Chef Profile: Justin Bogle, GILT Restaurant, The New York Palace
The Chef: Justin Bogle, Executive Chef at GILT, the two Michelin-starred restaurant at the New York Palace.
The Toolbox: Though Chef Bogle does have a toolbox, it plays second fiddle to the locked drawer he keeps in the kitchen at GILT. In the toolbox, he keeps everything that he doesn’t need on a daily basis.
His First Tool: Bogle cherished the full set of Wusthof knives he received as a gift when he first entered culinary school. “I just started cooking before entering culinary school, and I didn’t have any knives,” he says. “The kit lasted all the way through school, and then they started to disappear. I have one left at this point, the serrated knife, though I’ve since upgraded to Japanese knives.
A Tool That Grew Legs: Although all but one of the Wusthof knives grew legs, Bogle specifically remembers how the 8-inch knife from that collection disappeared when he was working with Christopher Lee at The Striped Bass in Philadelphia. “We had a young kid working for us who was pulling two shifts, one for us, one somewhere else,” he recalls. “After one of my days off, I came back and the knife was gone. About two weeks later, Chris told me he’d given it to the kid. I considered it to be a good donation, since someone had given me the knives when I first started out, too.”
His Holy Grail Tool: Chef Bogle is currently salivating over rotary vacuum evaporators. “You put flavorings into a chamber where they’re pressurized, rotated, and distilled, so you’re left with the pure flavor essence,” he explains, adding that with this method, it’s possible to distill jalapenos without the heat. He recently dined at Grant Achatz’s famed restaurant Alinea in Chicago, where he remembers the Thai lettuce wrap. “The course started off with a shotglass of Thai flavors, literally distilled lemongrass, chile, jalapeno, and fish sauce served in a crystal clear glass. I could taste everything in the shotglass. If you start the course off by drinking this, you’re really narrowing down to the pinpoint what that flavor is.”
What a Psychologist Would Say About His Toolbox: “Absolute chaos,” he replied. “I’m not the most organized person, but I know where everything is, and my tool drawer is booby-trapped. My knives have their covers on, but I’ve arranged a random meat fork or wine key in there, so if anyone starts digging around, they’re liable to get a little poke to keep them out.”
