Wondering what chef Josh Steiner’s been up to?
He’s been bee-sy.
Now a beekeeper, Steiner, former chef/owner of Strano by Chef Josh, has more than a dozen hives around Memphis and in Germantown.
He’ll use his honey to make bagels, which he plans to sell to the public online starting in December.
Meanwhile, The Hive Bagel & Deli, his Downtown deli/bakehouse, is already in the works. It’s slated to open in six or seven months.
Steiner, who describes himself as a “bee nerd,” became a beekeeper in 2016. In addition to his personal hives, he has a hive at Trezevant Manor. “As a charity thing I do for them. They reached out to me because they were interested in having a beehive. I kind of educate them and let them have a hive and show them how to crush their own honey.”
Each jar of Steiner’s honey is specific to the queen of whatever hive she rules. And each queen bee has a name. These include Twinkie, Marla, Margarita, Tessie, and Beyoncé. “I’ve given them personalities, if you will.”
Steiner plans to use his honey to make his bagels. “We’re putting the honey in our water to boil our bagels. That means anybody eating our bagels and our honey are not just getting local honey, but uber local honey, in a sense, because it’s our backyard bees.”
He and his wife Wallis got the idea to open a deli/bakehouse during the pandemic. “My wife and I started selling pastries out of our kitchen and we got into it. We were doing a cooking series on Facebook.”
Steiner, who has been baking bagels for years, says, “I will bake a bagel before I buy one.”
He took classes last year at the San Francisco Baking Institute, which specializes in bagels. “I wanted to learn the business side and sourcing local ingredients.”
Steiner recently planted Mississippi red wheat in Germantown. “For our whole grain bagels and breads.”
When The Bagel Memphis went out of business, Steiner bought a giant kettle and a 13-foot bagel oven, which will enable him to bake at least 300 bagels per hour.
He already signed a lease for The Hive Bagel & Deli, but, he says, “That’s under construction.”
In the meantime, Steiner will open a private catering kitchen to start producing bagels for online orders in December. He wants to build the brand and let everyone “taste what’s coming.”
The Hive Bagel & Deli, which he describes as “a neighborhood bakehouse,” will feature sandwiches and multiple flavors of cream cheese, along with Steiner’s fresh bagels, baguettes, and sourdough breads. “The term is viennoiserie. It’s ‘laminated pastries.’ Like Danishes, stuffed croissants, and stuff like that.”
“Laminated” is “when you fold butter into dough, and layer it over and over again.”
“Pies and cookies won’t be our thing. It will be more of a French European pâtisserie.”
And you never know. Something Sicilian might pop up at the bakeshop. “I’m working on a pizza bagel idea.”
Steiner will be owner/operator of The Hive Bagel & Deli. “I’ll be considered the executive chef, or executive baker, whatever you want to call it. I will have a head baker, but I’ve got to train her. This is my passion. So, I want to be making the bread and milling the flour. Grinding the flour myself. So, I don’t know how I won’t be in the kitchen.”
Customers will be able to see into the kitchen. “I’m trying to capture the romantic side of it. I find it romantic. Things being made from scratch. Things being made by hand or turned out. Flour being mixed or dough being pulled out of the mixing bowl. Dough going into the oven.”
Steiner wants to eventually expand the business. “We plan on having two locations.”
But, he says, that’s “on the back burner until we open up.”
Meanwhile, Steiner and his wife spend a lot of time with their main honey — their daughter, Acie Clementine, who was born September 20th.