How the Best Cheesesteak in NYC is Made

[lively music]

Hi, I'm Michael Vignola,

Chef/Partner here at The Eighty Six,

an intimate New York City West Village steakhouse.

Today we are talking about the perfect Philly cheesesteak.

[lively music ending] [bell dinging]

This cheesesteak is the homage to the original,

doing our riff on it, you know,

taking that classic, making it approachable yet advanced.

Australian Wagyu ribeye, three alpine cheeses,

then you have a B&G pepper relish,

a creamy caramelized onion spread.

Can't forget our house-baked sesame bread

with a little bit of Maldon Salt.

It's gonna hit all those classic notes

and just be elevated so much further.

The beef is a three-day process.

Let me show you how it starts. [lively music]

So we're going down to the 126-year-old walk-in box.

So what we have here is a seven-bone,

12-by-12 standing rib roast.

This is a Westholme Australian Wagyu ribeye.

Start with great products and just honor 'em.

[lively music]

First thing we do, we're gonna score it lightly.

When I say score, I'm just dragging the blade of the knife,

creating small channels for the fat to render

and continually bast the meat as we slow roast it.

Kosher salt, one of my favorite ingredients.

Salt is the magnifying glass of flavor.

Everybody tends to under season.

They also go too close to where you just season this.

When you're seasoning,

up high like a shotgun so it spreads out.

You want it to go and cascade down slowly.

Next up, coarsely ground Madagascar black pepper.

When I say coarsely ground, we grind it in a grain mill

so that we can control the crunch

and the diameter of the peppercorn.

We're gonna rub all of this in there.

You can feel the fat starting

to render on this beautiful Australian Wagyu as it comes up

to temp a little bit under the heat of my hands,

sucking up that salt, grabbing onto that pepper.

Mustard's gonna be our aggregate.

It's gonna help encase this whole thing.

It's got a little bit of tannic properties

that are gonna cut through the fibers of the meat.

It's gonna give it a little bit more dexterity,

tensility strength, and a little bit of help

with the chew of the final product.

The Philly cheesesteak's really near and dear to my heart.

In the summer of '97, my father, Ronald,

was called for a lung transplant

down at Temple University Hospital.

In front of Temple University Hospital,

there was this one place called Fat Albert's

where this guy would park out front

and I would watch him meticulously

make his Philly cheesesteaks.

I needed his cheesesteak

and I needed his hospitality more than I knew.

And for that, this cheesesteak is born from it.

And it's really important to me to honor that memory,

one, of my father and two, of that man.

After this is on there,

we have some beautiful flowering time,

just lightly picked and chopped.

[Michael grunting]

Again, like a shotgun, spreads out, make it rain.

Rosemary, little Christmasy vibes, classic rose flavors,

pairs well with beautiful pieces of beef.

It's not gonna burn because it's protected by the mustard

and it's all just gonna add to the crust

and the ultimate finished product of our debris.

We're gonna do the same thing on the underside,

just without the herbs.

Why Wagyu, right?

I like Australian Wagyu as opposed

to Japanese Wagyu for this product.

Japanese Wagyu is like eating butter, foie gras.

Australian Wagyu marries the best

of like American prime genetics, steer, chew,

that great unctuousness with Japanese genetics of fat,

beautiful, rich marbleization.

Salting and marinating this meat also does a few things.

Pulling out some of that extra water weight,

intensifying the marbleization

so it's leaving behind the fat, right?

That fat, as it cooks and slowly renders,

is gonna give you

that really delicious umami, rich, unctuous bite

in this cheesesteak.

Don't forget to rub it in.

You know, it's like when the Yanks beat the Mets,

you gotta rub it in.

That's for you.

Now that we have this marinated, seasoned,

our herbs, our salt, our pepper, our mustard,

we're gonna let it dry and marinate for a day.

Put it in the oven, roast it till it's perfect.

Let it rest in the walk-in cold

so it gets all that juice back into it

and then we're gonna slice it nice and chilled.

Let's go. Here she is three days later.

You can see that crust.

This is it after it's been rested,

roasted, marinated and cooked.

We're almost there.

You could see that bark that developed, right?

That crust, it's all over the back here.

I'm gonna spin this bad boy around.

You can see it's ready to roll.

You can see it shrunk down inside.

You can see the bones now.

So as that fat rendered

and basted this meat, it just shrank down slowly.

Remember, we're gonna use everything here,

including this beautiful crust.

But I don't wanna lose any of this beautiful fat crust,

intermuscular beef that we talked about.

I'm just slowly going against these bones,

freeing them up one at a time,

making sure to preserve that beautiful rested meat

in every piece of it.

So now the bones, the ribs are off.

Then you have this tranche of ribeye.

Next up, we're gonna take it,

we're gonna square it up and get it ready for our slicer.

You ask, Why Wagyu?

You can tell, just look at my board,

this beautiful fat that has been rendered.

That fat is really gonna melt in your mouth.

It's not gonna be left on the griddle,

like at those other places south of here.

We're gonna cut it into half to make it more manageable

on our slicer, but just look at this beautiful cook on this.

Perfectly rose, beautiful intermuscular fat.

You can see the veining of that for the Australian Wagyu.

Oh. It's time to slice it paper thin.

I'm rotating through so that everybody gets a piece

of the same area in each bite,

ultimately eating the entire ribeye.

So you get a piece of that cap, a little bit of the eye,

and some of that beautiful unctuous fat.

We will continue this till we build our piles.

Our Philly cheesesteaks are six ounces

of thinly sliced Australian Wagyu

and about an ounce, ounce and a half of our debris.

We're gonna take these and let 'em chill

while we work on our debris next.

[lively music]

What is debris and why do we do it?

I call it debris because it's all this leftover bitter ends

and all the unctuous bits and parts, the nasty bits

that aren't quite beautiful and pristine.

The traditional Philly cheesesteak is done on a flat top.

It's kind of griddled and almost chopped cheese-ish like.

So you got a little bit of Maillard.

Maillard is the caramelization

of the natural sugars in the meat.

That gives you that great steak flavor,

that little bit of that griddle-y taste,

that sear is what you crave.

To make our version of that,

we are gonna take all this Maillard,

all this beautiful fat and make our version of debris.

First thing we're gonna start with, beautiful rib cap.

My favorite.

Easiest way to do this,

straight down, cut that bone off.

Once you have them all broken down

is where the work begins.

What we're gonna do is start to clean all

of this beautiful meat off.

No waste. Every little bit is going somewhere.

Even these bones will go to my beverage director,

Lucas's dog Xena.

Yes, the Warrior Princess.

All of these bones even get used.

We're gonna save them, roast them

and add them to our mushroom au jus.

All these beautiful bits and pieces cooked down

and chopped up and whipped with their own fats.

Think of it as a spreadable beef pate, crust, fat, Wagyu,

mustard, all the herbs, the salt,

the pepper goes into the Robot-Coupe, or food processor.

Pulse this. [food processor whirring]

You can see this beautiful fatty chopped beef.

After you have this beautiful Wagyu rillettes,

I put it in a pot and then I, you know,

yada, yada, yada, do a bunch of stuff,

or witchcraft as my daughter Mia says,

and it turns into this amazing debris.

I'd love to show you more, but a girl needs her secrets.

What it really adds is the secret sauce of it all,

that hidden surprise

that you just can't quite put your finger on.

It gives you that [Michael smacking lips]

mouthwatering, lip-smacking secret sauce deliciousness.

[spoon banging] This is one of the aspects

that I think sets us apart

from the traditional Philly cheesesteak

while still honoring the flavor profile

that is achieved down south.

Now, how do we reheat this slowly, cook it,

but not overcook it?

First thing we're gonna do, take about an ounce of debris,

six ounces of thinly sliced meat.

We then take a Ziploc bag, open up one per order,

take our thinly sliced meat and our debris,

and we are gonna recirculate

or sous vide cook this gently.

So what sous vide does for us is allow us

to control the cooking temperature and time.

It's gently heating proteins in a water bath

or a controlled environment, right?

So think of it as a jacuzzi, if you will,

set at a perfect temperature

where protein cook at certain specific temperatures.

It's a little bit of science.

It takes away the guesswork

because again, the key to greatness is consistency.

So our meat's slowly hanging out in the jacuzzi.

Let's talk whiz, cheese spread,

whatever you wanna call it.

[lively music]

Provolone, cheddar, American, Cheese Whiz,

they all have one thing in common,

whether it's our alpine blend or not, it's an aggregate.

Kind of blankets the whole beef and cloaks it,

keeps it moist, rich, unctuous, juicy, delicious.

We make our version of Whiz, if you will,

with three alpine cheeses,

so harder, funkier, earthy cheeses.

We start with Comte, three-year-old Comte from France,

delicious, funky, semi-soft, kind of creamy, alpine cheese.

Next up is Hornbacher.

Hornbacher from upstate New York is a local cheese to us,

brought in by Murray's.

Again, hard semi-soft cheese.

And the third one, I'm not gonna tell you what it is.

We take these cheeses, we melt them down.

We slowly incorporate them till we get this beautiful,

gloppy, natural Cheese Whiz, if you will.

One of the other hallmarks

of a great Philly cheesesteak is onions.

Here at The Eighty Six, we start with Vidalia onions,

slowly cooked down in a little bit of white wine,

some spices, some bay laurel, some thyme,

and we just really keep 'em slow

and low cooking down here on the flat top

until they turn into this beautiful caramelized, onion-y,

not jam, but just component.

It's gonna add a little bit of bite,

that rich griddle texture to the final product.

One more hallmark we gotta talk about is the bread

'cause you forget the bread.

We bake this bread in house.

These were baked very early this morning.

They're super soft. They are delicious.

We're gonna cut it in half,

and by half, it's a little bit higher

towards the top than it is the bottom.

I want that bottom to really hold it and build that barrier.

That's also why we toast it.

Nobody wants soggy, wet bread, except for the birds.

Small amount of salted, melted butter,

and I just kind of mop it in there, right?

This is gonna help an even browning or Maillard.

Make sure you do both sides, right?

Nobody wants to go around bottomless.

We're not Donald Duck for Christ's sakes.

And we're gonna toast this on our plancha now.

It's just a low temp kind of griddle,

provides a nice, even, beautiful toast.

You notice that I'm pressing down on it.

I wanna make sure I get a nice even brown,

which is important.

You don't want it to be all loose and like mushy

because you want that bite. [lively music]

The moment we've all been waiting for,

now we build The Eighty Six cheesesteak.

Step one, we're gonna take our beef out of the bath.

Next up, we're gonna add a little bit of our au jus

made from the bones of our Wagyu,

some of our caramelized white wine onions.

Feel the acidity from the white wine helps cut

through the unctuousness of the meat.

Just wanna separate the layers a little bit

and make sure we're getting all of those flavors mixed in.

This is essentially what you'd be doing on the griddle

when you're chopping it up and getting that Maillard.

Next, our bread, beautifully toasted,

our caramelized onion and black pepper spread.

This is gonna add a little bit of richness to it.

It's gonna give you a little more depth of flavor.

It's gonna keep that bite nice and wet.

After our black pepper onion spread,

we put our B&G-inspired relish on top.

This is B&G peppers, the hot cherry, Italian cherry peppers,

ground down, and then we add a little bit

of love from The Eighty Six in there.

The spiciness kind of cuts through the richness

of the alpine cheese spread,

gives you that lacto-fermented tang of it all.

You have this beautiful bad boy here. Put it right on there.

We then take our beautiful hot Whiz. Don't be shy with it.

You kind of let it go where it wants to.

Then our topper.

Oh, look at this bad boy. [lively music]

We're gonna cut it into thirds.

Believe it or not, this is a mid-course here,

nine out of 10 times here at The Eighty Six.

For that reason, we cut it into thirds

so you can share with your guests.

Put it onto a nice antique silver tray.

And there you have it, The Eighty Six cheesesteak.

Hope you've enjoyed it. I have.

I always go for the end. I like the tush of the bread.

Look at that bite.

[Michael crunching]

Oh [beep].

You get the crunch of the bread.

You get the unctuousness of the meat,

the sweet acidity of the onions,

the spice pepper pickle of the relish,

then that alpine cheese

that doesn't mask the chew of the bread, the sesame,

the salinity in the meat.

You can taste the herbs, the unctuous, the debris.

So you have layers and balance where it pushes

and pulls you to places.

Sorry, Gino, Pat, you guys just don't go there.

This is my homage to Fat Albert's.

It's a little nod to my pops.

It is a little bit of me and my history

and my journey through it, all in this sandwich.

I wanted to honor the past and elevate it for the future.

[lively music ending]