Mike Colameco's Real Food The LIVANOS Family

I love families I love stories I love New York this is all that wrapped up in one the Lovato's family Greek immigrants you know like a lot of Greek immigrants started with a diner in Long Island City moved into Brooklyn and now they've got some of the best restaurants in New York in my opinion molivos great Greek American restaurant avocado wonderful Italian restaurant around the corner and Oceana the jewel in the crown that's a wonderful seafood restaurant that's just fantastic Oceana recently moved from its old building to this location we're going to meet the levanos family we're going to meet the chef Ben Pollinger and the team that's bringing this together great family great restaurants great story stay with us we're here with Mr levano senior first of all thanks for having me you do thank you this is the story I wanted to do for a long time I've known your chefs at Oceana yeah that's my reference point to you and then as I began to realize who was behind ocn I thought here's this great American Greek American story so tell me about your early days about coming to America about getting in the diner business and your story well I uh I I was in the military Marine to become a captain and I didn't like it so I jump ship jump ship means I took off in Boston and I came to New York so I look around and I find a job as this was I was this is for eight months and then I started working in the kitchen to learn the business I opened my first place a little lunch in it in Astoria three years later I saw it 18 months 15 times the price I bought it I built it up and then I went to the diner business I opened few diners very successful until the time came when my two sons when he was graduated from college Nick and he wanted to come to Colorado Institute and the other one who was graduating from college and I tried to discourage them to come to this business but they had the experience from the diner experience but both of them they say to me if if we open and better scale better like a restaurant would be very much interesting not the dying of the 24 hours and all the hassle goes on and the Dinos I said okay and we opened the Vanoss restaurant in White Plains and then we open Oceana and after that I opened more restaurants Italian restaurants Italian restaurant Greek restaurant Olivos and now ocean again [Music] thank you [Music] so it's the whole roast bronzino for two stuff with wild mushrooms spinach olives and lemon with our garlic fennel and chili vinaigrette we've got grilled wild Alaskan king salmon with the roasted corn cake chanterelle mushrooms plums and a plum sauce we've got Thai style steamed red snapper long squash pickled green papaya with a kaffir lime saffron sauce let me know Sienna you tapped Rick Moon and it was the young then the young kind of star on the way up had three star review elsewhere um and for its entire 10 you're at that location it was the old lacine correct yes and for its entire run which is up until this summer when it moved three-star restaurant best best move we ever made you know we came to New York as unknowns but I we like the location we had a good rent at the time so we had the security of a good rent we knew if it takes some time to build it and it did it took about I'd say 18 months to two years and then it just exploded and no looking back tell me about the new Sienna the new Oceana this is for me this is a dream come true from when I graduated CIA this was Oceana was the kind of place that I I would have strive to work in as a cook I hoped I was good enough to work there as a cook and then now to find myself at the helm if you would it's it's uh it's unrealistic it's it's realistic you're here it's uh it's unreal it's unreal yeah it's neat it's unreal to be here and to have the ability to take such a storied restaurant from the place where it was born matured went through change and then now take it to an entirely New Birth is is a phenomenal experience all yours brought to go start with a little canola oil you're looking for that oil to Shimmer yeah the right way in the pan then you'll know it's hot this is a filet of Pompano Florida Pompano wrapped in baby tarot this was the first dish that I created for Oceana when I took the job very sentimental to me and it's the only dish I've left on the menu the whole time so if you want to call it the signature dish that would be the signature dish and it echoes an old signature dish of Daniel this was his black bass I think he was wrapped in a potato red wine reduction a very classic and what I've done I think very evocative of the type of cooking that I and Jensen do is we pulled the classic Fringe techniques and roots and bring a new flavor profile to it the sauce is a coconut cilantro Curry what this here is some fish fume some coconut milk you've got some ginger some chilies some Curry leaves black cumin that's really really nice all right we know this fish is done okay we're gonna pour off a little bit of that oil and the pan goes our basmati rice cake and a good little pad of butter now what we're gonna do here is again you'll see this in a lot of professional kitchens a little arrow size or basting basting of the the product we're gonna let that butter brown up a little bit get hot and you can see where that butter is nice and foamy it's holding heat the butter is Browning onto a c-fold get the oil off another thing good kitchens always do all right now we're going to go into the vegetable very very little bit of canola oil we're gonna add our bok choy the long beans have already been blanched and cut into little pieces we've got the peanuts have been boiled we're going to add that to our pan we're gonna add the slightest touch of butter and right in that butter we're gonna add our aromatics the shallots the ginger the chilies the coke them and we're gonna let that cook very slightly stands hot just the slightest amount of chicken stock creates kind of super Heats knocks the bok choy down Cooks it exactly it's a great technique I would love to cook like that myself you'll see the difference see that box here look at the color look how knock down it is that was maybe 20 seconds if that we're gonna add our fresh herbs we've got cilantro chives Thai Basil we're eating a little bit of a cilantro puree man you got a lot of flavors going on here brother all right so we've got these beautiful vegetables just cooked crunchy green yes you can almost taste it from here [Music] crisp basmati rice disquiet fish what a beautiful fish what a pretty pretty dish look at those colors that's just ridiculous all right all right let's get into this bad boy see that fish steamy moist delicious We're Not Gonna let it swim [Music] how do I describe this good so much going on it's funny with Tara root because the skin it's crispy but it almost has this wonderful starchiness to it too as you're chewing it it releases that starch so it's really crispy then that starch releases the fish is perfectly cooked and this this sauce man let me almost feel like you know what I have a spoon in my pocket because I always got every spoon in my pocket all habits die hard huh that's crazy [Music] got red snapper Ceviche marinated with some lemon lime and orange juice roasted corn parts of palm red bell pepper so that's our marinated sea scallop sashimi with togarashi and shoyu we're talking about these classic Seafood platters and I look out of this and I'm like my God that's like the mother of them talk about this platter this we don't even we don't even have a name for this one and this is going out on a private party tonight so this is the uh the mega platter you got Lobster on the top you got mussels you got clams you got shrimp you got oh a cup four or five times the oysters we've got these giant New Zealand mussels which until recently I never saw fresh they always saw them Frozen and now they've been coming into the fish market twice a week fresh they're they're outstanding give me a break that's just insane [Music] that's alive that is that's what they do when they're alive they're crazy so what we do is we separate the carapace and you see all of this beautiful green row it'll turn bright red where'd you get this idea you're not sleeping at nights again huh gonna put the lobster head in the duck press and we're gonna press it and we're getting all of that nice protein Rich granny Lobster juice all right you gotta hold on there Mike it's a two-man job keep going keep going okay we're good we're good I got myself brace here you want one more turn all right you're cool that's a lot of that's a lot getting all that juice out of there so here's what we're gonna do we've got our our liver our row the juices from the head a little splash of Brandy a little squeeze of fresh lemon juice a little pinch of salt and we're going to start whisking this as if we're making our Hollandaise you can see how that dark green turns to a nice yeah all that dark green turned through it that's what the lobster car will do we're making hollandaise with olive oil with olive oil that's how we do the lobster sauce the lobster Coral emotions that's insane okay we don't have the smell thingamajiggering on camera but it's just it's mellow Vision it's yeah it's a little bit Briny and oceanic and it just smells like extra virgin olive oil oh man that's crazy good so that's our steamed main lobster with the lobster Coral Emulsion from the lobster press That's crazy crazy good really beautiful so just the essence of lobster right there foreign [Music] into a hot sauce [Music] Jansen Chan pictures of extraordinaire really I'm a huge fan of what you do great great guy um I had a picture he made that wasn't like spot on perfect what am I looking at here this is the Apple comfy Mochi cake serve with a coconut tapioca coconut tapioca coconut creme glaze a raw green apple slaw and a chocolate sorbet in fact the entire dessert is wheat gluten free it's only made with rice flour and tapioca starches big deal these days here we have a sweet potato almond souffle it's actually made from a base of sweet potato and almond paste in the center we have a cooked Center of sweet potato butter and a liquid almond cream on the side we serve it with a maple soy ice cream on top of a little miniature Maple Pie as I mentioned with the outset this is a great family story it's a great American story it's a great immigrant story really it's a family story and it's cool now that the pop is delegating things which you have is Nick running molivos and avocado and in and out of Oceana Bill runs the Westchester operations and the great new burger joint in Jersey and Korea has been focusing her attention on Oceana which is huge it's a brand new restaurant it's a launch and it's big and really good was this something you were kind of drawn to Young I know you were raised in it or was it like has it been kicking and screaming uh we were we were raised in it so from the time I was 12 I was a part of it I graduated from college and I said I'm not entering the family business there's no way because I knew what it entailed and what it involved and at that time we had just opened the former Oceana on 54th Street between Park and Madison just opened it and my older brother Nick said Karina just please give me a few months get me through the holidays just get me through the holidays and I've been here ever since you have this great burger place in Wayne talk a little bit about that because I I got a lot I got a big Jersey audience so tell me about this great burger place you're doing we opened up a burger place in uh Wayne uh one year ago it's called Burger Deluxe on a 23 North uh it's it's a version of a city limits but a smaller version we don't do breakfast which is a which is the big difference and obviously by the name the emphasis is on burgers uh it's it's a it's a Fabulous Burger you gotta try it Burger shakes fries classic go wrong with that formula exactly exactly if I have one more octopus no olives please this is a shrimp Souvlaki right now uh all the vegetables are coming local out of Long Island super light super clean again exactly fresh fiber and flavors a lot of texture 40. what I would call 100 year old grease we want when we designed the restaurant we wanted to stay away from the white wash the you know everyone taking on that mykono Santorini look because that's everywhere we want this something that's more recent and you go to many of the homes in The Villages in northern Greece this is what a typical home may look like the the old Woods the the the wearing of the wood and in this case we we designed the restaurant with most of our family photographs people nowadays think of you know Michael salakas who I give all the props to in the world with anthos right so including modern Greek but you know eight nine years before that ten years before that you guys were doing this thing talk a little bit about building up this menu and becoming versed so that you could become Greek became your vernacular sure I mean you know between seeing it again firsthand in Greece uh drawing from your your own food experiences of growing up and then applying all that classical technique that you learned you know working for a guy like Alan sayak or Daniel Bruce or Michael lamonico and just falling back on those techniques you were able to elevate Jim tell me what I have here it's a pan roasted uh wild stripe bass on a bed of bait igantes which are large giant white beans a single cut lamb chops have been marinated and then over here we have an ionian garlic sauce which is a mixture of different herbs oregano in there oregano all over the dill Watercress parsley let's Define Greek food I mean Mediterranean is a region and it shares a commonality you know I I think there's some similarities you know especially they do the same thing where you know if it's Coastal you see a lot of fish if it's more Northern there's a little bit more lamb the dish is a little more rustic they're a little more stews a little more braised same thing like when you go to friuli you get into polenta you're doing that gnocchi you know all the different things a lot of different stews so you know I I think also people make this whole comment about the Mediterranean diet which really isn't a diet but it's this way of life tell me what you have in mind here we're going to do a marinato which is almost like a Greek style Ceviche if you will scallop the scallop is live in the show it's so hard to describe no completely I was I eat raw scallops constantly delicious sweet better than oysters couldn't have said it better myself in here is just a little bit of lemon juice and orange juice I'm just going to put a little bit of sugar and a little bit of salt let me just mix that you don't want I don't want it to macerate too much so just right away it starts turning a little bit opaque put a few capers in there because the acid is actually technically cooking in quotation marks but it's reacting to the protein which is what Ceviche is exactly little Serrano chilies touch a scallion and then we're going to put a little bit of cucumber just finely room of cucumber and then behind you here I have a little bit of a leswell's basil minty licoricey kind of yeah a little different and then you just want to get nice fine really fine julienne there and then what we'll do is we'll plate this part and you can see how it just like lightly lightly lightly turned I don't want to cook it all the way it's just some of that garnish sits on top I have some salmon here this is the cured this is the Russo cured salmon we'll just fold it a little sprinkle of a little fennel pollen this is uh the black olive caviar a little bit of uh chive a little bit of lemon zest just layers and layers just subtle flowers layers of flavor and then what we do is here this is a mixture uzo and olive oil it's sort of like a little that could be dangerous a little sprinkle on there going to take our salmon a couple of pieces of that sumac onion and then we'll just put it's a pretty good deal all right I'm doing the scallop here and for this I really want to use a spoon because I want to get a little bit of the marinade with the scallop and the garnish [Music] you know I love Seafood like this because it's light and it's bracing and it's super clean and it's super Super Fresh this is this chickpea cake it's a sandwich oh I'm getting hungry yeah I need olive we're a good team each one plays at all of course also we do have a good managers and chefs I we almost have every chef with us from a day one except Oceania band which is with us three three and a half years but you've only had he's the third chef in 20 years exactly in 18 19 years yeah exactly Rick Moon and Cornelius Gallagher exactly yes right here Jimmy pachacos it was with us before we opened at city limits from day one also so you're great people to work for yes they're great people they're good but I mean you're a great people to work for that's the testimony otherwise people don't stay no not in this business people they move on they keep from one place or another place but we're good to them and they're good to us too we appreciate them well we appreciate you you know it's um a great story story everyone I do for years and it's great you know we're glad you jumped ship in Boston oh yes yes New York is all the Richer for having the levanos family in the community I took the train without no English no nothing I came to New York I had an end restaurant do you want me to put me to watch this is in Harold restaurant so she sent me to a diner in New Jersey it's a cousin foreign yes [Music] foreign [Music]

Channel: Mike Colameco's Real Food

Views: 2,928

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Id: WBDud0yxmME

Length: 22min 13sec (1333 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 28 2022