The Balancing Act of Chef Miro Uskokovic
by Gianna Hughes, Jan 7, 2016
There is a table in the corner where Chef Miro Uskokovic, the pastry chef at Gramercy Tavern and Untitled, is waiting. We introduce ourselves; his smile is instantly warm and calming. His friendly demeanor is not at all how you’d imagine an established chef’s to be; luckily, the days of the reigning fear-inducing orders and insults seem to be waning and making way for a more collaborative effort—more like a team seeing a work of art to fruition. We take a seat, and conversation is easy. Time is marked on the blank wall behind us as the sun rotates the shadows like a film noir; this design element—whether intentional or not—is a nod to the seasons, something both Untitled and Gramercy Tavern bind themselves to.
Although sitting in the midst of New York City, Uskokovic grew up in a small farming town on the other side of the globe in Serbia during a time when the country was in turmoil. His parents had a farm where they would make cheese and yogurt, and they had a lot of land his father would farm. But by the time Uskokovic was 16, he had never left his hometown.
“One thing I’m very proud of with our pastry departments at Gramercy Tavern and Untitled is the amount of local and sustainable product we use. It’s very unique for such a big restaurant as Gramercy Tavern,” says Uskokovic. “We don’t do 50, 60 or 100 desserts. We do 600 to 700 desserts a day—and that’s just dessert.” While Gramercy Tavern and Untitled could only use local fruits and produce, all their dairy is also local—the eggs, milk, cream and butter. Even the flowers, like the ones I saw when I arrived early that morning, are local. And the small percentage of commercial flour they use, King Arthur, is still the best you can find.
You can’t talk about a pastry chef without talking about sugar, something Uskokovic uses sparingly. He continues, “I don’t think I’ve made a dessert yet that did not have a fruit component to it.” And if you’re using delicious, organic ingredients like fruit, there’s no need to add the extra sugar.
“I like to use sugar more as a seasoning rather than a main ingredient,” says Uskokovic. “I come from Eastern Europe; we don’t use the sugar packed to the level you see here or in France. When I came here, it was a little big of a shock to me to see such rich and strong desserts loaded with fat and sugar.” When creating his desserts, Uskokovic doesn’t want to head too far left or right in either direction; he would rather the flavors complement one another. “Every one of our desserts has a generous pinch of salt,” which he uses to bring out the natural sweetest and flavors of the dessert’s ingredients.
Much like how this salt complements the sugar, his job as pastry chef is to create sweets to complement the chef’s menu. “As a pastry chef, we’re like the best friend in a movie. We’re never the main lead,” he jokes. “My job is to make sure my desserts not only taste good, but match what came before that.”
“[Chef Michael Anthony] has a wonderful way with vegetables, and his cooking is very light and wonderfully balanced, so I have to make sure the desserts are as well so there is no disconnect,” Uskokovic explains. “Also, it’s very important that at the end of the meal people aren’t just full, but happy.” And content. Dessert is the period on your sentence. It’s how you end your meal. It’s how you end your day.
Telles and I leave Untitled happy. Maybe it was the sugar from the sweets they prepared, that warm coffee on a saucer, or the conversation I had—but it provided me with sustenance during that early morning. We whisk out onto the busy streets and wander around before we need to make our way to the West Village. We have time so we decide to walk. When you have the opportunity to experience something new, why not take it?