This week on Menu Talk, Restaurant Business Senior Menu Editor Pat Cobe and Bret Thorn, senior food and beverage editor of Nation’s Restaurant News, share their take on some recent happenings in the world of food and drink.
Bret is settling into his new Brooklyn digs, discovering the vast assortment of pickled and smoked fish available in his new neighborhood. And buckwheat—that’s the grain of choice in the shops that surround his apartment.
Pat was recently a guest at a “Nikkei Twist” dinner in which private chef Will Ono created a five-course Colombian-Japanese menu. Off-duty private chefs, restaurant sous chefs, line cooks and other culinary pros develop the menus and cook at these events. There’s also a sommelier at the dinners to pair wines. It’s a new kind of dining platform that’s becoming a win-win for both chefs and consumers.
We listened to clips from Bret’s podcast with Joe Schaeffer, VP of Culinary for Atlanta-based Electric Hospitality, about Muchacho, the group’s Southern California-inspired taqueria. Schaeffer created six unique fresh salsas using a variety of chilies, some raw, some roasted or simmered, to infuse each with complex flavor.
How Cristina Suarez evolved from ‘bargirl’ to corporate beverage director of Kush Hospitality Group
How cold coffee is heating up the menu at Caribou
How 2 cousins from Maine turned the rest of the country on to lobster rolls
How Marc Forgione continues to grow his culinary legacy and restaurant cred
How Sam Polk is making healthy meals accessible and affordable in food deserts across the U.S.
How Steve Sturm puts the wood-fired grill front and center
Checking in on mid-year menu trends with Technomic’s Lizzy Freier
How DIG on 4th merges fast casual and full service into a welcoming all-day cafe
Menu maven Nancy Kruse shares her take on emerging and evergreen trends
How Graze Craze is spreading charcuterie across the country
How La Palapa is still going strong after 20 years, with Barbara Sibley at the helm
How All Day Kitchens marries culinary and tech to create a successful union
How Chicago’s Revival Food Hall is revving up for its next chapter
How Mawa’s Kitchen is making its mark on Aspen’s restaurant scene
How restaurateur Rohini Dey is empowering women to break through the gastro ceiling
How Vitality Bowls sets itself apart in a crowded fast-casual field
How celebrated chef David Burke keeps creativity flowing after decades in the business
How to innovate the menu by amplifying and enhancing 2021 trends in 2022
How Lettuce Entertain You’s Thomas Mizuno-Moore is taking the ‘mock’ out of zero-alcohol cocktails
Why Technomic is calling 2022 ‘the year of the climb’
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