A new Gordon Ramsay-produced docuseries that started Friday offers the rare look into the ultimate chef quest: the pursuit of a Michelin star.
The series “Knife Edge: Chasing Michelin Stars” also gives an exclusive peek into the minds of the elusive Michelin inspectors, fake IDs and all, who make the final determinations. It’s hosted by Jesse Burgess, one half of the duo behind TopJaw, a food series on YouTube.
Three Chicago restaurants — Cariño, Esmé and Feld — let cameras into their kitchens for “Knife Edge.”
In Ukrainian Village, chef Jacob Potashnick said his new restaurant, Feld, had only been open for a few months when film crews arrived after learning of their opening.
During the restaurant’s early weeks, Potashnick’s team of seven chefs already experienced a number of highs and lows. It was disappointing for Feld staff to put so much work into the restaurant for a less than positive initial critical reaction. “They were filming [us] for all of that,” Potashnick said in an interview.
Feld was filmed regularly for the show over five to six months, all the way up until Michelin Guide release season. “Our story is very much the story of the opening of a restaurant and the everyday challenges of that,” said Potashnick.
Feld made the 2024 Michelin Guide to Chicago after just five months of operation. That distinction automatically puts the restaurant in consideration for a 2025 star.
Now 15 months old, Feld is best known for its nightly-changing menus that are put together based on seasonal ingredients. Feld is ultimately the result of Potashnick’s culinary stints around the world “mixed with my history as a Midwestern boy,” he said. Born and raised in Chicago, the chef said Feld is his own way of honoring Midwestern produce through the things he learned during his culinary stints across Europe and Japan.
“We work around the idea of extreme seasonality,” he said. But he rejects what he says is the overused “farm-to-table” label, opting instead for something he calls “relationship-to-table.”
“I knew I wanted to work directly with farmers and share the stories of those farmers,” he said. From the ceramics to their kitchen knives, everything in the establishment is either grown or made locally. Potashnick sources his tomatoes from one Wisconsin man: Jerry Boone, who owns Froggy Meadow Farm in Beloit. He also works closely with Kilgus Farmstead in Fairbury for Feld’s meat and dairy needs, and “legendary” Korean pear farm Oriana’s Orchard in Northern Illinois.
A typical Feld experience features 30 courses of small bites. With room for about 20 diners, they are sat at two banquettes that wrap around an open concept kitchen so guests can see, hear and smell the magic happening.
Potashnick has wanted to open a restaurant like Feld since he was seven.
He’d always been fascinated by food, having found inspiration in his mom and grandma’s cooking and reading Anthony Bourdain’s “Kitchen Confidential” at an “inappropriately young age,” he said.
In eighth grade, Potashnick sought inspiration from Grant Achatz’s Alinea in Lincoln Park for a school science fair project. Alinea had been open for two years then, and Achatz was a pioneer of molecular gastronomy. (An approach to cooking that combines science and art.)
Achatz gave a then 14-year-old Potashnick a tour of the restaurant, showing him all of the dishes they’d created with tapioca maltodextrin and liquid nitrogen. “It was so cool, but that what I remember most was not the chemical stuff. It was all the chefs in their chef whites, the polished silver counters, and everybody working quietly towards this one goal.”
He calls that day a “game-changer.”
Before opening Feld, Potashnick gained popularity through his foodie videos on TikTok. As for Potashnick plans to do with Feld after the “Knife Edge” buzz dies down?
“We’re really just focused on making Feld better every day,” he said. “I’m not in an expansion mode mindset. … Things have been going so well that I think it’s a really cool story of perseverance and redemption.”
Editor’s note: The first two episodes of “Knife Edge: Chasing Michelin Stars,” are available for streaming on Apple TV+. Potashnick’s restaurant is featured on the Oct. 17 episode.