Chef Eric Sze, the owner of NYC’s Wenwen, shows us the bakeries, pizzerias, and restaurants he visits weekly for everything from simple baguette sandwiches to oversized wontons.
Sze starts his day off with a sandwich at Bakeri; his go-to order is honey, apple, and brie layered on a crunchy baguette. Then he heads to The Meat Hook, Wenwen’s meat supplier, to get a specialty cut of steak and dry-aged short ribs for dinner. Next, he grabs a whole, crispy, NY-style pie at Chrissy’s Pizza (chef Chris Hansell has been perfecting this pie for years). The jalapeño and garlic pie has perfect proportions of each ingredient, all on a doughy, yeasted crust.
For his final stop, Sze goes to Maxi’s Noodle 2 in Flushing for the nostalgic Chinese food he’s craved since leaving Taiwan. Owner Maxi Lau-O’Keefe teaches him how to make her iconic wontons, filled with shrimp and pork before being expertly folded. After being humbled by the complex folding process, Sze settles in for a soup full of thin noodles made with duck eggs and those classic wontons, alongside beef soup.
Watch the most recent episode of Chef’s Day Off to see how chef Eric Sze spends his day off at his favorite restaurants, bakeries, and butcher shops around New York City.