- 6 weeks ago
Bon Appétit spends a day on the line with chef Morgan Jarrett of STATE Grill and Bar in the Empire State Building. There are 7,000-8,000 people inside the Empire State Building at any one time, which requires a huge catering operation. From restaurant service, corporate catering, and large-scale events, it’s all happening under one roof–see what it takes to deliver restaurant-quality food in one of New York City's most iconic skyscrapers.
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LifestyleTranscript
00:01There's anywhere from 7,000 to 8,000 people in this building daily.
00:06Loading up food and doing off-premise events is very challenging in a building that has its own zip code.
00:13The restaurant is always operating. We have lunch service and dinner service.
00:17But in addition to that, we also have catering orders for the offices in the building.
00:22I like to compare it to Four Seasons quality room service, but for offices.
00:28When I get to do the events on the observatory level or I go to an office that has views
00:34of the entire city,
00:36that I say, oh, wow, I work in an incredible place.
00:43Hey, good morning. Welcome to State. Come on in. It's 10 o'clock. We got a lot to do today.
00:50We're going to make sure that lunch service is getting ready.
00:53But in addition to that, we have some catering orders to take care of today as well.
00:58We have around 20 people on the 67th floor.
01:01We got to get ready for that drop as well as a couple of events this evening.
01:05So let's go downstairs and check in with that kitchen.
01:10This board right here is where things can really get crazy.
01:13In addition to the 80 to 90 covers we'll do for lunch and dinner, we also have three orders to
01:21put in today.
01:23All right. So we're going to get set up and get ready to plate up this catering order.
01:28So now it's time to slice the chicken.
01:30The math for catering has already been done pretty far in advance.
01:34It can change depending on what items have been ordered.
01:37Typically, we account for eight ounces of protein a person.
01:41So in this case, one of these chicken breasts is around 10 ounces, but with the bone, it's 11 ounces.
01:48Catering math is a really tricky game and it requires knowing exact quantities that people eat.
01:55And that can actually change, you know, like this year, everyone's really into protein, right?
02:00So I've kind of had to increase the amount of protein that I offer.
02:04How we garnish our food, especially for catering, is what makes what we do really special and different than your
02:12run of the mill catering in Midtown Manhattan.
02:14We provide restaurant quality service for the tenants of this building.
02:19So I like to do like a little crown of thyme around the chicken here.
02:24And as the hot chicken rests on the thyme and then we pour the hot chicken jus over the top,
02:30it's going to really perfume the chicken as well.
02:32It might also make their office smell a little more wholesome, bring some life into it.
02:37Midtown lunch kind of has a bad reputation in New York City.
02:41You know, I hear about the corporate slot bowls.
02:44A lot of people that work in Midtown don't look forward to eating here.
02:48We like to change that. So we brine the chicken for 48 hours. We air dry it.
02:53We have a house-made spice rub that we toast the spices. We grind them fresh.
02:58We're going to just do a little bit of chicken jus over the top.
03:01We know our hot food is ready for our catering order. Now we need to check in on the sandwiches,
03:06pastries, and salads.
03:08We need to get this order upstairs in about 10 minutes. So let's see where we're at.
03:12We have numbers. We know we need six of each sandwich. I know I need one bowl of each salad.
03:17And then the petty fours are for 15 people, but we have an assortment of five.
03:22So there's some fun culinary math. There's about 2.5 per person, which comes out to approximately 40 pieces of
03:31mini pastries.
03:32We're going to roll this out our back door, and then it's going to go up behind the scenes elevator.
03:38It's where we might have to wait in line a little bit too. Sometimes there's construction going on.
03:44Sometimes there's a FedEx delivery. There is a mountain of possibilities that are waiting for us outside of that door.
03:52That's also part of the timing and logistics is giving ourselves about 20 minutes wiggle room for potentially waiting at
04:00the elevator.
04:01I'm going to take an express elevator just to try to get up there a little bit faster in case
04:07there's a line.
04:08That's one of my few privileges here.
04:11So we're actually on the concourse level of Empire State Building, the basement of Empire State Building.
04:17This is going to give us access to what we call the passenger elevators.
04:21It's also kind of cool because it's like this behind the scenes museum that no one really gets to see.
04:26It's one of my favorite kind of secret places here.
04:30All right, let's go check on that order.
04:33So we took one elevator to go to another elevator, but for a reason.
04:37That'll get us there in less than 60 seconds.
04:40It's an express elevator.
04:42We need to get up there to check on that 1145 order because we got to be back down at
04:46the restaurant and check on lunch service that starts at 12.
04:50So right now I have a few things on my mind and moving quickly is really important.
04:54All right, so we're at the patina office here.
04:57This is kind of the underbelly while the clients are still at their desk in their office.
05:02We have to work very quietly and quickly and they kind of never see us.
05:06How we set up for every catering is different.
05:09Usually we kind of like to get the lay of the land of the office that we're going to be
05:13catering for a little bit before.
05:14So in this case today, we knew we had a credenza with like beautiful views out here.
05:19So we knew that we would have enough room for our equipment.
05:23Some clients want their orders on China, which is what we have here today.
05:27We call it China, but China can mean blackboards, marbles, cake stands, white platters.
05:32And we say China as opposed to using like paper cardboard, which some people do want that for a more
05:38casual grab and go type lunch.
05:41But that's not what we're doing here today.
05:42Everything we do in this building is about logistics.
05:45So sometimes we get to an office and, you know, they want you to cater for 100 or 200 people
05:50and you realize they're using every electrical outlet in this space.
05:55So you might have to run an extension cord out to their office and plug your oven or your air
06:02fryer in there.
06:03But I'd say at this point, nothing trips us up too much.
06:07In a previous life, I have done really large weddings.
06:09If you've ever been to a big blowout wedding, you know, one of the things that people really love are
06:15stations.
06:16And what makes a good station is having things elevated and decorated.
06:21So I kind of applied those same sensibilities that I used to use in that former life to midtown lunches.
06:28Those look incredible.
06:29Even though the order says to be ready by 12, maybe someone's in a meeting until 1230, 1245.
06:34We've gone through all this work to make sure the food is hot and fresh and we want to make
06:39sure it stays that way.
06:40So we have these really cool burners.
06:42This will be the front of the buffet because we have our plates, utensils and water over here.
06:47So we have our beautiful green goddess pasta salad.
06:50We have our strawberry and kale salad.
06:53Roast chicken looks good.
06:54It's hot.
06:55It smells delicious.
06:57We have tongs and then our sandwiches.
06:59Everything looks good.
07:01I see we have a little steak falling out.
07:02We're going to fix that in just a second.
07:04We need to make sure that's perfect.
07:06Looks like we need to move some signs around once there.
07:10This is a really important part about catering and some of that detailed work that we have to make sure
07:15is done.
07:16That goes beyond the food.
07:17That's making sure we have signage for all the food.
07:20We went through all this effort and all this detail to make, you know, these custom desserts.
07:25And it would be really unfortunate for people not to know what they're having.
07:27So sandwiches are good.
07:29Mac and cheese is fresh, hot, melted.
07:32And then we have our sticky toffee pudding, our raspberry mousse, our peach cheesecakes,
07:38uve profiteroles, and our panna cotta with blueberries.
07:41Looks good.
07:42Now that we know our catering order on the 67th floor is all set and ready to go,
07:47we're going to get out of here.
07:48It's time to check on lunch service downstairs.
07:52It's around 1230.
07:54We're a little late for lunch service, but we're going to go check in with the service team.
07:58Hey, Kumar.
07:59How's it going?
08:00Going good, chef.
08:00All right.
08:01So it looks like the first turn is out.
08:03We just have a couple more tickets to put out.
08:06We have 11.
08:06We have two Bronzinos, side of fries.
08:09That's hold fire right now?
08:10Are we fired on that?
08:11It's everything fired, chef.
08:12Everything's fired.
08:13Okay.
08:13And then table 23, everything's all together, no first course?
08:1723 together.
08:18Okay, great.
08:19All right.
08:20So we'll catch up here.
08:21This is the expo station.
08:22Looks like we have a new ticket.
08:24We're fired on table 31's dessert.
08:27That's a chocolate cake, no ice cream.
08:30That's a regular, right?
08:31Is that Michael?
08:31Okay.
08:32Sometimes someone comes so often, you know exactly what their ticket is without seeing them.
08:37So it looks like we have a couple of VIPs in the house today.
08:40And then we have like our expo kit here.
08:42This is where we finish and garnish the dishes.
08:44At lunchtime we have a whole sandwich section, which I kind of love making sandwiches.
08:49You have a lot of leniency to kind of cross cuisines when it comes to sandwiches.
08:55One of my favorite lunch items is the katsu sandwich.
08:58So this is a thinly breaded chicken cutlet that's been pounded, breaded in panko breadcrumbs.
09:05Then we have Kewpie mayonnaise, which is this really delicious eggy Japanese mayonnaise.
09:11This is fresh milk bread toasted in clarified butter.
09:14I like to think of it as kind of like a Chick-fil-A sandwich, but better.
09:18Why don't you take the soups first to two and four on 23?
09:24Hands, please.
09:25Hands means that we need someone to run the food while it's hot.
09:28Hot food in the restaurant is number one priority.
09:31Okay, so it looks like lunch service went really well today.
09:35But it looks like we have an oven down for dinner service.
09:39And we can't get a mechanic out today.
09:41We're also going into a holiday weekend.
09:44They say they might come tomorrow, but it could be Monday or Tuesday before we get anyone out.
09:50So now we're going to have to run dinner service and possibly the rest of the weekend without the really
09:55good oven.
09:56Honestly, I just I feel like I let my team down sometimes if something like that happens.
10:03I really do empathize with them because it's really hot back here.
10:06Plan B is first breaking the news to the line cooks that they're going to have to pivot tonight.
10:13And what's going to have to happen is the grill cook is going to have to share an oven with
10:19the plancha cook.
10:20And if you know anything about line cooks, they don't like sharing space.
10:24But that's how it's going to have to be tonight.
10:29We have two events that have a little bit of time overlap.
10:32So one of them is going to be our seated dinner in the PDR for 40 people.
10:37That's a three course dinner.
10:39And then at six o'clock to seven thirty eight, we have a cocktail event for 80 people over in
10:45the lounge.
10:46That's going to be a lot of hors d'oeuvres, cheese and charcuterie and some satays.
10:51In the meantime, we're going to go grab a little rolling oven from storage.
10:57All right. Great.
10:58So this is going to be our little oven that we're going to pack out into.
11:02This is really a workhorse for off premise catering.
11:06It's a Cambro portable oven.
11:09It's more for holding it.
11:10So you don't want to cook in it necessarily, but it's how we keep food at a safe hot temperature.
11:15So we need everything above 140 degrees and this is going to do that.
11:19So if we load in food in what we call hotel pans and you can see it has like an
11:24oven fan and ventilation here.
11:27And then we plug it in and get it hot and it'll keep food hot for many hours.
11:32So if you have something you need to keep crispy, most of these portable type ovens, the steam collects.
11:38So anything that's crispy will no longer be crispy.
11:42So you need to make sure wherever you're going has a way to make that food crispy.
11:48Yeah. But the kitchen that we're going to, we have an oven that actually has a fry function on it
11:54and a zero moisture function on it,
11:56which helps revitalize anything that's already been hard cooked.
12:02Everyone is kind of working on different things right now for different events.
12:06So Andrew over here, he's working on angel eggs, also known as deviled eggs.
12:12Vincenzo over here, he's blanching baby bok choy for the salmon dish for the 40 person PDR.
12:19Sous chef Michelle is working on getting our sauces and condiments together for our 80 person cocktail event over at
12:26the Empire Lounge.
12:27So this menu tonight is actually kind of fun because we made a custom menu, a little bit of improv,
12:33like 80% of the dish is fun.
12:34But we haven't actually made these twice baked potatoes in this exact way before, but we know it's going to
12:39work.
12:39For that specific rolling box, it only fits this size hotel pan.
12:45So everything has to get loaded into these behind you.
12:50All right. So these are really fun because they were baby marble potatoes, rainbow marble potatoes.
12:56So when we plate them, we're going to mix them up. We're going to do a little purple, a little
13:00white.
13:00This is a short rib that we actually prepped up for the seated dinner for an entree.
13:06And then we have trim from the ends.
13:09Instead of putting this to family meal or throwing it away, we came up with a custom hors d'oeuvre
13:15that can utilize this product.
13:16So it's going to be a zero waste dish here.
13:18Anytime there's like room for like customization, I take that as like creative liberty.
13:24And I really love shape and color.
13:28And that's it makes me happy.
13:30And I like to think that it makes the guests happy, too.
13:33You know, especially, let's say, if someone's been in a boring meeting for an hour.
13:36No offense to them, but I assume most meetings are boring.
13:40So I really want to make the food as fun as possible.
13:43And if it is a custom menu, I have to think about, do we have time to execute, you know,
13:48something that has this many touches on it?
13:50Are there multiple events going on that day, you know, or is this something we can do half of the
13:57prep for in advance?
13:58So, you know, something like a twice-baked potato.
14:01You could roast the potatoes, scoop out the flesh and make the filling, and have all that done, let's say,
14:07a day in advance.
14:13Okay, let's pack these out.
14:15So since we're going to an off-premise kitchen, we're going to have to make sure to bring all of
14:19our serving utensils with us.
14:21It's almost 4 o'clock, which means most everyone is on break eating before dinner service starts.
14:27But Michelle, my sous chef, she's over at the lounge getting the ovens and everything turned on.
14:33A couple of those ovens, they take a little over an hour to warm up.
14:37Everyone else is on break eating, which is nice.
14:41There used to be a time in kitchens where we didn't actually take breaks, and we didn't sit down to
14:45eat.
14:45We're a little more civilized here, and everyone gets to sit down together and enjoy a meal together.
14:50I could join them maybe in a little bit, but I have a little too much going on today, I
14:55think, to sit down with them.
14:57I do at least a couple times a week, though.
14:59Sometimes I get up there at like 4.30 after the food's been sitting out for about an hour, and
15:04I get like scraps.
15:07So that's nice.
15:08So we're just going to grab a few things that are going to help us plate over there.
15:12We're going to keep it classy.
15:14All right, so let's do a quick check.
15:16All right, so we've got cookies, brownies, and blondies, cheese and charcuterie, skewers and sautés.
15:21We have chicken and mushroom in there.
15:24We have a chimmy sauce, and we have a tahini sauce for the chicken.
15:29Next, we have three hors d'oeuvres, lobster mac bites, short rib with twice baked potatoes.
15:34And then we need to grab those onion flowers.
15:36I think I forgot those.
15:38Onion flowers, found.
15:41All right, and then we have our pakoras with peas and asparagus.
15:46And then we have the mango chutney.
15:49Mango chutney, sir.
15:50All right, let's roll.
15:51Behind you, Andy.
15:55I got the door, Michelle.
16:00All right, so this is kind of cool.
16:03We can actually just plug this in right up here.
16:06It looks like the team's already started setting up here.
16:10Front of house has arrived, which is a good sign.
16:12That means we're getting close.
16:15This is the Empire Lounge.
16:17It's what we call the club level or the concourse level of the Empire State Building.
16:23So we're getting ready for an 80-person event in this space.
16:27You can see the basketball court has turned into, it looks like they're going to have a meeting.
16:32And then when they're done with that, they're going to have an open bar.
16:35And we're going to set this table up here with all of our hors d'oeuvres.
16:41All right, so the Empire Lounge is all set.
16:43This event is ready to go.
16:44We need to get out of here.
16:46Check in on another event.
16:48But you guys got to go.
16:49Let's go.
16:50Let's go.
16:51Let's go.
16:52Let's go.
16:52Let's go.
16:52Let's go.
16:52Let's go.
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