Open-flame cooking is having a moment: Five of our top restaurants have integrated hardwood hearths into their kitchens. We asked the chefs to share some lessons from their trials by fire.
Fire is fickle
Quiote inherited a wood-fired Italian pizza oven from the previous tenants. “There’s a delicate balance to where the logs go so the dining room doesn’t fill up with smoke,” says Dan Salls. The staff has named the oven Gloria.Photo: Jeff Marini
Fire is dangerous
Even professional chefs get scorched—two cooks at Roister had to go to the hospital with third-degree burns.Photo: Jeff Marini
Fire is very, very hot
It took a while for sous chef Stephen Sandoval, who’s been manning the oven at Leña Brava since day one, to get used to the intensity of wood-fired cooking: “We’ve had times when we’d oil a pan and it would light up with three-foot-high flames because the pan was so damn hot, and then someone has to scramble to bury it in salt to cover and smother it.”Photo: Jeff Marini