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>> BOURDAIN: Gluten-free, vegan, vegetarian, pescatarian, no soy, no dairy, no nut products.

Restrictions like these can drive a chef crazy.

There are those chefs that take a hard line: "Eat what I cook and how I cook it, or eat somewhere else."

But chef David Kinch has taken a more empathetic approach and uses these restrictions as an opportunity to challenge himself and his kitchen to get creative.

>> KINCH: He had no earthly idea.

>> BOURDAIN: Each guest has a menu catering to whatever restrictions they may have, be it personal preference or actual allergy.

Enter the Mind of a Chef.

>> KINCH: You can actually taste the sun.

I don't know how we're going to top that one.

This is the fun part in cooking.

Cheers.

♪ ♪ (sniffs) >> KINCH: A year and a half ago, we took the final plunge and went to a single menu.

Going to one menu is in essence asking people to trust you.

People are saying, "Well, there's no choice.

We're paying good money, let's see what you can do."

But a single menu is a myth unless you don't honor any restrictions at all-- vegetarian, vegan, pescatarian, no dairy, no red meat, gluten-free.

I've had people who won't eat white food.

Nothing pleases me more than every single person has their menu written out at 4:00 in the afternoon.

>> Anita at 22.

This one is no onion.

Fire four lamb, table 40 at 9:00.

One no red meat.

Thank you.

>> KINCH: And then there's the person who shows up where they forgot to mention... Did this five-top, did they tell us about all these restrictions?

>> Yeah.

>> KINCH: "It says here you're a vegetarian, not vegan," and they're vegan since their last visit nine months ago.

We have to adjust it on the fly at 7:45, and the restaurant's full.

We bounce around every station back and forth and back and forth.

It's too painful to recall.

(laughs) Okay, so I have a party of 30 here.

10 of the 30, one-third of the party, dietary restrictions, this is what we got: mineral water only, cannot eat cucumber, raw tomato, soft cheeses, olives, smoked salmon in sandwiches.

Can eat: simple sandwiches, prawn sandwiches, low carb, low sugar, nuts only in salads.

Less than half of that actually involve allergies.

>> There's always a joke in the restaurant when people say no red meat, and it goes, "Oh, serve them veal anyways, it's not red yet."

Allergies to us, it's if it harms your health.

That's when I'm concerned about allergies, if your body reacts to it, not because you don't like it.

>> KINCH: James, at Commis, is not afraid to cook exactly the food that he wants to cook.

He's someone who's very, very efficient, smart, and good with his hands.

>> The best way to cook meat is on the grill.

It uses a lot of senses.

You can touch and feel the meat as it cooks.

Something very primitive about it.

>> KINCH: I remember it being, as a young cook, you would not have this pink color here.

This would have been derisively referred to as "baby beef."

How come you're not in jail right now?

>> They haven't found me yet.

(chuckles) >> KINCH: People eat lamb, people eat suckling pig.

Why do you think there is this stigma of veal?

Do you think it has something to do with, like, rabbits, the fact that they're really, really cute?

>> Veal is what they thought a veal was 20 years ago.

Same thing with the whole foie gras argument.

There are old school methods and there are modern methods.

I think everyone's conscious of being sustainable and humane now.

>> KINCH: It's a beautiful piece of meat.

>> So now I'm making my oyster purée.

Chef, can you mind shucking some oysters for me?

>> KINCH: Yeah, of course.

>> Surf and turf is one of my favorites.

Every country has its own surf and turf-- the infamous steak and lobster.

Even in Thailand, cockles and pork.

This is kind of like an homage.

So I'm going to start with milk, agar-- a seaweed extract-- and then it gets cooled down, put over an ice bath.

Make something like a milk block.

Later, we're going to puree that with the oysters.

>> KINCH: But I don't eat baby animals and I have a shellfish and dairy allergy.

>> (chuckles) Sometimes, you would hear some of these allergies and you feel, like, getting taken advantage of.

>> KINCH: If I was truly a boy in a bubble and allergic and cannot eat up to two dozen things, which some of these cards have, and then they want to sit down and have a 17-course meal, you have to ask why they want to come to the restaurant.

>> And we all work very hard to deliver that experience, but you know, we just need the diner to meet us halfway.

>> KINCH: Yeah.

>> Especially in restaurants where it's a single menu every night, we want them to fully experience what we do.

Hospitality, for me, I believe it's a two-way street.

(whirring) >> KINCH: Should I shuck another oyster?

>> Yeah, let's throw another oyster in there.

(whirring) >> KINCH: When we're creating certain dishes for the menu, sometimes we have to not include something in a dish because we feel it's the best thing for it because of the amount of people who will choose not to eat it.

We are slightly handcuffed by people in giving our best possible experience.

>> But, you know, we are in the hospitality business, we're here to please.

We need to trust our diners, because if it is a serious health issue, we don't know.

We can only joke about it in our kitchens.

Chef, will you do the honors of slicing the veal?

>> KINCH: Sure.

That's gorgeous.

>> I love serving meat with the fat on.

That's the real true essence of the product, is the fat.

We have oysters.

Morel mushrooms and dill powder.

The spiciness of horseradish, but I'm using mustard greens instead.

Some raw onions.

>> KINCH: I'm sorry, I can't eat raw alliums.

>> (chuckles) So the dish is not intentionally to say, "Bug off, allergies."

As chefs, we want to cook the best delicious dish the best that we can, and that's how we went at it, but it kind of saddens me that diners are not willing to try and trust the chef and taste their creations.

>> KINCH: More for us.

>> (chuckles) >> Good afternoon, Mr. Johnson, courtesy call to confirm your reservation.

Are there any allergies the kitchen should be aware of in regards to creating your menu for tomorrow evening?

>> KINCH: The one we hear every night is gluten allergy, soy okay, which, you know, soy sauce has a lot of gluten in it.

You know, it's soy bean and wheat, fermented.

If something's going to cause your stomach to cramp up if you have celiac disease, it's going to be soy sauce.

It begs the question: why do people say that?

If they have this illness, you would think they would have an understanding of it.

>> Well, a food allergy is a body's overreaction to a foreign object coming into it that it doesn't think should be there.

It reacts as if it's a foreign invader and attacks it.

Things like wheat and fish, tree nuts and peanuts.

And if you are unlucky enough to have a true food allergy, you would go into anaphylactic shock, and that's the end.

Celiac-- C-E-L-I-A-C. Celiac disease is a problem that occurs when you eat a certain protein in wheat that's responsible for making bread rise and have fabulous little holes in it that destroy your intestinal villi.

Those are the little fingery things that have a big surface for absorbing nutrients.

If you have diarrhea, you have vomiting, all kinds of horrible problems, it's best to avoid it.

Bread is obvious, pasta is obvious, Pop-Tarts are obvious.

But much less obvious is the stuff that goes into sauces and processed foods.

You have to read labels really, really carefully and pray that they're telling you the truth and know what they're doing.

Ice cream doesn't have gluten in it, or at least it shouldn't.

Some people have intolerances.

Those aren't the same.

You either have celiac disease or you don't.

But the number of people who feel that they are gluten intolerant is expanding so rapidly to the point where it's created a fabulous market for gluten-free goods.

Fortunately, wheat is not an essential nutrient, so to exclude that from your diet makes you feel better and cuts down on calories.

(birds chirping) ♪ ♪ >> Salmon allergy.

This one is vegan.

No dairy, no dairy.

No chicken.

One nut allergy.

Gluten-free, soy okay.

>> Gluten-free, soy okay.

>> One no uncooked alcohol.

>> KINCH: The dining public are much more aware of what goes in their body and the effect that it has.

You don't want people to perceive that they're getting the exact same dish with the protein taken off.

There has to be some sort of thoughtfulness that went into their dish.

Chefs would be very unwise and probably disrespectful if they didn't take that into their repertoire.

We try to be hospitable and do everything that we possibly can, but sometimes we know that the best thing that we can add to it, like for instance a soup, is a chicken broth.

But we don't add it.

We just end up putting a really nice vegetarian stock in instead and be done with it.

>> But a lot of times, the limitations and the restrictions could spark another section in your brain of creativity, and then, "Oh wow, maybe this works even better," while still being delicious and not missing anything.

>> KINCH: Brooks Headley is this great punk rock drummer who also happens to be the pastry chef at the four-star Del Posto.

He is a vegetarian, he used to be vegan, and it affects his way that he thinks about food.

They gave you grief about that at Shade?

>> Shh... We're going to make silken tofu ganache.

It's a vegan dessert that we turn into a free-form chocolate crème brûlée on the plate.

I've got some brown sugar here that I've mixed a little pure vanilla extract into, and then I'm going to add some salt.

Desserts with no salt in it are sort of joyless, you know?

We're basically just going to turn it into a smoothie.

>> KINCH: It's now joyful.

>> We're starting on very low.

And the silken tofu will really liquefy, almost.

(whirring) And that's pretty much it at this point.

>> KINCH: That was violently simple.

>> (chuckling): It's true.

And then at that point, all we really do is add the melted chocolate.

>> KINCH: When you say "vegan," the one thing that doesn't pop into people's mind immediately is chocolate.

>> Milk chocolate obviously has milk, or white chocolate has milk powder, whatever, but chocolate itself, there's no dairy products.

(whirring) I don't really want to heat it up too much.

>> KINCH: That's beautiful.

>> And that's really all I want to do.

If you've got a little streakiness, just kind of... >> KINCH: That's okay?

>> Kind of do the rest by hand.

>> KINCH: Yeah.

>> Basically what we have right now is a tofu ganache, and this is going to firm up in the fridge.

>> KINCH: And how long does it take?

>> I like to do it at least a few hours.

Overnight, you can be sure.

>> KINCH: Chocolate pudding.

>> This is after it's set up overnight.

Pretty much like a soft ganache.

>> KINCH: That's going to go where you want it.

>> Sure, and the thing that's cool about this is there's no hydrocolloids, there's no gelatin.

There's nothing else to stabilize it except the stuff that you saw us put together.

And I like to just kind of give it, like, a weird free-form shape on there.

We'll take the sugar.

And then my favorite kitchen tool: the propane torch.

>> KINCH: Yeah, this is a Brooks Headley dessert, all right.

I see this coming.

>> When you're torching something, going like this doesn't really do anything.

You want to just kind of like... >> KINCH: And the chocolate's not melting.

>> It's not even moving it at all.

>> KINCH: It's not moving it at all.

>> It's so cool, I love it.

>> KINCH: I'd say just a little bit there, but that's kind of cool.

>> This is the part where I really want to touch it to make sure there's a crust, but I have to... you know, you want to wait a couple seconds.

>> KINCH: You have to be patient.

>> But you can see it's very, very thin and very sheer.

>> KINCH: Like a real crème brûlée.

>> Exactly, because that's what we're going for here, you know?

At least in the past, a crème brûlée was sort of abused and made in mass... >> KINCH: Trio, a trio of crème brûlée?

>> Oh, my God.

Made in massive quantities and without that perfect, thin, custardy deliciousness with, like, the perfect crust of sugar.

It is one of the most unctuous, delicious, perfect desserts.

>> KINCH: How many people get this dessert?

>> We never know, we always have it on hand just to make sure that if someone who is vegan comes in that we have something for them.

I like to zest like this.

Get little chunks.

>> KINCH: How do the philistines do it?

>> Normally, it's just kind of like...

This sort of violent action, like I want to destroy the citrus or whatever, and that just... that just seems so wrong.

As beautiful as this is or whatever cool products and techniques we put into it, the end result is someone comes in and eats something and then leaves happy.

That's our job.

We want everyone to leave completely psyched.

You know, we don't want anyone to leave and feel left out.

It's funny, we don't actually serve a normal crème brûlée.

Maybe I'm going to put one on the menu tomorrow, so... >> KINCH: Oh, that's great.

Creating a dish, there's no checklist.

Inspiration comes from many different paths.

>> Order in, two-top.

>> KINCH: Funny story, I went looking for a condor on a hike and I never found the condor, but I found poison oak.

I got on a plane to go to New York to do an event, and getting a call from the staff.

"You know, this fish, it's no longer available, "and we can't do the set "because the vegetable's not from the farm.

What should we do?"

I'm sitting here bathing in calamine lotion in a hotel room in misery.

"I really don't have a chance to do this.

"Come up with a dish and keep me posted on what you're going to do."

That's exactly what they did.

And they sent me a photograph with a lot of new ideas and techniques.

It was done in the spirit as if I had been intimately involved with it.

Right now, it's not completely vegetarian, but it is meat-free.

It has a really nice smoky element because we replaced the bacon with smoked fish.

Everything in here was mostly about the aromatics.

All the broth is really contributing is the artichoke flavor.

We now have the broth semi-clear.

I'm going to take some fresh thyme and I'm going to add this to the broth and let it sit just for a couple minutes until we get to the point where we feel that the thyme has made its contribution, and it will happen very fast.

It's essentially finished right now except for adjusting the seasoning.

However, gluten-free people cannot have this dish because of what we season it with.

All of our dishes are seasoned with soy.

I'm going to try and season it correctly.

During the process, we added pinches of salt in there, we added a little bit of vinegar.

I'm going to taste.

It's almost there.

I think I nailed it on that one.

We're going to make fried artichokes in a very interesting and unusual shape.

Starting to see the yellow of the base.

I'm going to stop here.

Going to remove all the green, as much of the green as I possibly can.

Green's going to be bitter and tough.

Even the small amounts there I'm going to want to get rid of.

We're going to create long ribbons with this.

Nice long artichoke ribbon.

And once it's fried, it can get grotesque in its shape, twisted or gnarled.

This is black cod, which is a local fish.

It's very, very fatty.

It takes to smoking and grilling very well.

There's a couple of different techniques for doing this.

Some people like the skin lays flat across the fire.

I like to have it as close to the bottom of the fish as possible.

That's the fish fat hitting the fire causing the smoke.

Don't want too much of a flare-up.

Skin's sizzling already.

Working with the fire, moving the fish around.

Super crispy, almost like a potato chip.

A touch of a fish sauce.

Trying to avoid the skin.

We worked hard to keep the skin crispy.

The first dish they sent out the night it was on the menu, they sent me a photograph.

It was spectacular.

Beautiful piece of black cod with fish sauce.

It's the green of leeks that have been charred and mixed with olive oil.

Crispy artichoke ribbons.

It's elegant, it's very colorful.

By its very nature, it's a very feminine dish, which I think is a very apt description for many of the dishes that come out of our kitchen.

And the last thing to finish is that beautiful artichoke broth.

It's about the synergy between the fish and the artichoke.

My job a lot of times now is to promote the restaurant and be engaged outside.

I enjoy cooking, but I think there was a period I was relying on managers more to run the restaurant.

I was still at the restaurant, but I wasn't as engaged perhaps.

Of course, this is all in retrospect.

Obviously, the fire causes a lot of introspection, and you start thinking about how you did things.

Perhaps you're being given the opportunity to do things a little bit differently.

All is fine, the staff is great, but I miss being in the kitchen.

That makes me happy.

It makes me happy to do that.

(indistinct chatter) As a young cook, food is everything.

You'll go eat anywhere as long as the food is great.

But you realize that a lot of people come to restaurants for different reasons.

Not everybody comes because they're food-obsessed.

They just want a nice night away from the kids, they want a comfortable chair.

It's like the theater.

It's an event, it's entertainment, and you go because you want to experience what a particular restaurant has to offer.

We try to find that right balance.

How do we cook for ourselves and challenge ourselves, yet at the same time, create a satisfaction in customers that perhaps will even come back and visit us a second time?

If there is a restaurant with a brilliant chef and nobody goes, is he actually a brilliant chef?

(sniffs)