Fifteen years of fine dining — Amber Waves, The Montauk Beach House, rooms where the covers are high and the margin for error is negative — produces a kind of calm in a chef that cameras read as confidence. Hanna Haar, private chef, walked into S38E12 with the manner of someone who has made lobster risotto more times than Bobby Flay has made television appearances. That may actually be true.
Haar's risotto technique is stock-temperature-first: the lobster stock is held at a bare simmer — 180°F, not boiling — because cold stock shocks the starch and opens a window for gluey texture. She adds stock in 4-ounce increments, waiting for each addition to be fully absorbed before the next, which sounds like every risotto recipe ever written but is enforced here with a timer. The lobster meat goes in at the very end of heat, off the burner, and rests for ninety seconds before plating.
Bobby Flay has made risotto on television so many times that his approach has calcified into habit. Hanna Haar, who has been making it privately for paying clients who will call if it's wrong, has not had that luxury.