Quartered and warmed to order, each half loaf is toasted with careful consideration for the perfect amount of humidity required to achieve a crust that is just the right amount crunchy. Served alongside superiorly sourced butter, in a pool of buttermilk and topped with a dash of salt, Jose's sourdough is delicious on its own and even better with any dish whose sauce is just asking to be mopped.

 

Bread is often an afterthought in restaurants, but historically it has always been the anchor of the meal, a role we honor and take seriously at Isabela.

 

We asked Chef to share his hot takes on bread service and the craft of bread making..

 

 

 

 

Well, to begin with, our sourdough is the most prep-intensive dish that we have at the restaurant; it was the same at my last restaurant, Semilla. In order to get bread to the table two to three days from now, the levain needs to be fed tonight and then in the morning tomorrow (sometimes twice). Then we mix the dough and let it roughly ferment for four hours before it is shaped and put into loaf pans. Ideally, it rests in the walk in cooler for another two days. We found the best result is when it actually rests for three days. This way it has time to develop a little more, allowing for the most flavor and the best crumb… all of those things that make amazing bread. 

 

Our sourdough really takes four to five days to land on the table now that I think about it. We don’t have any other single dish like that, and that is one of the main reasons why we charge for it. I think it’s a really good product and I think our guests enjoy it too. It’s a low and slow process of building flavors that can only form with time. Shortening the time would create a different product that in my opinion would be below the standard of what I really want to offer. 

 

The bread gets warmed à la minute so that by the moment it lands at your table you get that experience of peeling warm steaming bread that is so primal. We treat our bread like what it is, the dish that takes the longest to put on the plate. 

 

The bread is 81% hydration and uses three different flours, all from Milestone Mill: all-purpose (AP), whole wheat, and bread flour. Each one of those has a different protein content adding to the crumb and ability for the bread to be super crunchy on the outside, yet super soft on the inside.

 

Like every dish on our menu, it is the ingredients that make this product shine. We love working with Milestone Mill in Kingston because they are milling out of mostly NY state grains which follows the ethos of the restaurant. We are trying to source as close as possible because at the end of the day there is a lot of beauty in showcasing our local agriculture and community. 
 

 

 

 

What I love about bread making is that I am not good at it. It is the constant exploration of getting to know a product and getting better at working with it; which is ultimately why I am still cooking. The beauty of all cooking is that you never reach a point where you know it all or are good at everything. But I think that is probably something I should tackle with my therapist… maybe there is something there.

 

That is reason number one. Reason number two is it doesn’t matter how many recipes you have for bread; so much of it is about the feel, and touch, and humidity, and temperature… the nuance of it all, the things that you can’t really write a recipe for. Yes it's the same mix of ingredients, but each time it requires an individualized technique, touch, and feel.

 

Bread, in particular sourdough, is going to behave differently every single time. One day it might take three hours to ferment and the next day it might take five hours to ferment and determining that difference is a matter of feel. So even when I’m teaching someone else to make bread there are so many things and so many questions that are really about a learned knowing rather than do “xyz” and you are going to get “xyz”. 

 

 

 

 

 

I learned how to make bread by watching others make bread, by absorbing the process. Making bread for Semilla was the first time I took on the full process of bread making on a daily basis. Before that, I had really only baked at home, but it was something I really wanted to learn, so I forced myself to create a menu that included it. The same is true at Isabela, where we make both our sourdough and our brioche for our burger and for some dessert sets.

 

 

My relationship with my levain is a combative one. Mainly because our kitchen fluctuates in temperature so incredibly much during the summer. Even when we leave all the equipment off, the temperature in the kitchen can rise to 105 degrees. That affects the levain because now the yeast is super active. Same, but opposite in the winter when the kitchen drops to freezing temperatures. 

 

I’d like to say we have had this levain for 40 years, which a lot of bakers are able to say, but we have killed our levain one too many times than I would like to admit. Our current levain is coming from Vitsky Bakery in Wassaic. She has been my recent 911 for levain revival. 

 

We are constantly trying to find different places in the kitchen for the levain to live, but it's one of those things that we don’t have a solid system for yet. Due to the fluctuations of mentioned, we are constantly needing to adapt where we feed it, how we feed it, and where we store it..particularly overnight. It is a work in progress to say the least.

 

 

I think everybody is in love with a beautiful crumb, particularly with naturally leavened breads. When you get that mixture of small holes and big holes, you know that levain was super active and doing the right thing and the yeast was happy. So definitely a good crumb. 

 

I also like my sourdough to be rather moist in the center and I think our guests really love that high level of hydration about our sourdough as well. Commercially made breads are somewhere in the 60-70% range in hydration which gives you a crumb that is on the dryer side. This is fine for a lot of things, but I personally like a crumb that is crystallized with big holes. One that pulls apart and is thoroughly caramelized on the outside, not burnt, but with a nice crust. And not so much crust that it is going to ruin the roof of your mouth.

 

I'm also looking at the fish eyes on the outside of the bread, which are all those tiny bubbles. Essentially as the bread was baking that bubble really wanted to burst through the crust of the bread and it just got stuck in time, forming a hole there as the bread seized up and started caramelizing. 

 

Yeah, so a nice open crumb that is crystallized, a nice crust on the outside that is not burnt or super thick, and then just beautiful fish eyes throughout the loaf. All of those things are what I look for in a quality loaf of bread. Our bread at Isabela hasn't fully achieved this to my standards yet, it is an ever evolving progress.

 

 

 

 

I would like to expand the baking program at Isabela from where it currently stands with sourdough and brioche to include other types of pastry like quiche, puff pastry, and tarts, etc. etc.

 

 

I think the culture is changing thanks to some young chefs and trail blazers in the United States that started making bread differently, including those that started playing around with naturally leavened breads. They started incorporating lots of whole grains and local grains that add not only to the flavor but also to the complexity both in the taste of it and in the bread making process. Anytime you add a different grain it adds a different level of hydration you are working with and a different protein content. So every time you do that you have to adjust your ratios which is super fun to do. 

 

Bread service has also changed in the United States since I started cooking over 25 years ago. I think the culture had been relegated to that thing that was “quote on quote” free and therefore just an afterthought. But this has been changing, in fact I think the pendulum has already swung as we currently get very little pushback for charging for bread. I think people get it and also that the quality of the product we are serving matches the price point that we are charging.

 

So in terms of recent history I’m glad that lots of other chefs out there, at least in independent restaurants, are now charging for bread and making it a thoughtful part of their menu. Even when they are not charging for it, chefs are now often getting really high quality bread that is fresh vs the low quality product before. When I started cooking the bread was just this thing set off to the side… old, oftentimes frozen and just reheated at the restaurant. At Isabela, our bread is always baked fresh. I love that there is more thought being put into it because ultimately whether you're making sandwiches or making toast, the quality of the product will be reflective of the ingredients that make it up. It's great to see that people have been changing their approach from a restaurant point of view for a few decades now and so now people are starting to appreciate it a lot more. 

 

It has been a conscious shift that chef's have made over time. At Semilla, ten years ago, the bread was a course. The emphasis has changed and the amount of effort that goes into it has changed as well.

 

(Photos by: Landon Speers)

Love from Isabela