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If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like behind the scenes of a restaurant, this is for you. In Behind the Line, photojournalists take you inside the kitchen for a unique perspective on everything that goes into a single day of service, and the people who make it all happen.
In this edition, we get a glimpse into a day at New York’s Corima, the Michelin-starred restaurant from chef Fidel Caballero, from photographer and journalist Michael Harlan Turkell.
When he opened Corima at the crossroads of Chinatown and the Lower East Side in early 2024, Fidel Caballero rounded up an accomplished and affable team of cooks, half of whom he knew from El Paso, Texas, and nearly all of whom have stuck with him ever since. Having spent half of a day with them, from prep to family meal and dinner service, it’s clear to me just how much of a team they really are, and it’s also no wonder, then, that they’ve been lauded with acclaim for what they’ve created together, including a recent Michelin star. At Corima, the cuisine is best described, in Caballero’s own words, as “progressive Mexican cuisine,” drawing from a multitude of influences from around the world and resulting in a multi-course tasting menu ($125 per person) and an à la carte menu that has everything from tlayudas and tetelas to katsu sandos and tamales. Each team member knows their role in the kitchen, whether it’s making tortillas or working on pastry, but each can easily step in wherever they’re needed. They’re just that strong of a team. Corima’s cooking and its ideas feel uniquely collaborative: Each cook’s voice is heard, and amplified, and Caballero not only surrounds himself by the best ingredients, but also, the best people.
There’s a simple black-and-white sign that hangs above Corima’s 2024 Michelin star placard. It reads: “Imaginemos Cosas Chingonas,” a quote from, arguably, Mexico’s most famous soccer player, Javier Hernández Balcázar a.k.a. Chicharito. Translated roughly, it reads, “Let’s imagine great things.”
Exploring the restaurant, I stumble onto the chef’s cookbook collection, which often tells you a lot about how a chef cooks. Caballero’s includes titles from Spain’s Etxebarri restaurant, Peruvian chef Virgilio Martínez of Lima’s Central, Rodolfo Guzmán of Chilean Boragó’, the poetry of Jimmy Santiago Baca in Blood In Blood Out, and Joshua McFadden’s Six Seasons tome on vegetables.
At this point in the day, prep work is in full swing, and cooks are busy shuffling items from the walk-in to the kitchen. Behind the open kitchen is the dish pit, where there’s a solitary door that leads to a labyrinth-like corridor downstairs where the walk-in refrigerator is located.
Corima has a copious collection of compound butters, infused oils, adobos, molé sauces, sofritos and Japanese tare, all ready for service. In another part of the kitchen, I spot fish tubs filled with raw ingredients, some to be used day of, while others find their way into ferments weeks later, awaiting their role on the menu.
Corima’s dry-aging program transforms fish and meat from a texture perspective, tightening up proteins, but also developing deeper, more profound flavors over time.
I take a peep at the prep list for a composed salad, crudo-like scallop appetizer, and tlayuda, an open-faced fried tortilla. This one contains chapulines (grasshoppers), and a savory flan.
I see Caballero washing his knives, which include everything from a French sabatier to a Japanese deba, each of which has their own roles in the kitchen, especially when it comes to fish butchery. He tells me the deba is often used for initial trimming and bones, while the sabatier is meant for fileting and fine tuning.
Chef de partie Conrado Gonzalez shapes dozens of dough balls that will eventually be rolled out into large foot-wide tortillas. He makes the dough the day before, using Sonoran whole wheat flour mixed with hot water to achieve the desired chewy texture. Before service, he rolls the dough into balls, and once tickets start coming in, he grills the tortillas to order on a countertop griddle.
In the compact kitchen, chefs are often stacked upon each other, picking herbs, making purées and emulsifying sauces in many Vitamixes.
During prep, I couldn’t help but hum along to the bilingual musical selections, some of which blare in Spanish sometimes, and which you can just pick up from the entrance on Allen Street. In a small alcove by the bar, a stack of vinyl, including contemporary rock, rap albums and vintage Japanese-pressings of Hall & Oates, sits an analog record player. Later, during service, they’ll play a curated soundtrack in the dining room, while back in the kitchen, the chefs toil in pseudo-silence, inundated with orders.
It’s time for a quick team photo before service gets into full gear. From left to right: Hector Medina, chef de partie; Selvin Xoy, prep cook; Ezequiel Corona, sous chef; Fidel Caballero, chef and owner; Conrado Gonzalez, chef de partie; Francisco Pedemonte, general manager; and Jorge Ortiz, chef de partie. It should be noted not all members of the original kitchen team were present on this particular day of service.
For today’s staff meal, they’ve got herb roasted chicken, potato gratin with plenty of cheese and lobster oil, and a frilly salad of market greens. It’s a time for everyone to fuel themselves before a busy dinner service, and catch up with one another.
It’s the calm before the storm as everyone puts the final touches on their stations and gets ready for the first guests to arrive.
Ezequiel Corona readies the tape to label all his prep work before dinner service begins. Staying organized is the key to a smooth service.
Francisco Pedemonte fries cod bladders into crispy chicharrónes to accompany a razor clam ceviche of sorts, served with beet leche de tigre.
The large central island in Corima’s kitchen is Caballero’s home base, which acts as a place to expedite and finalize each plate with garnishes. Chefs are in a constant orbit from their satellite stations, from garde manger to grill.
Gonzalez turns out at least 100 sourdough flour tortillas every night. For the first course of the tasting menu, the soft and exceptionally fluffy flour tortillas are stuffed into bowls and tangled with significant scoop of recado negro butter, a burnt chile blend from Mexico’s Yucatan. In other dishes, the tortillas become fried quesadillas filled with seasonal ingredients, or chips for a smoky, dry-cured beef cecina tlayuda.
Expo is in full swing now that service has begun. Tickets begin lining up and orders start getting called out in succession.
Most diners at Corima opt for the tasting menu ($125), an expression of Caballero’s desire to bring new Mexican ideas to life. Often, this means that Caballero and crew carefully play at the crossroads of south-of-the-border ingredients, imbued with metropolitan methodologies. An example of this is the restaurant’s signature veal brain char siu tacos, which are glazed like Cantonese roast pork, before receiving a generous coating of cilantro gremolata.
Caballero plates a tasting menu–only hake pil pil dish.
Jorge Ortiz mans the Japanese charcoal konro grill station. Here, branzino collars are grilled over blazing hot binchotan coals, slathered in chintextle, a Oaxacan smoked-chile paste.
Pastry chef Erick Rocha works on assembling mignardises toward the end of the night as service wraps up.
