Michelin-Star Chef Rates 11 Fine Dining Scenes In Movies & TV (w/ Paul Liebrandt) | How Real Is It?

Master chef and restaurateur Paul Liebrandt rates 11 fine dining scenes in movies and television, such as “The Bear,” for realism.

Liebrandt breaks down the reality of running a fine-dining restaurant for three episodes of “The Bear,” starring Jeremy Allen White and Ayo Edebiri, such as kitchen jargon used in the kitchen, the creation and execution of dishes, and the high-stress environment in the kitchen often depicted in popular culture. He further explains fine-dining culture — from food critics to the impact of social media — as seen in the food critic scene in both “Ratatouille” and “Chef,” with Jon Favreau; the pursuit to receive three Michelin stars in “Burnt,” starring Bradley Cooper; and how social media has shaped the fine dining experience in “The Menu,” with Anya Taylor-Joy and Ralph Fiennes. He also explains cooking and plating techniques, along with the evolution of French cuisine, via the molecular gastronomy scene in “The Hundred-Foot Journey,” with Helen Mirren; the use of foie gras in “Cook Up a Storm”; the cooking competition scene “Food Wars!: Shokugeki no Soma,” and the omelet-making scene at Le Cordon Bleu in “Julie & Julia,” starring Merryl Streep as Julia Child.

Liebrandt has been a chef for over 25 years and owned the two- Michelin-starred restaurant Corton in New York City. He also previously worked at the New York restaurants Atlas, Gilt, and Papillon. His book “To the Bone” is part cookbook and part memoir of his culinary experiences.

You can follow Paul here:
https://www.paulliebrandt.com/

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Michelin-Star Chef Rates 11 Fine Dining Scenes In Movies & TV | How Real Is It? | Business Insider

Ratatouille it’s a peasant dish are you sure you want to serve this to Eagle do I think Ratatouille is a peasant dish no not at all I have served Ratatouille in a fine dining in my restaurants all over the world absolutely I’m Chef Paul liebrand I’ve been cooking for 25 years and I was the chef owner of michelan stard restaurant Corton in New York City today we’re going to be watching fine dining Cuisine scenes from TV and movies and judge how real they are full board okay we need to drill guys who’s ready to party right now this is the opening night of the Bear Restaurant opening nights are tough H they’re very very tough it’s like going on a first date you’re not meeting you you’re meeting the representative of you I think they captured it pretty well the stress level the energy um the sensibility I suppose you could say of the kitchen the gentleman who was calling the tickets says a lot maybe more than you should on an opening night it’s opening nights you want to calm everybody down a bit and focus because it’s everyone’s a bit nervous listen to the numbers don’t call back just go we’re all going to be smoking cigarettes soon absolutely we have a time we have everybody has a timer timing in the kitchen is the one thing that we cannot get back so when you come for a meal in in a fine dining restaurant and if you’re doing multiple courses Al tasting menu style you don’t want to be sitting at the table and having 45 minutes hour gap between courses you’re going to leave so the timing is critical critical for not just the flow of service but for the timing of how the food is cooked how the food’s rested timing of the temperatures the techniques it’s um very very critical that timing is to the second in the kitchen behind behind so the kitchen etiquette and the kitchen vocabulary that you see in here is 100% accurate if you notice in the scene like most kitchens it’s very tight you say behind uh because people are walking with knives there’s hot oil people have trays of food you don’t want to be turning into someone so you’ve got to be very cognizant of what’s going on around you fire seven just keep going guys we are almost out of the woods let’s just keep is he locked in the walk-in yeah well that’s fun the locked in the walk-in part it’s it’s happened in my kitchen before so I’m pretty impressed with how they captured the energy of the opening night I would rate this a seven out of 10 you not handle this is it too much for you I get it you have a short man’s complex you can barely reach over this table right that was done when I was first starting out in the ’90s that was all the ra I don’t think that many kitchens would be running that way these days in my experience it’s better to say less you can do a lot more with a look and a gesture than telling someone that they’re no good and they’re short why do you ha idiots do you like working with I’ll do better say yes chef yes chef there are several layers of when you say the word yes chef number one is quite simply saying yes chef you have heard what the chef has been saying as far as the order or directing you yes chef is also the term of respect that when you are a chef when you call someone another Chef it’s a title that’s earned so we have to think about a kitchen at this level at a fine dinning level is run very much the same way that you would run a military uh unit and in France you would say wef 3125 two out on 31 chefs he P hey the the phrasing hands in the kitchen is very common so in America hands would mean come to the pass where you plate which is the table where all the food leaves the kitchen and goes into the dining room the reaction from the team when the order is placed is purely uh acknowledgement that they’ve heard quite literally the order of what it is what table and what their responsibilities are because a kitchen is broken up into different sections so you have a meat a fish G vegetable pastry depending on your size of the kitchen the chef Dynamic with the suf is maybe a little overdone I would honestly say this is probably a six out of 10 aou it’s a peasant dish are you sure you want to serve this to Ego I love this movie absolutely love it it’s sort of the Harry Potter of cooking in a weird way do I think Ratatouille is a peasant dish no not at all in context people used to eat truffles which are a delicacy and very very very expensive used to eat them like they were potatoes because they were abundant it might have its roots because the ingredients that are grown are easy to farm and to grow everywhere but not at [Music] all I have served Ratatouille in a fine dining in my restaurants all over the world absolutely what qualifies this for Ood Cuisine well it’s two things you don’t normally slice everything that’s the fine earing approach when you slice everything evenly like so and you baking it on top of the uh tomato uh it Cooks evenly so that it tastes even for the way it’s served where you’re taking the Ratatouille and you’re making a little round uh beautiful presentation that’s obviously the artistic part so yes it is presented in a fine dining [Music] way so true so true the eating of the Ratatouille it’s like that and takes it back to being a kid with Mom cooking Ratatouille that is what food is about about it’s about memory I would say that from my point of view I I don’t aim to try and take people back to Childhood with with with the food because everybody childhood could be good or bad I don’t know it’s more to do with creating a environment and a moment where you can literally switch off the world I can’t remember the last time I asked a waiter to give my compliments to the chef critics do not normally give compliments to the chef because generally the critic doesn’t want to be recognized when they come into the restaurant because they are critiquing you in most cases no we all know and we give the nod and we say good evening but we don’t no no it’s a professional respect every child in the world should watch this movie to have the appreciation for food and cooking it’s real what they’re saying it it is it’s 100% I have to say it’s it’s it’s got to be a 10 out of 10 for [Music] me I love Ray Vines he’s like the Voldemort of chefs quite literally yes you do use tweezers in the kitchen for most things they’re much more elegant than using only your fingers my dear friend Dominique Ren did the food for this and I think it is a really good capture of where they are on an island ancient Greek peasants dip their stale measly Bread and Wine for breakfast I think the aspect of protention with the fine dining as we saw in the scene there with the bread it honestly it’s all in context I’ve been called pretentious billions of times I don’t think I am I have a particular style and a particular way of doing some people like it others don’t as a chef I would say that I think that uh my duty is to give the guests an experience that they will stay with them forever a memorable experience of joy and of giving something that they didn’t know they wanted pickled cucumber melon milk snow and CH lace enjoy I think the social media aspect of this with the gentleman taking a photo there is a 100% influential on all dining everywhere in the world today I guess I’m sort of lucky that I have been in this business pre- Instagram pre- social media when you didn’t do that and not like today I would give this a solid six out of 10 melan sends its inspectors to restaurants to eat and award Stars One 2 3 or none the Micheline guide I would say because it’s been around over 100 years one two or three star michelan is the the format I mean you can be in the guide and not have stars but the starring guide um it’s very uh it’s very sought-after they always book a table before 7:30 one orders the tasting menu the other one always as far as the criteria of looking at one order as a tasting menu one orders out a cart no um they come before 7:30 no um a lot of that stuff is is heay regarding the the rating of the michelan they’re looking for consistency so they don’t come in once and say that’s it so it’s definitely to do with is the service the food the Ambiance the wine service the greeting the goodbye the bathrooms is everything to the satisfactory standards and the very high standards to attain the three Michel Stars double of everything two of everything in my experience obviously of uh attaining stars in the michelan guide the way Chef Bradley is working in the kitchen very true to form for winning the three stommish landan which uh I us going for look I’m the same way michelan is in the house I’m not standing back and going go for it guys I am leading I know he worked with a friend of mine in London he worked with Gordon Ramsey for a little bit to gain the experience of like what’s it like doing it so uh I think he did a really good job I would rate this scene a n out of [Music] 10 so in terms of the plating technique there too much hand use a spoon or use tweezers because then you touch the meat gets on your fingers you touch the plate so cleanliness is very important when you plate as far as the look of the food that is 100% what is in your mind’s eye of the chef that is doing it the shme that he puts on the plate with the prawns um that’s his interpretation of how he wants to present that puree Madness huh this is crazy you didn’t go home did you no come here to work overnight on creation absolutely you’re doing lunch and dinner during the day your kitchen’s full of people you have no time to be creative so you have an overnight where at least you can have some peace and quiet and you can focus on ideas so it actually yes I’ve done it more than once yeah okay it’s mol see it’s mol youle yelling at the critic I respect that I’ve had my run-ins with the critics um I’ve thrown a few critics out of the restaurant in Years Gone by it’s subjective doesn’t mean it’s bad but um you know the critique thing can be a double-edged sword is what I would say I would rate this scene a solid eight out of 10 I think it’s uh pretty realistic [Laughter] yeah they did a very good job on this scene your environment does obviously influence what comes in here in here and then on to the plate for your guests how and where do I seek inspiration for four food dishes travel is a big one definitely New York has been a huge influence obviously a Melting Pot of culture and food from quite literally every country on earth seasonality is obviously another big one what is in Winter what is in summer completely different I do the same things as in the scene I like to like sketch uh form is important in our kitchen we take a little plasticine and actually like mold in physical shape the items of the food to see how it balances on a plate Picture Perfect of exactly how dishes normally go like writing an album you have the tracks that you want and you have bsides or you have all the other tracks that don’t make it onto the actual album same thing with food it’s tweaking it’s fine-tuning it’s moving things around and I don’t think we ever honestly in my experience perfect the dish it’s always evolving always I would rate this nine out of 10 I think they captured the essence of a young Chef thinking about what voice they want to put to the dish that they want to do and the beginnings of the process of doing that yeah it’s a great scene [Music] I get it but what are you trying to say to me with this I mean you’re cooking a piece of meat of a charcoal okay barbecue is cooked over charcoal wood right I mean does that make barbecue not French or French or like it you know what I mean it’s just a heat sauce that’s all it is the usage of using instant coffee instead of using a normal Coffee Bean that we would make coffee with 100% do the same thing because there’s a lot of astringency acidity with uh bitterness with a normal Coffee Bean that you’d use to make an espresso but using a little bit of instant coffee freeze dried coffee you get all the coffein you want so it doesn’t take away from other ingredience on the dish so they obviously they had somebody who knows what they’re doing tell them so it’s fantastic yeah from my point of view French cuisine as far as in the context of what they’re showing in the scene here French cuisine has always been about great source work I think these days you just have a lot more influence from all over the rest of the world that influences French cuisine so Japanese Cuisine influencing French cuisine it’s not that it’s changed I think it’s uh definitely evolved yes I wasn’t really sure the point exactly what they’re trying to get across I would rate this scene I think a nice seven out of 10 he’s making a fagra PA as a dessert perfectly fine done it before all good the cooking technique on the fagra no way that’s not that’s a fagra paa you don’t cook it in that way that he’s doing it you um would use a different mold you would fill the water up to the very just before it covers it so it’s in even heat you don’t pour ice cubes over it to cool it down I’ve had people outside my restaurant protesting that that I’m using fagra and and they’ve done it you know to a lot of other restaurants yeah if you look at the Historical aspect of it the Egyptians were making fagra thousands and thousands of years ago they feed the geese on figs so this is nothing that’s new I mean the plating Style on this is obviously uh western style fagra the caramel I know many people they’re great of cooking you ask them to Plate it’s a it’s a go mess it’s um definitely two different skill sets that uh yeah you have to learn I’ll be honest with you because I don’t really like I wouldn’t want to eat that I’m going to say I’m going to rate this up four out of 10 I love the beginning of the scene here everyone’s making an omelette that’s one of the tests that we always give to the young Cooks I had to do when I was a kid I started at 15 when I started in the kitchen it’s not about like how good you can cook The Omelette it’s about watching what sensibility do you have is it really too hot is it not hot enough like how are you working do you understand like the building blocks it’s a really good one to kind of get like a quick idea of someone’s hand skill before they you get to help them develop well done M Shield Julia I think pretty much UND what was needed and everyone else seemed to be running behind her trying to catch up she was a very gifted lady um who I actually had the pleasure of meeting when I first came to America and I can be honest I didn’t know who she was because I’m British and she was American and I’m like she was 6 foot tall like who is this 6 foot tall lady that we cook for and she was so lovely by 7:30 I’m in class in my apron pigeons who make P Tre with so much butter no I didn’t go to culinary school uh so I’m not sure because if what she’s doing at culinary school at the codon blow would be right wearing Chef whites you know was we’re wearing here it’s more of a sort of a traditional uniform of the kitchen I think obviously times have changed a little bit you know it’s not it’s not a rule of thumb that you have to wear I mean it’s how you cook and how you act I would rate this scene a really great seven out of 10 [Music] the style of cooking that they’re doing here was very sort of set in the early 2000s that was very popular at that time there was a restaurant called Elbo out wasas farria who pioneered a lot of the spefication technique a lot of the cooking with nitrogen we’re using it as a technique to freeze and freeze extremely rapidly so you don’t have any crystals that form with any of the water with anything that you’re freezing so when you defrost it it’s exactly the same as when you froze it this was a surprising Tri most unexpected ways with a marinade of tamarine you see the gentleman in there is wearing a fa if it splashes in your eye you don’t have an eye anymore so should you be using liquid nitrogen at home no don’t do it liquid nitrogen is 300 plus de negative you wouldn’t be doing this at home you know family supper of like let’s freeze some spaghetti I think it’s cute I don’t think it’s really indicative of being a restaurant exactly I think it’s more playing with food rather than you know guest experience so I would rate this clip um a six out of 10 I think my favorite fine dining uh movie would be The Cook the Thief His Wife and Her Lover because it is De Ence but in the most Artful insane way thanks for watching if you like this video click on the next video to Serve Yourself another [Music]