on it.

[somber music]

Good morning, I'm Camari Mick,

the executive pastry chef of the Musket Room.

We have some stuff to get started for our day. Let's go.

This is our dining room. Bar, wine.

This is our garden that we plant every year.

Coming down.

We are about to check in with our team

and make sure everything's running smoothly,

they've been here since 7:00 AM.

[upbeat music]

You have to be a morning person to work in pastry,

absolutely.

'Cause like look, there's no savory person here right now.

You know, this is the life, all right?

Pastry has the last impression

that they have leaving the restaurant,

so we have to make it the best.

And we have to be our best to do it.

All right, so I'm done checking in with the team.

I have to hop on soy sauce ice cream.

We're running low a little bit.

We just opened from vacation,

so we wanna remake everything in-house.

So let's hop on that real quick.

I'm about to make a dry caramel with some sugar

to make the base for the soy sauce ice cream.

This goes with the Cocoa Nib Semifreddo.

I love to use savory elements into all of my desserts.

So soy sauce is kind of like super rich, super dark,

and then it matches those notes of caramel.

That like natural umami flavor

just goes really well in some desserts.

The trick to making a really good dry caramel

is starting with a very hot pot

and then incorporating your sugar

into the caramel slowly while whisking.

Like if an old French chef saw me doing this,

like they would be like,

Eh, blasphemy! What are you doing?

They would have us just dump all the sugar in

and then like heat the pot and,

but I find that it clumps up more doing it that way.

So we're gonna add soy sauce.

It smells like super rich

and you see it's doing this like weird foamy thing.

Almost looks like honeycomb.

There's always a base recipe for something.

You just have to learn how to manipulate that recipe

to be what you want it to be.

So we're gonna add the cream

because this is part of the ice cream base.

I am now putting in the ice cream stabilizer and the sugar

along with some Trimoline.

Trimoline is a inverted sugar.

It helps not produce crystals when you spin it.

We're gonna add our yolks.

We're adding the hot liquid into the yolk slowly

to start to get it to cook.

So we are hot.

This is an ice bath or a bain-marie, if you will.

Quick way to cool things off.

This is gonna be cool in less than 10 minutes.

So this is gonna be a frozen item. We want it to be cold.

We wanna smoke it when it's cold

and season it when it's cold.

While this is chilling, literally,

I am gonna go cure some yolks for some menu development

and another dish.

[upbeat music]

Curing will take on the flavor that it's sitting in.

This whole process changes the original flavor of the yolk

and makes it a little bit more richer, adds more umami.

We're actually gonna do two separate types of cures today.

We're gonna do a harder cure

where it's going to be dehydrated

and then we're gonna do a softer cure or a wet cure

that's going to go into another ice cream base.

Curing yolks is definitely a savory thing,

but like we're all culinary,

like one thing doesn't just belong to savory.

I feel like to be a well-rounded chef,

you need to be able to do both elements.

Why shouldn't we, as pastry people,

use methods that are traditionally meant for savory?

Why hold us back, you know? And save your whites people.

You can make pavlova, you can make meringue,

you can make marshmallows, egg white omelets.

Nobody wants to eat a egg white omelet.

The wet cure

is going to be for the bacon, egg and cheese ice cream

for the breakfast series that we have on the menu right now.

We're going to do soy sauce in mirin.

It's a little sweet, a little salty wet cure or a brine.

It's drawing out water,

but since it's sitting in liquid,

it's replacing that water that it draws out

with the soy sauce in the mirin going in.

To do a Michelin star dessert,

you definitely need to be creative

and be a little outlandish.

We're allowed to honor the food

that we have tasted around the world,

but we wanna make sure

that we are still being respectful in that act.

We're going to put some plastic wrap on top

to submerge them just a little bit

and then put them away for a week.

We're gonna make the maple cure.

This is all part of like my mastermind plan

for the Croque Madame dish that we're gonna do.

I am talking Toast Semifreddo with Gruyere cheese ganache,

fig jam, fresh figs on top.

For it to be a Croque Madame, it has to have an egg on it,

so why not put a cured egg on that bitch?

Oh!

So let's start with 320 grams of salt.

If you don't measure when you're doing R&D

then you have to go back and guesstimate and that's not fun.

You don't, don't do that to yourself.

But I'm gonna actually start with like 260

just because it is a liquid.

Okay, so this is looking like nice wet beach sand.

I'm into this.

So we're gonna stop here at 260.

And as you see like I'm mixing with like an open hand

to like help buff it up.

We don't want to like pack it down.

We're gonna make a bed on the bottom.

You want it to have enough to sit on

and then enough to cover.

And tuck them in.

We're gonna break down, wipe down,

and we're going to smoke the soy sauce ice cream.

And then we're going to reset for our next project.

This is our smoking gun.

I'm gonna go ahead and smoke the soy sauce ice cream.

It's cooled down enough.

You could tell how thick she is now.

We're gonna wrap this.

This is how you properly wrap something, all right?

One more for good measure.

All that work, I'm about to poke a hole in it too.

Boop.

Tube goes in.

This guy comes out.

Hickory Dickory Dock.

We're gonna put a little bit, a little goes a long way.

Okay, this goes on.

As a kid, I loved playing with fire.

I still love playing with fire.

I would have a career in arson if I wasn't a chef.

It just needs a little ventilation hole.

So we are going to let this set for 12 hours at least,

and then we're gonna have

our PM pastry cook put it away for us

at the end of the night.

R&D. R&D is definitely the most important part of my job.

You know we are a Michelin star restaurant,

so I always have to be creative, I have to be innovative.

I have to be coming up with the new next and the new best.

And it's the most fun.

I have some bread that was left over from last night,

so I'm just gonna go ahead and pop this in the oven

and get a really nice toasty roasty color on it.

The difference between an ice cream and a Semifreddo

is that the ice cream is overturned in a machine.

Semifreddo is going to have a base

that gets folded with either whipped cream,

whipped egg whites or whipped yolks

to get that airy light texture

and then that is going to be set and frozed in the freezer.

I got into baking.

I was always looking for something sweet after dinner.

My parents are both great cooks,

but neither of them could bake to save their lives.

So I asked my mom if we could start learning together

and I started getting really good

to the point where I was selling pies and cakes

to teachers at school.

So I wouldn't be here without them, little Camari.

Toast is toasted.

And I also cut them this small

because we wanted as much surface area

to be toasted as possible.

We're gonna make our toast puree with this.

I actually do know how much milk to put in

because I've done this recipe before.

R&D isn't necessarily recreating the wheel sometimes,

sometimes it's just taking other components

that were on another dish

and bringing it together to create a new dish.

And I'm gonna set it with a little bit of gelatin

just because we want a little security blanket

when we are making our Semifreddo

to ensure that it's not gonna melt

when it directly hits the plate.

We're about to take some brown butter.

Also put this in here too.

Adding to that toastiness flavor.

You get what I'm playing at?

Are you picking up what I'm putting down?

And we're gonna go make the Toast Semifreddo

by whipping egg wipes, egg yolks, and cream

along with some sweetened condensed milk.

And throwing that, folding it in together

so we have a nice light, airy piece of toast.

Look at all that old lush sugar and eggs.

We would've thought?

Look how many steps I just did for one thing,

this is one component.

I'm not saying savory chefs have it easy,

they just have it easier.

Look at that, look at that lusciousness.

Oh my god.

This is the Semifreddo.

So she is done. She's going to go in the freezer.

I am gonna start scaling up for the Gruyere cheese ganache.

Ganache is essentially a thinned out version of chocolate

that's just gonna be

some white chocolate, cocoa butter, heavy cream,

and Gruyere cheese, which I've been snacking on.

This is Trimoline again.

Make sure like we don't get a gritty texture.

So I have my cheese, chocolate, and cocoa butter.

I'm going to add our boiled cream and Trimoline

and we're gonna let that sit

so it can melt a little bit together.

I might actually put it in a double boiler

just to help it along.

Our cream is ready, it's nice and melted.

We're going to emulsify this now.

So we're gonna melt this together

and then we're gonna stream in the cold cream.

The technique of using the second cold cream in here

is a way to make a whipped ganache.

It just gives it a lighter texture.

You can see it's like nice and luscious. She thick.

It's good.

So this is done, I'm gonna throw this on an ice bath.

We're gonna let this chill.

Once that is all set,

we're gonna try that a little bit later

at the end of the day.

It's now 12:30,

I have to get to my managerial task before my meeting.

Let's go.

This is the garden at Musket.

We've planted everything here.

But this is the time of day

that I like need to sit down and focus on some admin work.

So I like to do it in like a very zen place.

My cooks and my sous chefs are always,

you know, bringing stuff out here to taste.

Your pan is way too hot.

Yes.

So you're getting like these like charred pieces,

which honestly would be lovely

if they're just a little more scarce and far between.

These also look a little dark and could use more syrup.

All right, thank you.

So in total between the two restaurants,

I manage about 10 people.

I have to do scheduling for the next few weeks

and then I have to do some payroll stuff,

responding to all PR.

My role of up keeping a Michelin star

and another program across the street

has really evolved to a lot of computer work.

Okay, it's almost 1:00 PM, I have a manager meeting at Raf's

which is our sister restaurant across the street.

Let's go.

No, hi.

She's a cook at Musket.

Hello. Si.

Hola.

[indistinct chatter]

Hi, Chefy.

Hi.

This is the executive bad bitch Chef-

Woo!

Five minutes early. What is happening?

This is tomorrow?

No, this is today.

This is Jennifer Vitagliano and this is Nicole Vitagliano.

They are our business partners.

Oh, these are cute.

I did not know plates were coming,

but like this is part of being, you know, part of a crew.

We have to adapt and be fluid and look at everything

because to get us all in a room at one time is rare.

[Camari] So these are hard wide samples.

But this is obviously like a Sunday roast.

During this managers meeting we're just touching on

what happened throughout the week,

what events are coming up,

do we need to adjust pars, how sells are going

and how can we be better for the next week?

That will be wrap.

[piano music]

I am back from my meeting and the kitchen has filled up.

Say hi everybody.

[Unison] Hi.

So I'm just gonna get started

on plating the Croque Madame,

so we can go upstairs, taste it.

So we have the Toast Semifreddo.

This is the Gruyere ganache.

Vinegar fig jam I made earlier.

This is gonna like help cut like all this rich creaminess.

And then I have some cut figs here.

I actually have some prosciutto in the oven.

So I have the cured yolk,

so I'm just gonna grate this on top.

Platting is so important because we eat with our eyes first.

If something doesn't look good,

we judge it before we taste it.

All right, she's cute, she's cute.

The approval process for our desserts,

I like to filter it

through some of the more important people.

Hey guys.

So I have a dessert for you guys to taste.

This is our Toast Semifreddo with Gruyere cheese,

caned prosciutto, fresh figs, maple cured egg yolk

that's grated on top.

And so it's a playoff of a Croque Madame.

[Daniel] Lovely. And remember,

we were talking about this last week,

so you brought something in?

Yeah, this is an orange mandarin sake

and I thought it could be fun

since that's like a Croque Madame,

having something that kind of tastes

a little bit almost like a mimosa.

Yeah, I love that.

Hits it exactly the way that you were describing it

and is such a great pairing.

Brunch is back. Brunch is back.

Brunch is back.

And better than ever.

[Stella] Thank you. Thank you.

[Daniel] Thanks for sharing, chef.

This was such a successful day. Family meals up.

It is looking really yummy.

What we got? Ooh, that looks good.

I hope you guys enjoyed following me

to see what it's like to be an executive pastry chef

here at the Musket Room.

I am so excited you were here,

but now it's time for me to head on out.

[Unison] All right. Goodnight, team. Goodnight.

Are you sure you guys gave me decaf?

I'm feeling spicy.