Forty bakeries were invited. Two hundred judges. A blind taste test, an open bar, and a few Michelin-starred kitchens in the field. Culture Espresso won first place, and Johnny has been hanging his hat on it ever since. "It was also a great opportunity to tease our friends in a Michelin-starred kitchen that one day they'll catch up."

The recipe hasn't changed in seventeen years.

Tiffany Pham sits down with him over the cookie that keeps winning. He is clear that there is no trick to it: "no shtick other than really high quality." French ingredients, small batches all day so nothing sits, and a flat refusal to get more efficient. People have told him for years he's foolish to use an ingredient that expensive, or that a machine could replace half the staff. "We haven't made a single stride towards efficiency."

The route there was not a bakery. He was a bookseller, then a teenage drummer who toured with punk bands and worked in cafés between tours. He got obsessed with coffee in the years before you could learn it on Instagram, when you had to find a secret coffee wizard and train with him. He was young and could not get a lease in Midtown on his own. His business partner Jody LoCascio had met the landlord of this building in a bar and been offered a good deal on it, and Johnny talked his way in with a pitch to run the coffee program.

The idea he keeps returning to is one he borrowed from the Eameses: the best, for the most, for the least. He knows a six-dollar cookie isn't the least. "But I'd like to think that both Eames and ourselves made it as fair as we could while trying to make it as best as we could."

Savor with Tiffany Pham, a Representation production, is a companion to the television docuseries premiering May 2027. Cinematography by: Kym Pham.

CHAPTERS
00:00 Meeting Johnny: "the best chocolate chip cookies in New York"
00:40 "Cookies are like pizza and bagels"
00:53 Forty bakeries, two hundred judges, one blind taste test
01:36 Teasing the Michelin-starred kitchen
02:15 "No shtick other than really high quality"
02:38 The crunch on the outside
03:40 "We haven't altered this recipe in 17 years"
04:07 A group effort, and Jody's sourdough
05:01 "The longer I was a barista, the better a barista I wanted to be"
05:21 "We were going to be way too serious. Only coffee."
06:02 Seeking out the best ingredients
06:43 "We haven't made a single stride towards efficiency"
07:08 Small batches, and waiting five minutes
07:57 Punk bands, touring, and working in a cafe between tours
08:40 Before Instagram: finding a secret coffee wizard
09:21 Signing a lease in Midtown at 24
10:00 "Coffee felt like the working man's wine"
11:04 Meeting Jody through a drummer
12:05 The Eames idea: the best, for the most, for the least
12:53 "If it ain't broke": on burrata, and not chasing a trend
14:11 Three stores in 17 years, all within three blocks
15:15 Fourteen-hour days, and delivering cookies by bicycle through COVID
15:59 "Now I have a one year old that is the light of my life"
16:55 The chemical engineer he met over nachos
18:25 Mornings with his son, and the scone he's chasing
19:43 Rapid fire: pho at Two Wheels
20:52 Burger: Red Hook Tavern, and J.G. Melon
21:32 Noodles: Xi'an, and the COVID noodle kits
22:30 Cinnamon roll: Sunday Morning. Pizza: Christy's in Greenpoint
23:44 The bookseller, and the cookbook he's still writing
24:47 After the interview: everyone wants the free consultation
25:16 Yale, Harvard, and a ninth-grade dropout in a Harvard shirt
25:51 The case study they still teach
27:00 "I used to be embarrassed I dropped out. Now I don't care"
28:46 "My life right now is so much better than I ever imagined"
30:17 The Rolex, his father, and what it means to pass something down
32:03 The Plaza, and an immigrant child's bucket list
32:48 "It's so much easier than people say it is"
34:09 "It was great talking to you", and goodbye

ABOUT CULTURE ESPRESSO
Culture Espresso — cultureespresso.com

🎬 The Savor with Tiffany Pham docuseries premieres May 1, 2027
🌐 savortheuniverse.com

Click here to view the episode transcript.

The bakery is called Sunday Morning because a restaurant person almost never gets one.

Days off land on a Tuesday, or wherever they land. But if you get a Sunday, Armando Litiatco says, that's a good Sunday. And what he did with his was wake up early enough to start a dough that would not be ready until late, and spend the day doing nothing and making cinnamon rolls.

Tiffany Pham sits down with him over four of them: the classic caramel pecan, strawberry Earl Grey, blueberry lemon curd, and Brooklyn Blackout, which is chocolate on chocolate on chocolate. He explains why the dough is American rather than European, gooey and fluffy in the centre; why enriched dough deserves more love than it gets; and why the staff are in at half four for a bakery that opens at nine.

He was born in the Philippines, raised in San Francisco, trained at the California Culinary Academy, cooked at Daniel early in his career, and was working at Google as an accountant when he started picking up catering gigs on the side. He asked a friend named Ahmet Kiranbay to help with the holiday rush. Ahmet never went back to his office. Twenty years later they run Rana Fifteen, their Aegean Turkish restaurant in Park Slope, and two bakeries together.

Asked what's next, he says he'd like to see Sunday Morning in other cities, and then immediately explains why that frightens him: there are only two people who know the actual recipe, and he still tastes the dough every day.

Savor with Tiffany Pham, a Representation production, is a companion to the television docuseries premiering May 2027. Cinematography by: Kym Pham.

CHAPTERS
00:00 Walking in, and the four rolls on the table
00:38 "I'll tell you what we have in front of us"
01:45 "I always go for the classic, because I want to taste the dough"
02:05 American style: gooey, fluffy, not European
02:33 Enriched dough, and why it doesn't get enough love
03:33 French butter, brown sugar, Saigon cinnamon
04:36 "The staff is here at 4:30 in the morning"
04:51 Fine dining, brought to the cinnamon roll
05:26 "As you mature as a cook, you understand where your lane is"
05:45 "Cook what you love to eat"
06:08 Strawberry Earl Grey, and everything made in house
06:57 Blueberry lemon curd
07:35 Brooklyn Blackout
08:27 Born in the Philippines, raised in San Francisco
08:50 New York, 2003, and the place you always want to go back to
09:19 The accountant, the catering gigs, and Ahmet who never went back
10:18 Twenty years, and hashing it out like a kitchen line
11:05 Daniel, and the hours
11:43 A schedule completely flipped by a bakery
12:30 The dough: started the night before
12:53 Why it's called Sunday Morning
13:53 "It's a lot of pressure on the shoulders"
14:51 One item, done right
15:32 Two bakeries, a Turkish restaurant, and splitting the duties
17:15 "I wake up and I think about what I'm going to eat"
17:57 What's next: growing the bakery
18:22 "Only two of us know the actual recipe"
18:43 The pattern across the season: why franchises succeed
20:04 "Number one is the food": you should be able to cut it with a fork
20:48 What you give up as a cook, and learning to step back
21:44 "The true definition of reinvention"
23:16 Rapid fire: pho, burger, noodles
25:47 Favorite chocolate chip cookie
26:39 "It's been such an honor"
27:01 After the interview: Jason, and building slowly
28:34 "Excited to feature you, excited to honor you"

ABOUT SUNDAY MORNING
Sunday Morning — @sundaymorningcinnamonrolls on Instagram

🎬 The Savor with Tiffany Pham docuseries premieres May 1, 2027
🌐 savortheuniverse.com

Click here to view the episode transcript.

The Supreme Burger at Bareburger exists because of a McDonald's drive-through.

Euripides Pelekanos ran a bar in Bed-Stuy called Sputnik through the 2000s, a room where KRS-One, Afrika Bambaataa and DJ Premier all played and where Pratt students, the housing projects and the Hasidic community all stayed until three in the morning. He would get out at half four, five in the morning, stop at McDonald's on the way home and order four cheeseburgers, large fries, and a Diet Coke. Then he would open every cheeseburger and stuff the fries inside.

"I'm embarrassed to tell you this story," he says, and then tells it anyway.

Tiffany Pham sits down with him over the burger that story became: a grass-fed patty, applewood smoked bacon, an onion ring on top with french fries packed inside it, and a special sauce he will happily tell you is ketchup, mustard and mayonnaise, because every special sauce in the world is.

The rest of the conversation is the harder half. His parents came from Cyprus as refugees in 1974, two years before he was born, into a five-room apartment in Astoria. He was stocking sodas at Dom's Deli at twelve. He taught social studies for two years before he opened anything. The first Bareburger was a shuttered bakery in Astoria with a poster of a bear on a unicycle in the window, and the neighbourhood decided they were California hippies. Six months later there were a hundred people waiting outside.

Then fifty restaurants, in Santa Monica and Japan and Germany and Dubai. Then COVID, and the decision to close the ones that were not in his backyard. Thirty restaurants now, in the tri-state area, plus two in Ohio.

Asked who he is making this for, he says: everybody.

Savor with Tiffany Pham, a Representation production, is a companion to the television docuseries premiering May 2027. Cinematography by: Kym Pham.

CHAPTERS
00:00 "So good to see you", and the Supreme Burger
00:38 Old school New York: Cyprus, 1974, and a five-room apartment in Astoria
01:30 Dom's Deli at twelve years old
02:32 Two years as a teacher
02:58 1999: opening Sputnik in Brooklyn
04:00 KRS-One, Afrika Bambaataa, DJ Premier
04:37 2007: the Sputnik Burger
06:21 The 2008 recession
07:49 An old bakery in Astoria
08:00 The bear on a unicycle
08:28 A hundred people waiting outside
09:48 Fifty restaurants: Santa Monica, Japan, Germany, Dubai
10:50 COVID
12:41 Consolidating back to the backyard
13:58 Impossible, plant-based, keto: how the menu changed
15:08 Smash burgers, and 30 restaurants left
16:50 "I'm embarrassed to tell you this story"
17:06 Four cheeseburgers, large fries, a Diet Coke
18:05 The onion ring, and the fries inside it
18:58 It's the Supreme
20:37 The ultimate Wagyu
22:10 Medium rare, and letting the meat shine
23:39 Who are you making this for?
23:49 "Our burgers are for everybody"
24:54 Come here with your kids
25:58 Headwinds, and the North Star
26:27 "This place is the best"

ABOUT BAREBURGER
Bareburger — bareburger.com

🎬 The Savor with Tiffany Pham docuseries premieres May 1, 2027
🌐 savortheuniverse.com

Click here to view the episode transcript.