Boucherie West Village Archives

What’s the ‘Simple Secret’ to a Great Dish? Manhattan’s La Grande Boucherie Chef Maxime Kien Reveals

By Joe Winger — 2 years ago

Manhattan’s La Grande Boucherie Chef Maxime Kien Reveals the ‘Simple Secret’ to a Great Dish

Chef Maxime Kien is the new Executive Chef of NYC’s The Group, responsible for La Grande Boucherie, Boucherie Union Square, Boucherie West Village, Petite Boucherie and more. And by the end of 2023, they’re launching even more restaurants.

But today’s conversation is about bringing the most flavor out of a plate’s ingredients

Chef Maxime Kien explains:

To me, the simpler the food on the plate, the harder it is to make. The food we see in some restaurants right now is over-complicated.

Too many ingredients, too much mixing of flavors and sauce and garnishes. [Instead,] try to stay true to what you’re trying to achieve.

Executive Chef Maxime Kien

Let’s say you’re doing a scallop. Cook the scallop properly, season it properly, don’t try to hide the flavor of the scallop with something which is gonna be overpowering and then you’re gonna be left eating something and not being able to recognize what you have in front of you.

Not looking at it and saying, ”What is that?”

Everybody thinks cooking fish is easy. No, it’s actually really technical because the second you over-cook it, the fish is worse.

The key is being able to take something nice, season it properly, cook it properly and make it the star of the dish, with something that is going to complement it.

A nice sauce is as simple as that. That’s what we are trying to achieve here, not try to be too complicated.

La Grande Boucherie is the number one booked restaurant in New York City. I think we’re in the top five in the USA as far as the volume that we do.

There are some items, like I will not put a tomato salad on the menu in December, even if we can find them. I want to make sure that I follow the seasons and follow nature. So tomatoes will come for summer.

In spring, you’re gonna have spring pie and try to stay true to the roots and try to stay true to seasonal things.

I wouldn’t put whole vegetable bread in the midst of summer because that’s something that you serve as food with venison in fall and winter. Mushroom season is mushroom season. Don’t try to do things ’out of season’ because the product is not gonna be the best. So if the product is not good, I don’t want to serve it. I’d rather not put something on the menu rather than put something on the menu that’s not gonna be to our standard. I don’t wanna do that.

Tell us about the next steps of NYC’s The Group launching several restaurants throughout the United States

The company [The Group NYC] started about 11 years ago with the vision of Emil Stefkov, the owner. He opened the first restaurant and the company grew pretty quickly after that.

The company almost quadrupled its size within a few years. Then because of Covid, everything was touch and go. But now we have a few projects coming up. We have Miami, Washington DC and Chicago. We’re gonna add another eight restaurants to the portfolio. We’re gonna double the size of the company within a short amount of time.

Well, there’s a lot of moving parts between developing the kitchen and having a look at the plans — we need to do this, this is where the pantry needs to be here. You know, and they’re talking about many developments and research and the staffing. There’s so many components. It’s not only like ‘We’re gonna open the restaurant.’ There is so much work behind that. You’re looking at the location. You have to think back to seasonal and local [ingredients and menu].

It’s all different food scenes. Even if you have core items from the menu, because they’re your identity, you have to look at every single location as an almost separate entity and be able to say, ‘This dish might not work over there, but it’s gonna work right here.’ So develop all of that and being thoughtful about everything.

Foodies: Where does NYC rank? Manhattan’s La Grande Boucherie Executive Chef Maxime Kien explains the World’s Culinary Scene

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Foodies: Where does NYC rank? Manhattan’s La Grande Boucherie Executive Chef Maxime Kien explains the World’s Culinary Scene

By Joe Winger — 2 years ago

Manhattan’s La Grande Boucherie Executive Chef Maxime Kien explains the World’s Culinary Scene and ranks NYC.

Chef Maxime Kien is the new Executive Chef of NYC’s The Group, responsible for La Grande Boucherie, Boucherie Union Square, Boucherie West Village, Petite Boucherie and more.

And by the end of 2023, they’re launching even more restaurants throughout the United States.

Born and raised in the South of France and with 20+ years of fine dining experience in Europe and the United States, today’s conversation is about the world’s culinary scene and where New York City fits on the list among the best.

What do you think of New York City’s culinary scene? Where does it fit within the world’s best?

I’m new in town. I’ve been here for three months. I was fortunate [that] I’ve been in America since 1999, so I was able to come to New York a few times before and I like the vibe of it. I like the atmosphere, I like the speed of it. There’s always something happening. Everybody’s always hustling, people are always in a rush. I lived in London for five years, so it kind of reminds me of that time. I’m really enjoying my time here.

There are few cities around the world like the Big Apple, the mix of everything, the mix of culture.

When you walk down the street, around the corner, all the food, it smells awesome.

[In New York City, ] you have the opportunity to be able to see so many different cultures, so many different foods in just one small area. Then you get on the subway and you can be in Chinatown, you can be in Koreatown, you can go anywhere and taste everything. That’s what I’m enjoying so far.

New York City cuisine can be everything and anything. You can walk home and pass by a little Korean restaurant and the aroma is gonna take you in. Or you can pass by a food stand on the street and the guy’s just doing his job making it smell great and you’re like, ‘I need to try that for lunch.’

[You can find] a shop that makes a beautiful sandwich, [and think] I need to do that. They do ketchup fresh every day. And they slice the prosciutto and the pastrami and that, and you’re like, I need to go and try that.

France for a long time was the culinary center of the world. I’m sure that some of my French colleagues and French chefs might not agree with what I’m going to say, but it’s like, it’s a mix of everything.

Then Spain came up with a lot of tapas and a lot of influences. Asian food has always been there. Even if a lot of Asian chefs, especially in Japan, actually went to Europe to train with famous French chefs to learn techniques. They were introduced to those techniques and used that to develop the culinary scene in Japan, Bangkok, Singapore, Hong Kong. Being able to use the French technique and mix it with some flavors from their own country.

But New York is easily in the top 10 culinary destinations in the world.

Tell us about the next steps of NYC’s The Group launching several restaurants throughout the United States

The company [The Group NYC] started about 11 years ago with the vision of Emil Stefkov, the owner. He opened the first restaurant and the company grew pretty quickly after that.

The company almost quadrupled its size within a few years. Then because of Covid, everything was touch and go. But now we have a few projects coming up. We have Miami, Washington DC and Chicago. We’re gonna add another eight restaurants to the portfolio. We’re gonna double the size of the company within a short amount of time.

Well, there’s a lot of moving parts between developing the kitchen and having a look at the plans — we need to do this, this is where the pantry needs to be here. You know, and they’re talking about many developments and research and the staffing. There’s so many components. It’s not only like ‘We’re gonna open the restaurant.’ There is so much work behind that. You’re looking at the location. You have to think back to seasonal and local [ingredients and menu].

It’s all different food scenes. Even if you have core items from the menu, because they’re your identity, you have to look at every single location as an almost separate entity and be able to say, ‘This dish might not work over there, but it’s gonna work right here.’ So develop all of that and being thoughtful about everything.

Manhattan’s La Grande Boucherie Chef Maxime Kien Reveals His Culinary Inspirations

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Manhattan’s La Grande Boucherie Chef Maxime Kien Reveals His Culinary Inspirations

By Joe Winger — 2 years ago

Manhattan’s La Grande Boucherie Chef Maxime Kien Reveals inspiration from Past Generations of Chefs

Chef Maxime Kien is the new Executive Chef of NYC’s The Group, responsible for La Grande Boucherie, Boucherie Union Square, Boucherie West Village, Petite Boucherie and more. And by the end of 2023, they’re launching even more restaurants throughout the United States..

But today’s conversation is about how the past has inspired Chef Maxime Kien’s work.

Chef Maxime Kien has over twenty years of fine dining experience but it all started as a young boy growing up in his family’s kitchens.

You grew up in kitchens. Your grandparents loved to cook and your father was a chef. How did these experiences inspire you?

Well, my Dad was a professional Chef in the South of France. In Monaco, all my grandparents, both my grandmothers and my grandfathers were great cooks. One of my great-grandfathers was a professional cook in Paris at an open air market that was very famous in the early 1900s. There was a very famous French brasserie opened over there and the story behind that is that the gentleman that opened that place wanted to have a place where all the chefs [that worked there] could meet because there was the open air market that was right next to it.

So you had a mix of late night partiers that would go out and party and wanted a place to be able to go eat and drink all night long. Now you had a place for that.

All the people that worked until late at night wanted a place where they could go and eat something before they went home. And Chefs that had to go to the market very early, at four o’clock in the morning to pick up that day’s poultry, rabbits, quails and all the fresh fish coming from Britain on a daily routine. They would do that at four o’clock in the morning and afterwards they needed a place to go for breakfast.

It was open 24 hours a day. It was always a mix of people from show business, like singers and actors.

You would have Mick Jagger sitting at the bar. Next to him would be a Chef. Next to the Chef would be a 14 year old boy having an omelet for breakfast with a glass of red wine at six o’clock in the morning. So it’s always been a mix of everything.

Unfortunately, my Dad passed away when I was really young. I was six. But I guess I was drawn to cooking and that lifestyle. It’s chaotic. When you’re working in a kitchen, you never know what time you’ll get done. It might be quiet and you get home at night by 10 o’clock.

If you start to get busy, you might not be done until two o’clock in the morning. So it’s a mix of adrenaline and being busy and it’s tough and it’s grueling and it’s rewarding and it’s a mix of everything

How did growing up in kitchens with your family inspire you to run your own kitchen?

Every chef is different. The way I run my kitchen is different from the way that other chefs I’ve worked with run theirs. It’s like a recipe. Everyone can interpret it differently. You take bits and pieces from a recipe to take the same dish and make it your own.

Someone’s management style is the same way. I’ve worked for some chefs who were very good at managing people, but in the kitchen they were not as great. And some of them were geniuses at creating dishes, but they were not the best at managing people. So you have to create your own style.

You graduated culinary school when you were very young. Would you still recommend school or encourage new chefs to learn hands-on in a kitchen?

The hard part about school versus hands-on is being able to understand exactly what [a new chef] is trying to achieve. Meaning that when I went to culinary school back in the 1980s, you wanted to graduate and get a diploma. After that, you wanted to be able to get your foot inside the door of a three Michelin star restaurant, a very famous place because you knew the chef was someone you were gonna be able to learn from.

And that [experience] was gonna take you to the next chef, that was gonna take you to the next chef, and so on. Because it’s a close-knit community, like a family. All the big chefs know each other. So when you’re ready to make your next move, the Chef [at your current kitchen] would come and ask, ‘Where do you want to go next?’ He’ll make a call and help you get that next job.

Now, unfortunately, the way some TV cooking shows happen, they give a vision of what it is to be a chef that is completely different from the truth.

So now you have cooks that go to very famous, very expensive culinary schools and they spend a huge amount of money to graduate. Then after two years of education, they expect to find a position of Executive Chef, making six figures and wearing Egyptian cotton jackets with their name on them.

But they don’t have the basics. They’re trying to run before they can walk. The biggest difference with my generation is, we went through all the processes, we didn’t try to rush the steps before you actually tried to be a chef.

You had to be a good line cook before you tried to become Chef de Partie and then [become] a good Chef de Partie before you become a Sous Chef, and then [become] a good Sous Chef, before you become an executive chef. So that’s the main difference.

Almost like an army style, you have to graduate through the ranks.

New chefs try to go too fast. Take your time. Find a chef you can learn from. New York is very lucky for that because you’ve got so many great chefs.

Daniel Boulud and all these great chefs brought the New York Culinary to the next level. Daniel Boulud has been here for 30 years now.

So go work for them, write everything down, taste everything, take pictures!

When I started, we didn’t have cell phones to take pictures, so it was whatever you could remember and whatever you could write down. Now we’ve reached a point where you can take a video of a chef doing a dish and afterwards you can write down notes.

I would say the biggest advice to the cooks right now: find a chef, find your niche, go work for him for two years, three years, four years. Write everything down, taste everything, ask questions, and then learn as much as you can.

Don’t think about being called “Chef” right away. Don’t think about making a ton of money. Learn as much as you can then, then after that, start to think about your next step. But take your time.

If you have the financial ability to be able to afford culinary school, do it, but it can be pricey. You don’t need to go to a very expensive, very famous one; but go to get some good basic training in a culinary school.

Then after that, go see a chef and say, “I just want to learn. I want to work for you. You’re the best in the business in your town.” It can be in New York. It can also be in Chicago or anywhere else. Just say, “I want to learn. I want to work for you.”