Today, Bon Appétit is asking 20 chefs at top NYC restaurants what the most important tools in their kitchens are. From George Motz’s smashula at Hamburger America to Kellogg’s Diner’s gelato machine (presented by Amanda Perdomo, formerly of Kellogg's Diner), find out which tools these chefs need the most to keep their restaurants running smoothly.Shop products from this video:Wooden Spoon - https://amzn.to/3Qd5vuHTagine - https://fave.co/4hN2L3DBurger Patty Press - https://amzn.to/3WWaGDeSmashula - https://www.georgemotz.com/stuff/smashulaCleaver - https://amzn.to/4aRqhK5Takamura Damascus Chef Knife - https://tinyurl.com/yc5rxf6tRubber Spatula - https://amzn.to/42URvgLWhen you buy something through our retail links, we earn an affiliate commission.
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00Here at Hamburger America, the most important tool is my Smashula because there's really
00:17nothing like it at all.
00:18It's the perfect tool for smashing burgers.
00:20A lot of people use smashers that go straight down, a lot of people use bacon weights.
00:24This actually gives you the ability to sort of operate like a bricklayer, you know, and
00:28move it around.
00:29You can break your arm before you break this thing, I think.
00:32The most important tool in this restaurant is this hearth.
00:34It is so important to every single part of what we do here.
00:38The ovens, the hearth, everything's hanging during production.
00:42We're drying herbs, we're drying meats, we're using it to produce things for our fermentation
00:46larder and it also cooks all of the food for our guests.
00:49There's no gas, it's just wood and charcoal.
00:51A lot of unique things about our grill specifically is kind of this grid that's right here as
00:57well as this grid that's on the back wall right here.
00:59All of these things can move around.
01:01We have planches, we have grill screens, everything can shift around, everything is customizable
01:06to what we're cooking that allows us all the freedom in the world to cook however we want.
01:11At Williamsburg Pizza, the most important tool in our arsenal is probably our oven.
01:15There's an Italian steam tube oven.
01:17It replicates the exact thermal mass and environment of a coal fire oven.
01:21It's also like the most energy efficient oven out there, so there's only one 120,000 BTU
01:27burner that's creating heat exchange.
01:30The Rubi's tubes, where it's a very dry heat, but all the tubes have a little bit of water
01:35in them.
01:36So each tube meets at the bottom and burns water into pressurized steam, an amazing heat
01:42exchange.
01:43It's got about like 15 to 20 times the thermal mass of a regular pizza oven.
01:48The most important tool in our restaurant is our dish machine, because if it goes down,
01:52we're screwed.
01:53This is like a high temp dish machine.
01:54It sanitizes things up to like almost 200 degrees, I believe, and you can run a full
01:59rack of these fully cleaned in less than 90 seconds.
02:03So imagine this rack filled with plates, in 90 seconds you can throw in the next round
02:07and the next round.
02:08It's gone down before and we have to have another three compartment sink in the basement
02:12where we have to manually wash it all by hand and you need three or four people just
02:16to kind of keep up with what this can do with one person.
02:20And this thing does go down a lot too, but that's...
02:25Multiple pieces of equipment, that's important.
02:26We've got the pizza peel, the pizza oven.
02:29This is the pizza peel, which brings me to my next piece of equipment, this turning peel.
02:34And this is what we use to take the pizza out of the oven.
02:40The most important tool at Pies and Thighs is our seven-slice pie cutter, which you can
02:45see has been well-loved.
02:46We cut our pies into seven pieces because it's the perfect size for our nine-and-five-eighth-inch
02:52pie pan.
02:53Six is too big, eight is too little.
02:54We love it so much that it is missing one of its piece cutters.
03:00The most important tool at Wenwen is this meat slicer.
03:03We have to order it from China and all the parts pretty much just all come from China.
03:08You have these blades inside that are, like, circular, and they kind of just work, will
03:12rotate, and they'll slice anything you put in there pretty fine.
03:16This gets quite a bit of use.
03:18We use this for the shrimp floss, we use this for the lo bap bang, we use it for pickled
03:21mustard greens, shiitake mushrooms.
03:24This saves a ton of time for us.
03:27The most important tool in my restaurant would probably be the chef knife because you can't
03:30really do much without it.
03:31I've had it for about maybe two, three years.
03:34This is a Takamura, a true Damascus, folded metal.
03:37It's as strong as a drill bit.
03:38I keep it very sharp.
03:39So, I've had it for such a long time.
03:41It started, like, over here, and it's worked its way down.
03:44If it was just, like, a regular knife, it probably would have been a lot skinnier by
03:49now.
03:53At Rolo's, the most important tool for me is this very specific spoon.
03:57It's one of one.
03:59It's super beaten up, and it's been here since I started.
04:03And anytime I'm using it, I kind of feel a little bit more confident while cooking that
04:07project.
04:08There's something great about the firmness of the actual spoon, especially when you're
04:12building up, like, a lot of fond on the bottom of a pan.
04:16You can really use the spoon to kind of, like, scrape it off and kind of continue getting
04:21that mired reaction.
04:22I don't think anybody knows that I like this spoon, but, like, I think if you walk in and
04:26see, like, this in a bain-marie sitting somewhere, it's likely that I'm using it.
04:33But I don't know if anybody has the same affection for this spoon as I do.
04:39Our most important tool at D&D is our wok station.
04:43You can't replicate this kind of flavor at home.
04:46The amount of heat and how quickly it cooks.
04:48There's the flame.
04:49It heats up the wok really fast, really hot.
04:55The most important tool at Cozy Royale is probably our burger patty press.
04:59We only have this one.
05:01Every day, the grill cook will come in, and the bulk of his work is prepping patties.
05:04This tool, for us, is much better than using hand or any other form, because if you and
05:09your friend come in and get a burger, they're both going to be exactly the same size, which
05:11means they're going to cook exactly the same way.
05:14We're going to know our cost on the item.
05:15The consistency is just huge, and this is 100% every time.
05:19My most important tool here at Saigon Social is my cleaver.
05:23I would always see my friends, uncles, and aunts, and mom, like, their dads working in
05:28Chinese restaurants, and was always really amazed about how simple the tools that they
05:33use were.
05:34The universal tool in all of the restaurants I've been to have always been the cleaver.
05:39This is my cleaver.
05:40Sometimes, I kind of put it away and hide it, but then our prep team also uses it as
05:45well, which I don't really mind, because it makes me very happy to know that this is their
05:49tool of choice as well.
05:52The most important tool in the kitchen as a future chef at Kellogg's is our gelato machine.
05:57I call it, like, the Cadillac of ice cream machines.
06:00It's pretty impressive, just because of the amount of ice cream that we go through in
06:04this restaurant.
06:05It would be only three settings, which makes it pretty straightforward.
06:08And then, generally, once it hits a certain temperature, except for, like, a couple different
06:11flavors, it'll let me know when it's done.
06:13It kind of does a beep when it hits a certain internal temperature.
06:17If I didn't have a machine, we just would not have ice cream.
06:20Most important tool is a tagine.
06:23It's a pot made out of clay, and it keeps the food super warm.
06:27So you see how it has this special plate underneath?
06:31It's to protect the clay to not crack.
06:33This one is cooked on the top of the stove.
06:35Then we have another one that we can put in the oven.
06:39Most important tool at Golden Diner is our plancha.
06:42For the amount of volume we do, it's a little small, but we make it work.
06:44This is where we make all of our pancakes, which is our best seller by far.
06:50The most important tool in the Oxomolco kitchen is the rubber spatula, because that way we
06:56don't waste anything.
06:57Specifically, this rubber spatula is my favorite, first of all, because it's heat-resistant.
07:02So you can have it on the stove, and it won't melt.
07:06Just the size is perfect for everything.
07:10The most important tool at Sobremasa is our mill.
07:13This is the mill we use.
07:14It's a 10-horsepower mill that will grind 300 pounds of corn an hour.
07:19We wouldn't exist if we didn't have this mill.
07:21It's definitely one of the most fundamental pieces of equipment in being able to produce
07:25high-quality masa for tortillas.
07:28We use it five days a week, probably for three to four hours during the day.
07:33This mill makes me feel really proud, because you can see the difference not just in working
07:36with the product, but in the final product itself, it's really cool.
07:42Our most used tool in our restaurant is our alto sham.
07:45Alto sham is basically a multipurpose tool.
07:48It steams, it bakes, and it's a confection.
07:51I use this to cook our ribs, our pork belly.
07:55The most important tool here is staff.
07:59Without my staff, we could not get a lot of things done.
08:02I mean, we rely on equipment, but sometimes the equipment is just not accessible.
08:08We're going to make these meals regardless, so I appreciate my staff.
08:13My most important tools, I have two of them.
08:16They are our prep team, Hermogenes and Alejo.
08:18These are my sharpest tools.
08:19Say hi, guys.
08:20I'm making sausages.
08:21I can literally run this restaurant with me and one other person, and that's him.
08:26He's incredibly talented.
08:27He learns super fast.
08:29He's kind of like a prodigal talent with charcuterie, and he really cares.
08:34We taste everything together.