Arun staged at Boragó in Santiago, Chile which gave him the chance to learn about plating, the philosophy behind dishes and how to create a truly endemic menu
For my Ment’or Grant I selected Boragó in Santiago, Chile. The emphasis on micro-seasonality, foraging, ingenuity in presentation and high technique is what attracted me to this stage location. I had come up working at a small farm to table bistro and butchery focused on regional produce. I followed Chef Guzman as one of the leading examples of pushing the boundaries of this philosophy. The water that is served table side is rain water from the Andes. The wines are from extinct grape varietals that have been transplanted to Chile like Carmenere, Semillon, and Pais. Ingredients on the menu include Loco, a carnivorous giant sea snail endemic to South America; Cochayuyo, an msg and amino laden seaweed used in various preparations; and Loyo, a giant porcini that has been harvested by indigenous peoples for generations.
From the moment you walk in the door the Executive Sous Chef Alejandro sets the standard for your stage. Uniforms and presentations must be exact. The way one cleans at Boragó is very specific and unique amongst high end restaurants I’ve worked at. Every piece of product leaving the walk-in is weighed and measured for yield. Sauces are measured through a refractometer for viscosity and consistency. The level of control and thoughtfulness behind each aspect of the kitchen was obsessive and inspiring.
I spent the first week in production where I was in charge of picking through produce and foraged goods to assure quality. We were required to clean snails when they arrived; pick various oxalis and herbs; do small prep and sauce projects for the line cooks; and process mountains of foraged produce. Our mornings would begin with cutting osmosized leaves into tiny gems for a lamb dish. Then we would move into carving branches out of masa for a presentation. The middle of the day often would transition into helping with the family meal and small projects for R&D like carving pumpkins to be inoculated with penicillium roqueforti and hollowing out bread for penicillium camemberti. After family meal we would try to process garnishes as fast as the line cooks downstairs could plate them. I worked as fast, clean, vocal and consistent as possible. Chef Felipe noticed my ambition and took me foraging the next morning.
That was the experience of a lifetime. He drove us to Isla Negra, two hours outside Santiago to a remote beach teeming with wild edible produce and seaweeds to harvest. There were wild horses gallivanting about, mist rising off the ocean, and we were tasting wild flowers and seaweeds as the sun rose. That morning we harvested estrellas del mar (a very special allium flower), oxalis carnosis, sea chard, and cochayuyo (a giant squid looking seaweed).
More impressive still was that when we came back the next week, we were harvesting completely different flowers. The seasons in Chile are so ephemeral and fleeting that the chefs often have to change the menu based on what we can forage that day. Every product at Borago is the result of a familiarity with every nuance of every region of Chile that can only come from a legacy such as the one Chef Rudolfo Guzman built. In their test kitchen every inch of every wall is covered with maps and locations where they can find specific products; koji calendars; and spreadsheets illuminating the seasonality and best uses of every foraged product throughout Chile.
After that unforgettable foraging day, they moved me to pastry. I hadn’t worked many pastry stations and I learned how to carve and set butterfly wings and autumn leaves made of fruit leather using different hydrocolloids and techniques. I set and molded chocolate-seaweed mushrooms to be “foraged” tableside.
Two days later they moved me on to the snack station where the first three dishes are created. I have never worked in a kitchen with such intensive plating. I was in charge of the third dish. I shaped sheets of giant cuttlefish we laminated around tiny sticks of fermented daikon that had been brushed with a black apple and raw sugar reduction to look like tentacles. After being coated in a black breadcrumb and attached to a seaweed cracker seasoned with a tartar sauce, the result resembled a beautiful sea star at the bottom of the ocean. It was plated on a pico roco shell buried in edible sea sand filled with a pulmay (smoked mussel) broth. It was an ingenious and easy way to present delicious food but reinforce a connection with the environment the ingredients came from. After two days running this section, I ended up at my home for the rest of my tenure: carnes.
Carnes was the busiest and most technically skilled station. I was in charge of making the sauces for and cooking the giant sea snails and lamb. Both are signature dishes of Borago.
The lambs are sourced from the south of Chile and are clean-tasting, well-sized, short-haired and beautiful. They are cooked “al inverso,” a variation of the traditional asado lamb you see all throughout South America. It was my favorite thing to do every day because of its connection with the visceral and particular nature of ancestral cooking. Depending on the time of day you arrived for dinner, you would get a different cut of the lamb as it achieved perfect temperature. Eating any leftover lamb at the end of the night was the best reward for perfect cookery and a coveted tradition by the guys in charge of the lamb.
The loco was a different monster entirely. With three different cooking processes, three sauces, and at least 35 touches on the final plate, it took up the majority of my time. The sea snail, like the abalone we find in San Francisco, is a difficult thing to process. Loco has been a delicacy throughout Chile for many years and its harvesting is something highly regulated to ensure sustainability. The loco is pressure cooked, then grilled in a koji seed honey butter emulsion, and then sauteed and basted in more honey butter before being plated in its own shell. The set for the loco changed 5 times during my stay, and I was proud and terrified to be a part of each change and be in charge of every stage of production. After my success on carnes, it became my home. I spent the next two months perfecting and learning about the lamb and loco cookery, forging connections with the chefs over at R&D and training new employees. It was unbelievably rewarding. The connections with my fellow chefs became more important than any recipes, techniques or tricks I took away.
Recipes and tricks you can learn anywhere, but philosophies, practices, and methodologies are what's important. In production I learned how to be faster with tweezers and cleaner and smaller in my workspaces. In pastry I learned patience and specificity with recipes. Some techniques can’t be rushed and many of the garnishes we used took many tries to make perfect. I learned tricks for making different tamaris and soy sauces and shortcuts for achieving flavors fast with koji molds. On the line itself I learned vertical butchery with the lamb dish, and many different interesting plating techniques and philosophies.
Overall the most important thing I learned at Boragó is purposefulness and legacy. Having been around for over a decade, Boragó isn't trying to reinvent itself and keep up with trends. It is pursuing its ideology with a single minded intensity that is both inspiring and consuming. The perfect example of this is the Loco dish. It is part of a progression of “rocks” that is your introduction into the tasting menu and for many of our guests, Chilean cuisine. It’s intelligent in many ways but mostly for how it presents the experience. Starting with a progression of rocks is ingenious because many of Chile’s best products come from rocks: locos, pico roco, mussels, sea weeds, mil rama, peumo, etc. They are emblematic of the desert, the Andes, Patagonia, and the rocky coast, the things that make Chile unique. Right from the beginning you are struck with an intense representation of Chile. The loco is found on the coast around Val Paraiso, and on that same coast you find the Estrellas del Mar which only exist from a split second of time. Naturally they are paired together. The flowers have a fermented allium and honey like smell, so we cook the locos in honey butter to bring out the natural aromatics of the flowers. The snail is presented on rocks with a purée of sunflower seed koji which provides an earthy umami rich bite that once again reminds you of rocks. Oxalis found on that same coast provides the acid necessary to balance out the dish. You are eating the ideation of a location, environment and experience and technique is used 100 small ways to reinforce memory.
At Boragó I became one of the only interns to move out of production in the first week, and became the only intern the chefs would let carve and be in charge of the lamb. I learned skills at fermentation, sourcing, and butchery that I will eventually use to contribute to the culture at Saision. The achievements I’m most proud of are the connections I made with chefs from all over the world. We are still in contact and I already have a few who are coming to stage at Saison to learn a little more about what we do. When I returned to Saison I was able to accept a position as a chef, and I hope to bring my Chilean experience into future menu design and development of our experience.
