Inside NYC’s Only Michelin Star Indian Restaurant | On The Line | Bon Appétit

[Music] semma is the only Indian restaurant that has mine star in New York City semma is a South Indian restaurant where we focus on Regional Southern Indian Cuisine mostly from Tamil Nadu where I grew up eating as executive chef we also have such a huge responsibility to represent the Indian culture Cuisine which we enjoying it [Music] hello good afternoon welcome to SEMA this is Vijay I'm the executive chef partner at SEMA this is 12:30 let's see what's happening in the Kitchen come on in follow me so we open for service at 5 and then we

already have a couple of prep chefs who started the day who received all the ingredients who check the quality we started prepping for the whole day all right I'm going to be changing and be back bye all right T ready let's go see the prop ship this is s race nice you so we known each other for 25 years we went to college together he's my childhood buddy he's the one who does all the cooking making all the sauces curries since it's our food like we grew up eating it I don't need to go and

check everything like how it is like you know I don't need to check all the qualities because he takes care of everything so I'm so blessed to having the kitchen each time I preparing four five dishes at the same time so once this batch is done you'll be making like another batch that you keep keep making till like 4:30 till the service starts we don't use anything for the next day because we make everything from scratch just for the day what he does is he just cook every single dish for the whole day because he's

very talented that's why he's making five five things at the same time when you make four five things at the same time you get things done quickly and also it's challenging because you have to keep an eye on everything not getting burnt anything to make sure that you maintain all the quality and consistency our concept is antic food so we just like to cook how we cook back home I don't think we modify we don't really try to turn down any spices we just cook how we cook back home except the quantity is Big seems

like SE Sur is keeping everything under control so I don't think I need to be here so he got [Music] it we get booked every single night as soon as we open the reservation we get booked like 2 weeks in a months on top of what we get booked we do have 1,00 to 1,400 people on notify list to get in so we do three seating so like 5 7 9 so we do about 230 C a night this is our KDs which is a kitchen display screen what we do is we have a certain

dis we have to pre-order it like we have a pre-ordered crop so I go to check the reservation see how many crops that we have pre-ordered so I just go to the system I let the chef know how many they have to prep every day I do track every single day how many dishes we've been selling it that I can give them exact quantity that they can prepare for a day so we don't waste another day I'm I'm doing it right here in the kitchen so I can interact with the chefs too to make sure

they have enough quantity that I'm I'm I'm putting in the system let's say if I put on 10 lobsters and then they have only five lobsters that doesn't make sense so I'll make sure I stay in the kitchen I'll interact with them make sure they have a right amount of quantity that they have in the kitchen before I put in the system once it's done what I do I just take a picture I send it to all the chefs so they know exactly how many to be made every day it looks great next thing we're

going to do is we're going to move on to the cooking section all right it's 3:00 p.m. everybody's in the kitchen right now this is our dish pit where all the dish is being cleaned and that's the chef Sebastian is prepping his Seafood he's prepping his Lobster and everything so they all prepping their own section and then here it is I think the chef what are you making here Marcus it's called raita it's a side dish which has yogurt cucumber and chopped on Can I taste it all right part of my job as executive chef

is I have to make sure I taste everything everything is up to the standard M very good look at the consistency like it shouldn't be too watery it shouldn't be too thick this is the right perfect consistency for raita I mean our raita I mean every everybody has their own raita but this is how raita is supposed to be very good thank you so right here these two gentlemen they making potato Masala for for the gunpowder Dosa this is the boiled potatoes they're just peeling it right now once it's peed they're going to mix with

all the spice mixture that goes into the G DOA I think they like to use their bare hands with the glosses because that's more much more efficient than using the like PE or whatever it is I don't worry too much because I know my team but my team is they always crush it they nail it they do the best job that they could do but just to make sure to like you know to double check it triple check it because we want to make sure every single guest that have the best experience possible majority of

dishes are like very labor int like like for example those that takes 3 Days To just prep it just like that every single disc has like a lot of lot of prep to do so it takes about two to 3 days to make one single day can I say one thing I was going to say all this guys for me I believe in people who works really hard who has a dedication passion so as you can see all these gentlemen they started as a dishwasher like 2 years ago I saw the hunger in the eyes

how they want to learn and grow so as you can see they are working the line right now they are he makes all the pastries he does all this uh experting when I'm not there and he does all the prep for the postex that makes me very happy that you know I I was able to work with them even though with a dishwasher I was able to give them a chance and they feel so appreciated for next 1 hour I'll be checking every single section to make sure that everything's been prepared to our standard and

then they all tast tasted good [Music] it's 4:00 p.m. now I is the kitchen is so chaos you know because we have like one more hour to open the Service do are we call gunpowder Dosa it's one of our most signature dish on the menu we we cele about at least 150 dosas a day every single one gets DOA just you know all right so I'm just going to be making dosas we just have to season the G before you make doas you have to make sure it's on right temperature like you know if it

is too low or if it is too hard able to get the right color and right consistencies and as you can see you have like a three rounds right so that's how we make DOA because that has the right amount of temperature sprinkle some ghee little bit right here to make sure it doesn't get stuck in the G it should have some kind of greasiness and also you have to make sure you don't put too much ghee also when you put too much ghee it might you don't get the texture you have to spread them

equally that's it otherwise it be so thick in the one side or be very crispy other side so it has to be spread equally cuz when you put the lentils all the length will absorb all the ghee from there so they be so dry so you have to make sure enough ghee in it [Music] so all right I'm back there you go thank you all right let's go all right it's 4:30 now uh it's a time for pre shift so we all going to cuddle together we talk about what what do you have in the

book like how many reservation what are the diet restrictions who are the VIPs you know all those details tonight we have 174 covers we have a pretty extensive first round at 5:00 a lot of tables are coming in we have a couple dietary restrictions tonight we have four crabs pre-ordered none to sell that's pretty much it for tonight you guys been crushing it as always I don't have to repeat this every single day give a good work that's it amazing let's rock and roll [Music] all right it's 4:55 now we are like 5 minutes to

open the door so this is the exper station we just kind of setting it up so you get all the tickets right here like whatever they also get a printed version of copy so I can also see all the ticket that we have here so it kind of give me idea something takes more than 15 20 minutes so it you know I can see in the screen how how long the ticket has been there so I can either we can go ask them exped as quick as possible or if something goes wrong something's not right

for some reason the the dish is not executed in a timely way we can go speak to the guest for some reason you know is it always just quiet right before service no they just [Laughter] behaving plates are cold I'm just swming at the plates before service can we hit it up some more let's put a microwave can get hit up the food has to go hard so we have to make sure the plate has to be hard in order to maintain the temperature of the food all right it's 510 now I'm just going to

go upstairs take a look how many guests have been seated so far so it gives an idea for the cooks like you know ment they can prepare like how many tickets are going to come in I can already see like almost like 50% of dining room got filled up in 10 minutes so how are you welcome how are you it's your first time you all been here before or I've been here before Oh thanks for taking all of them here really excited thank you I hope you enjoy it thank you just a just a quick

heads up almost like 50 to 60% of D got filled up already so we're going to get hard like in 15 20 minutes so get ready all right this is our first ticket it's 5:15 we have gun po DOA and the lamb the dry lamb which is AOA nice all right one for be one for 101 be 101 yes sir thank you sometime look dry because all the gunpowder so I want to make a little more you know um cres and ghee like all right guys thank you 305 please 305 thank you all right we

got a second ticket now it's 305 M be please thank you first 305 P so we have like a four gentlemen men and black right here beautifully dressed including Francisco we call him papa papa is the seen most guy in the kitchen so all four of the gentlemen we call them food Runners they are the one who takes all the food like so hard like piping hard to a table that they literally run to the table from here from Kitchen to table that's why they call food Runner they take turns they fight sometime gu in

the lamp 104 right 206 lamp let's say we have a 10 PRS right like we have like 10 15 PRS at the same time so instead of going the KDs one by one I write in a paper sometime they make all the six seven order PRS at the same time I just give the paper to them so they know exactly what table they have to go when we design the menu I also wanted to make them feel like eating at the home right thank you that looks beautiful three or five please thank you so so

many food has been plated in the wooden plates because you know I grew up in a f farmer family like you know grow up in such a small farm we used to eat food like the banana leaves and like wooden plates bamboo leaves and stuff like that right so I just wanted to bring back the same exact memory how I grew up eating it so this those idea do you know the table number 202 yeah you can see that screen get filled up like to the second B then that's where really busy like no then

we are like super busy this Dosa even he told me not to give it to us give it to the guest because you know it's slightly darker than usually this is the right color but this is little too dark so we're not serving this so this either goes to family or we might discarded it is a lot of money yes but we also take a pride we want to make sure that we get the best food to Our Guest how many seats the bar got filled up how many almost almost everything everything bar got fill

and this is called n p this is the snail dish so this is something that my grandma used to make in every time we used to go visit her during the school holidays we used to help her in like fragging snails and at a rice Patty farm so she used to take us for like hunting snail Fring all those things right like fishing so this is something we used to help my grandmother fragging the snails once the snail is fraged she used to cook them at the open fire in a mud form and then we

used to a banana Le literally in the middle of rice Patty farm so this is something we just want to replicate exactly how my grandma used to make it all right thank you this is for the shoot please thank you is all the table G filled up it's 540 oh yeah it's picking up now you can see the heat great thank you can you clean this up a little bit all right this is the we call UL Sunday pual which is seasonal pual UL Sunday means like farmers market in Tamil it's a it's a very

simple very humble dish that is made with a fresh coconut and all the seasonal vegetables sorted with fresh coconuts we are using uh red beads golden beads and B squash and mustard seeds guys can can we put some more Flores Flores Flor Flor Emily this goes to 202 please two P for 202 202 for two we have a rule that we have to repeat each other like we just want to make sure we're on the same page we want to make sure they hear me properly and I want to make sure I hear them properly

to make sure to we have effective communication that we don't make mistakes usually the the server takes care of the pacing because they coordinate with the guest they ask the guest like how do they like to go it out or they give the recommendation like how the food can go out because they know exactly how to P it out sometime they like to have those as a main C so we like to make sure that the food is being sent out exactly how they want to be so that's why that communication is happening all right

it's almost 6 now I think we almost sold about 30 th us more than 30 th [Music] us the xer I think can be a little stressful because every single section is like completely busy and we have a responsibility even though if you're busy it's not exuse we have to make sure every single disc has been executed in a way it's supposed to be like in terms of temperature taste consistency everything all right it's 6:30 now things are kind of slowing down thank you so much for spending the whole day with us and learning all

our stories in the ks kitchen we still have two more seiling to go like 7 and 9 and get out of here [Music]