Episódios
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On this week’s podcast, Pat Cobe, senior menu editor of Restaurant Business, and Bret Thorn, senior food & beverage editor of Nation’s Restaurant News and Restaurant Hospitality, discuss a week’s worth of eating experiences, starting with a dine-around in Chicago.
The two editors were in Chicago for the last conference of the International Foodservice Editorial Council, familiarly known as IFEC, and the opening event featured a tasting tour of three restaurants in the city’s Fulton Market district. Chef-owner Joe Flamm of Rose Mary spoke about his popular Croatian-Italian restaurant while we chowed down Pork Ribs Pampanella with Calabrian Chile Agrodolce and walnut relish as well as Beef Cheek Gnocchi; at Publican Quality Meats we learned how to spatchcock a chicken while nibbling on Grilled Pork & Mango Brochettes, Porchetta Sandwiches and charcuterie; and at Leña Brava, we sampled Watermelon Aguachile and al pastor-marinated Watermelon Steak and sipped a watermelon cocktail and mocktail.
While in Chicago, Pat also had dinner at Eataly, and was reminded of how this Italian retail emporium is also a worthy restaurant destination. She joined friends at Vino &, an in-store wine bar with a large menu featuring specialties like Tagliolini al Limone, Pollo alla Milanese and Grilled Branzino, all of which her table ordered along with a nice bottle of red wine.
Bret continues to explore his Brooklyn neighborhood, where he discovered some Eastern European meat dumplings that he brought home for dinner. First, he tried them the traditional way, topped with sour cream, but then concocted an Asian-influenced “ranch dressing” with chili crisp and Chinese black vinegar that took the dumplings into another flavor dimension.
This week we share an interview with renowned chef and restaurateur Michael Mina, whose new cookbook, “My Egypt,” was just published. Subtitled “Cooking from My Roots,” the book relates Mina’s experiences of journeying back to Egypt—which he left at the age of two—to rediscover his family’s culinary legacy. The result is a book filled with stories, firsthand cooking experiences and a lifetime of recipes.
Mina operates more than 30 restaurants in the U.S., including the recently opened Orla in Santa Monica, California—his first to specialize in Egyptian-Mediterranean cuisine. Here he elevates the dishes he enjoyed eating around his mother’s table and shares the food he tasted and cooked in Egypt. Listen as the chef shares his passion for Egyptian food and talks about how Mina Group is ramping up restaurant openings.
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On this week’s podcast, Pat Cobe, senior menu editor of Restaurant Business, and Bret Thorn, senior food & beverage editor of Nation’s Restaurant News and Restaurant Hospitality, discussed their recent eating adventures. That included Pat’s visit to a Hampton Inn, home of the original waffle bar, created by the midscale hotel chain 40 years ago.
That historical milestone is being celebrated by the hotel chain and promoted by Paris Hilton, since Hampton Inn is a brand of her family’s hospitality empire, in the form of special pink waffles with edible glitter that guests can add. The hosts observed that there’s a lot of edible glitter on menus these days, because it’s fun and dazzling on social media and, one hopes, safe to eat.
It turns out that some onions being served by McDonald’s probably weren’t safe and allegedly sickened a number of people, resulting in one fatality. Pat and Bret discussed that turn of events.
First, however Bret discussed his visit to a sushi restaurant in Midtown Manhattan, which he said was fine, just like a lot of sushi is fine these days, but not with the attention to detail that came with sushi in the past—the server didn’t even bother to explain what type of fish he had been served. Pat suggested that this is what happens when food like sushi becomes ubiquitous.
She had a chance to visit the newest location of Kernel, a heavily automated quick-service restaurant developed by Chipotle founder Steve Ells, and was happy to report that the formerly meatless chain is now serving chicken.
While Pat was at Kernel, Bret went to a preview of Hudson Club, a new restaurant in Midtown Manhattan headed up by chef John DeLucie. He particularly enjoyed oysters with an apple mignonette, and that was a nice segue to this week’s guest, Aaron Juvera, a level one certified oyster master and chef de cuisine of Southerleigh Fine Foods & Brewery in San Antonio, Texas.
Juvera discussed the oyster master certification program, Texas’s burgeoning oyster-cultivation industry and Southerleigh’s increasing use of lesser-known fish species. We hope you’ll tune in.
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On this week’s podcast, Pat Cobe, senior menu editor of Restaurant Business, and Bret Thorn, senior food & beverage editor of Nation’s Restaurant News and Restaurant Hospitality, share highlights from their recent eating and drinking excursions.
Both editors attended a media preview of Taco Bell’s chef-created Crunchwrap Supremes. The chain tapped three emerging chefs to come up with variations of this wildly popular menu item, and the results included Indian and Thai versions as well as a Southwest-style hot chicken.
Bret also attended a Cava event at a country western bar in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, to celebrate the launch of the fast casual’s garlic ranch pita chips. The tie-in between ranch as a flavor and “ranch” as an icon of the American West was a little shaky, but Bret enjoyed the new chips and some ranch water cocktails.
Australian coffee café Bluestone Lane was also a recent stop on Bret’s itinerary. It’s known for its personalized service, and he reported that he did get extra-special attention along with his flat white. And Pat took a trip to Cape Cod and treated herself to a lobster roll done in the Connecticut style—hot and toasty with lots of melted butter. She also enjoyed a New England specialty: fried clam bellies.
Speaking of clams, we share a conversation with Sammy Monsour, chef at Joyce Soul & Sea in L.A. and an ambassador for Food for Climate League, where he is promoting sustainable bivalves like clams as well as sea vegetables. October is National Seafood Month, and Monsour describes how he sources and prepares fresh seaweed, sea lettuces and mussels at his restaurant. He also talks about his advocacy work with the Monterey Bay Aquarium and other nonprofits to help chefs and consumers make smarter choices when it comes to farm-raised and wild-caught seafood.
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On this week’s podcast, Pat Cobe, senior menu editor of Restaurant Business, and Bret Thorn, senior food & beverage editor of Nation’s Restaurant News and Restaurant Hospitality, discuss a week’s worth of eating adventures, starting with the CREATE conference in Nashville.
The conference, geared toward emerging chains, is organized by NRN, so Bret and his colleagues were on the ground hosting sessions and networking with operators. He was super-impressed with the quality of the speakers—not a dud among them.
Bret was very busy at CREATE but he still had time to hit a couple of Nashville’s restaurants, including Rodney Scott’s whole-hog barbecue spot. Scott is famous for his North Carolina-style barbecue, where his now six-location restaurant started, and Bret feasted on pulled pork with cole slaw and collard greens. Spanish restaurant Barcelona was another stop on his Nashville dining tour, and Bret got to try a unique rendition of boquerones—marinated anchovies served on house-made potato chips—and huge platters of paella.
Once back home, Bret attended EatOkra, a new festival celebrating Black-owned businesses. One of the standouts he sampled were nachos made with plantain chips topped with Haitian-style braised pork. He also took a trip to Princeton N.J. and visited restaurant Agricole, where he had a tasty mushroom flatbread. And Bret stopped at McDonald’s on the way back to try the new Chicken Big Mac. Tune in to hear his review.
Meanwhile, back in New York, Pat attended Eeeeeatscon, a food and entertainment festival organized by restaurant review platform, The Infatuation. All the vendors were local restaurants, including Shake Shack—now a national chain that got its start in Manhattan. Its booth served up the Thai Burger Shack, a cheeseburger topped with “evil jungle prince Shack Sauce,” pickled bamboo, green chili relish and Thai basil. Pat’s favorite taste was Hong Kong Style Wonton Noodles from Great NY Noodletown.
Also on offer were empanadas from actress Sophia Vergara’s Toma, a retail brand that she and her son, Manolo (the chef in the family) are planning to spin off into a fast casual. Manolo was especially proud of the everything bagel empanada he created exclusively for Eeeeeatscon.
Chef Tse Richmond
We wrapped up with clips from an interview Pat did with Tse Richmond, a culinary specialist with Sysco in Portland, Oregon. The chef was excited to talk about the fall product line from Sysco’s Cutting Edge Solutions, an innovation-focused division that supports smaller producers. Just rolling out this week are several seafood products, a new condiment, recipe-ready beans and global pork preparations. All are designed to help operators save time and labor while turning out signature menu items.
Chef Richmond is also playing around with AI, and she enthusiastically shares tips and smart strategies to maximize its benefits in the kitchen. Give a listen.
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Bret was a bit of a homebody last week as he prepared for CREATE: The Event for Emerging Restaurateurs, a conference that Nation’s Restaurant News is hosting in Nashville this week, but he did enjoy traditional Jewish brisket for Rosh Hashannah at a friend’s home in Manhattan.
Pat attended two Broadway shows that were preceded by tasty and affordable meals, which can be hard to find in New York City’s Theater District. She had a prix fixe pre-theater dinner of creamy parsnip soup, grilled swordfish with vegetables, and baklava at Kellari Taverna for $55, and before a Saturday matinee, she had a tasty and reasonably priced brunch at Boqueria, which was less than $20 per person (before tip) — an extreme rarity in Midtown Manhattan.
The co-hosts also discussed the Chicken Big Mac, which McDonald’s is launching on Oct. 10, replacing the two all-beef patties with breaded and fried chicken patties. Like the original sandwich, the new version has special sauce, lettuce, cheese, and pickles, but no onions. Bret wondered about that, which led to a discussion on the role of onions on a chicken sandwich and whether, in fact, they have a role to play at all.
Then he shared an interview he had done with Rob Levitt, head butcher and chef de cuisine of Publican Quality Meats in Chicago. Levitt shared his passion for butchery and his appreciation for One-Off Hospitality’s leader and chef, Paul Kahan. He also discussed his appearance on the hit TV show "The Bear," streaming on Hulu, in which he played himself.
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Bret Thorn, senior food & beverage editor of Nation’s Restaurant News and Restaurant Hospitality, kicked off this week’s podcast by briefly introducing a friend, of sorts. He had asked ChatGPT to greet the audience of Menu Talk, and the chatbot, which can now simulate a human voice much better than the electronic messages we have grown accustomed to, inferred pretty accurately what sorts of topics would be discussed in a podcast with that name. Real co-host Pat Cobe, senior menu editor of Restaurant Business, was duly impressed.
She was also impressed by KPOT, a Korean barbecue and hot pot concept that is one of the fastest growing restaurant chains in the country. The food was abundant and well-priced, the service was great and apart from the hot pot and barbecue, there was also a substantial food bar with kimchi and an assortment of different sauces, among other items.
Then Bret shared clips of an interview he did with Olivier Rassinoux, vice president of culinary and bar for Patina Restaurant Group, and they discussed cocktail trends, including spirit-free cocktails, as well as Rassinoux’s management style and the joy of dining out.
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On this week’s podcast, Pat Cobe, senior menu editor of Restaurant Business, and Bret Thorn, senior food & beverage editor of Nation’s Restaurant News and Restaurant Hospitality, start off by chatting about the joys of grazing.
Neither editor is in the Gen Z or Millennial age group that popularized the “girl dinner” on TikTok, but both like to try small tastes of a lot of different things—whether they are eating alone or dining with friends. On a recent visit to Boston, Bret went to a dinner party where friends gathered around the counter and nibbled on Middle Eastern dips, sashimi, grilled scallops and more while they caught up with each other.
Pat is a fan of happy hours, which encourage sharing and nibbling without breaking the bank. She recently went to Springs Tavern on the East End of Long Island where the group ordered a multi-cultural spread that included mussels and frites, potstickers, chicken nachos and Mediterranean spreads with pita. Everything was under $15, including the $12 well-crafted margaritas.
Bret also mentioned how heat levels are escalating, sometimes to the detriment of the dish. During a visit to a Chinese restaurant his table specified “medium” spicing on the food they ordered, but it was too hot for most of the diners.
Which brings us to Eggs in Purgatory, an item that seems to be showing up more often on breakfast menus. Can it be the next Shakshuka? Let us know your thoughts.
Pat was down in Atlanta visiting GoTo Foods and the team from Moe’s Southwest Kitchen. She learned to roll her own burrito like the pros at Moe’s and got a sneak peek at some of the flavors coming on to the menu. Look for birria and chili crisp soon.
And we shared clips from an interview with Paul Pszybylski, VP of culinary innovation for California Pizza Kitchen. The chef has been with CPK for 15 years but recently moved into this role.
He talks about how the menu has evolved, the signatures that can never be taken away, labor challenges, and the new direction of CPK’s sourcing and limited time offers. Chef Pszybylski is especially proud of the new Nashville hot chicken pizza he developed. Give a listen.
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On this week’s podcast, Pat Cobe, senior menu editor of Restaurant Business, and Bret Thorn, senior food & beverage editor of Nation’s Restaurant News and Restaurant Hospitality, talk about the post-summer flurry of restaurant activity in New York City.
Bret was treated to a pre-opening preview of Alessa, a new Italian restaurant where the chef created a menu spotlighting mushrooms in many sizes and shapes. His first bite was a white pizza topped with assorted mushrooms and lots of garlic, then he moved on to crab-stuffed cremini mushrooms and risotto with hen-of-the-woods and truffle butter. Mushrooms and fall are a perfect pairing, although the pistachio gelato for dessert was devoid of mushrooms.
Bret also got to try a new Korean restaurant from Hand Hospitality called Odre, where the food is cooked in cast-iron pots. It’s kind of a rustic style for what he thought was a refined tasting menu, but he thoroughly enjoyed all the different courses.
That night, he sampled asparagus with cured shrimp in a pine nut sauce with grapefruit, squash pancakes, little pork dumplings with shiso leaf, and braised beef shank with shishito pepper and yes—mushrooms. The tasting menu is a reasonable $42 for dinner.
Also on Bret’s restaurant itinerary was the revamped Central Park Boathouse, a venue in the middle of NYC’s Central Park that has long been known as a special occasion place. It was recently taken over by Legends Hospitality—the same company that does the food at Yankee Stadium—and there’s a new chef-driven menu that makes it a great destination for lunch and dinner.
David Pasternak, a chef known for his former seafood-focused restaurant Esca, is a consultant, so Bret tried some of the fish dishes, including a salmon crudo and swordfish.
Pat was on vacation and was dining around in the South of France instead of New York City, but she did get a chance to interview Brad Hedeman and Mo Frechette of Zingerman’s, the destination deli in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Brad and Mo both worked behind the counter and in the retail section of the famous deli, but now head up Zingerman’s thriving mail-order business.
They talk about how they travel the world to meet farmers and producers and procure the specialty foods that have built Zingerman’s reputation. Service and hospitality are built into Zingerman’s DNA, and Brad and Mo share how they extend that to online customers that they never interact with face-to-face.
People in any part of the restaurant industry can learn a lot from their many years of combined experience and fascinating stories. Give a listen.
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On this week’s podcast, Nation’s Restaurant News and Restaurant Hospitality senior food & beverage editor Bret Thorn is joined by Lisa Jennings, executive editor of Restaurant Business, who subbed in for Pat Cobe.
Lisa came fresh off of the launch of Rokusho in Los Angeles, which has an eight-seat omakase room upstairs that’s an outpost of a Udatsu Sushi, a Michelin-starred restaurant based in Tokyo. It’s headed up by chef Shingo Ogane, but it will also host visiting Japanese chefs for three-week stints. Downstairs is a more casual sushi restaurant run by Carlos Couts, recently of Sushi by Scratch.
The venue is a collaboration between the Japanese parent company and Boulevard Hospitality Group, which operates many properties in L.A., including Yamashiro, Comedor and the TCL Chinese Theatre. Lisa particularly enjoyed an avocado half stuffed with salmon tartare and served with nori seaweed, allowing guests to make their own handrolls.
Bret discussed the trends that Rokusho addresses, including experiential dining, making news with visiting chefs and providing luxury for guests who can afford to pay for it.
He went to the opening of the second location of Reserve Cut, a kosher steakhouse. It has long had a location in Manhattan’s Tribeca neighborhood, but the new one is in Midtown. It’s a much grander space than its downtown sibling and is trying to show that kosher dining can appeal to a broader audience than just Jews who follow religious dietary practices. Apart from steak, Bret enjoyed the restaurant’s sushi, short rib tacos, butternut squash bites and more.
He also is continuing to explore his new neighborhood of Sheepshead Bay in Brooklyn, where he discovered fresh dates, which are crunchy and taste like less-concentrated versions of dried dates. Lisa had not had fresh dates, although California has a robust date industry, but she did recently try paw paws for the first time while she was visiting Philadelphia. She said they’d be great as ice cream.
Bret marveled that fresh dates apparently weren’t being used by Angeleno chefs, and recalled that chefs in Atlanta didn’t used to cook with local green peanuts, but now they do. So perhaps there is a future for fresh dates in restaurants in California.
Then the editors discussed TV food competition shows. They’re not fans, but Bret did enjoy his interview with Alyssa Osinga, who is chef de cuisine of The Butcher’s Cellar, which opened earlier this year in Waco, Texas. She was a contestant on Hell’s Kitchen, where she met Alejandro Najar, who is executive chef of The Butcher’s Cellar and Osinga’s life partner.
Bret shared clips with his interview with Osinga, who discussed the restaurant and the fact that she strives to find uncomfortable situations, because they help her to grow.
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On this week’s podcast, Pat Cobe, senior menu editor of Restaurant Business, and Bret Thorn, senior food & beverage editor of Nation’s Restaurant News and Restaurant Hospitality, discussed the time they spent on and near the water in New York City. Pat took a ferry down the East River to Wall Street to check out Jean-Georges Vongerichten’s Tin Building, a much-ballyhooed food hall that neither co-host had had a chance to visit yet. Pat enjoyed a savory buckwheat crêpe, and observed that she also had the option to have a South Indian crêpe-like item called a dosa, a fact that dovetailed nicely with a feature that Bret had just written on chicken curry, one of the fastest-growing types of chicken dishes on menus these days.
Bret has taken to watching the birds flying over Sheepshead Bay, where he lives now, and he strolled along the bay to Rocca, a Turkish-accented restaurant with a bayside view, where he had a light meal of various mezze dips such as labneh, hummus, babaghanoush and Turkish bread.
Pat, too, had sampled a Turkish food she’d never had before, a tiny dumpling called manti, which she had with labneh at a Turkish place called A la Turka.
In other food samplings, Bret was sent Buffalo Wild Wings’ chicken wings with its new Bacon Buffalo sauce as well as its Triple Bacon Cheeseburger.
The guest this week is William Dissen, chef and owner of The Market Place in Asheville, North Carolina, as well as three-unit Billy D’s Fried Chicken.
Dissen recently returned from a culinary ambassador mission to Malaysia, where he cooked for stateless children near the city of Kota Kinabalu. He also recently published his first cookbook, “Thoughtful Cooking: Recipes Rooted in the New South.”
Dissen said the book reflects his own ethos of using wholesome, local food, and he advocates for people to cook that way at home, too.
The restaurateur doesn’t just help Malaysian kids. He’s also involved in education programs for young people at home in North Carolina, and he discussed that mission and also shared strategies for keeping his restaurant’s staff engaged, motivated and excited to provide great hospitality.
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On this week’s podcast, Pat Cobe, senior menu editor of Restaurant Business, and Bret Thorn, senior food & beverage editor of Nation’s Restaurant News and Restaurant Hospitality, talk about how tennis players aren’t the only stars at the US Open, which kicked off on Monday. There’s a lot of star power off the courts, with more than 20 top New York City restaurants and chefs offering their specialties over the next two weeks.
The podcast guest this week is JJ Johnson, a well-known TV chef, James Beard award-winning cookbook author and founder of Fieldtrip, a fast casual bowl concept that reflects the chef’s Afro-Caribbean roots.
Johnson worked as a fine-dining chef before opening Fieldtrip, which now has four locations, including the newest at the Atlantis Resort in the Bahamas. Johnson started Fieldtrip to bring healthier, affordable restaurant food to his Harlem community. He sources top quality ingredients, including rice from farmers in North Carolina, to curate his rice bowls, which also include fresh vegetables and proteins for a complete meal. All the sauces are made from scratch to give the bowls unique flavor profiles.
Listen as chef and restaurateur Johnson describes his vision for Fieldtrip, his cooking adventures at Martha’s Vineyard and his plans for the future.
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On this week’s podcast, Pat Cobe, senior menu editor of Restaurant Business, and Bret Thorn, senior food & beverage editor of Nation’s Restaurant News and Restaurant Hospitality, discussed pumpkin spice season, which is upon us in August just as it is every year, despite annual complaints that it arrives too early. But as Pat observed, operators know when their customers want to start buying those autumnal items, and that time is now.
It's also “Restaurant Week,” in New York City, which now lasts for a month, and Pat made it to a long-standing Jean-Georges Vongerichten restaurant, Perry Street, where son Cedric Vongerichten helms the kitchen. For dinner, she had great pea soup, fried chicken with sweet corn sauce and molten chocolate cake, paired well with sparkling wine, Grüner Veltliner and a berry-flavored spritz-like dessert cocktail. All in, it was $60 for dinner and another $40 for the pairings.
That’s a good value in New York City, but Pat also took a trip to the Berkshires in Massachusetts, a popular summertime getaway for New Yorkers and Bostonians, and was surprised and delighted to find that entree prices there were considerably lower than at other seasonal resorts in the Hamptons and Cape Cod.
Bret stayed local, but enjoyed a good $12 cocktail at his favorite bar, Logan’s Run in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Park Slope, and reported in Restaurant Hospitality’s New on the Menu column about a cocktail that was a cross between a spritz and an Espresso Martini.
The podcast guest this week was Paco Moran, who won season 52 of the TV competition show “Chopped” and is also the executive chef of Loreto, a Mexican seafood restaurant in Los Angeles.
Moran’s a native Angelino whose parents are from El Salvador, and he started working in restaurants at age 17, when he had a child on the way and needed to make money. He worked hard in professional kitchens at a time when those environments could be quite harsh, and Moran has taken a different approach in managing his own restaurant. He said the cruelty of the past isn’t necessary and he wants his restaurants to be fun to work in. That’s especially true since his son, now aged 16, is working for him too. That has taught him and his crew patience, both to their benefit and to that of the young cooks who are joining his team.
Although he is now an executive chef, Moran loves to get back on the line and cook.
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This week on Menu Talk, Pat Cobe, senior menu editor of Restaurant Business, and Bret Thorn, senior food & beverage editor of Nation’s Restaurant News and Restaurant Hospitality, zero in on Japanese tasting menus and a trendy pizza style.
Bret paid a visit to Hakubai in the Kitano Hotel, a restaurant known for its kaiseki menu. Kaiseki is a Japanese tasting menu similar to omakase, but it’s more specifically focused on pristine, seasonal ingredients. Hakubai’s 11-course menu was paired with sake and the amuse-bouche stood out as one of Bret’s favorite parts. It was a very tender and succulent squid with a Japanese-style vinaigrette and caviar on top—another example underscoring caviar as the “it” ingredient this year.
Pat’s pizza experience was a bit more down market but very tasty. She had dinner at Emmy Squared, a Detroit-style sit-down pizza restaurant that earned a spot on Restaurant Business’ Future 50 ranking of emerging chains this year. Detroit pizza is a rectangular pie that’s baked in a black cast iron pan so that every slice comes out with a very crispy edge. It originated in Detroit and may have some link to the auto industry but it’s now trending outside of that city—as proven by Emmy Squared, which is expanding on the East Coast. Pat had the MVP pizza topped with vodka sauce, pesto, burrata and Calabrian chilies and, as a New Yorker, she may just become a Detroit pizza fan.
Food halls have traditionally been another lower-risk way to test out a concept or menu, but they have evolved a bit since the pandemic. Pat shared her interview with food hall veteran Akhtar Nawab, who has opened and operated several in the last few years. His company, Hospitality HQ, tends to stick to smaller cities, such as Omaha, Charlotte, North Carolina, and metro-Minneapolis rather than New York, Chicago and L.A.
Chef Nawab talks about the importance of having a good mix of cuisines. And the concepts don’t all have to be fast casual. A live-fire Brazilian-style full-service steak concept that’s clearly higher-end is doing very well in one of his newer food halls. Event spaces are also key to success; a place to host planned activities that turn food halls into destinations for more than eating and drinking.
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This week, Pat Cobe, senior menu editor of Restaurant Business, and Bret Thorn, senior food & beverage editor of Nation’s Restaurant News and Restaurant Hospitality, discussed their visits to Tara Kitchen, a Moroccan restaurant run by Indian chef Aneesa Waheed with three locations near Albany, New York, one in Wildwood, New Jersey, one in Hyderabad, India, and one in the New York City neighborhood of Tribeca.
Pat and Bret took separate trips to the Tribeca location, where Pat had brunch and enjoyed the 1,000-hole pancakes, a traditional Moroccan dish made with a yeast batter that bubbles and produces all those holes, giving the pancakes a lacy quality. Bret, coincidentally, had also visited the restaurant just to get a look at those pancakes and watch the chef prepare them.
Pat discussed a story she wrote last week that was a deep dive into recent menu innovations in family dining. Many of the big chains in that segment, including IHOP, Denny’s, Perkins and Cracker Barrel have undertaken substantial overhauls recently as they try to find the balance between attracting new guests without alienating existing ones, all while providing value.
Bret wrote about potatoes last week, and how, especially in the form of French fries, they can be a vehicle for introducing new flavors. It’s an increasingly common strategy to add lesser-known ingredients to something familiar to make them seem less scary. Bret said flavor combinations like Indian tandoori chicken or Vietnamese bánh mì can seem more approachable if you put them on top of fries.
Pat noted other places where French fries are added, like on Bobby Flay’s burgers and on Primanti Brothers’ sandwiches.
Then Bret shared his interview with Bryan Ogden, the chef of Bourbon Steak’s New York City location. He is also the son of Bradley Ogden, a pioneer in the modern American cuisine movement of a generation ago.
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The team behind Brine, a fast casual with a location in New York City and another in Fair Lawn, New Jersey, invited 100 of the restaurant’s regulars (plus some media folks) to taste test new menu items and evaluate them. Chef-partner Joe LoNigro was behind the counter as guests helped themselves to grilled chicken with a “umami” sauce, roasted Brussels sprouts, a spicy chicken sandwich, elote corn ribs, tostones and Brine’s new take on its house-made Pop-Tart-inspired dessert. It will be interesting to see what makes it onto the menu, but we liked those corn ribs, grilled chicken and Brussels sprouts.
Bret returned to Momofuku, celeb chef David Chang’s NYC flagship, with some out-of-town friends who wanted to go for dinner. Although it wouldn’t have been Bret’s first choice, everything was better than he expected. Of particular note was a new tomahawk pork katsu with a Japanese-style curry sauce and the kimchi, which got the seal of approval from both Bret and his Korean-American dining companion.
We also talked about how and why Pete Wells is ending his 12-year-run as restaurant critic of The New York Times, citing how dining out four or five times a week can become a health hazard—even if it sounds like an enviable job.
Our guest this week is Jacob Bickelhaupt, chef-owner of Konro in West Palm Beach, Florida. The self-taught chef trained under culinary icon Charlie Trotter, and at Konro, he offers a 10-14 course tasting menu serving just 10 guests nightly, all of whom sit at the chef’s counter. Although the artful cuisine is not Japanese, it is an intimate omakase-style experience, complete with wine pairings by sommelier Nadia Bickelhaupt, Jacob’s wife.
Jacob is six years sober and has created a selection of non-alcoholic pairings that closely mimic the wines, each house-made through a multi-step process. The couple orchestrates the evening at Konro to be as much an extension of their home as a unique and memorable gastronomic experience.
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This week, Pat Cobe, senior menu editor of Restaurant Business, and Bret Thorn, senior food & beverage editor of Nation’s Restaurant News and Restaurant Hospitality, discussed national food holidays. In a nutshell, they’re not huge fans of promotions like National Chicken Wing Day or National Tequila Day, but they do acknowledge that promotions around them can be effective marketing tools and traffic drivers, which are particularly important these days as costs rise and guest counts decline.
Pat discussed her recent visit to La Palapa, a Mexican restaurant that has been in New York City’s East Village at least for a couple of decades. She gave top marks to the margaritas, guac and churros, enjoyed everything else, and was pleased to see that the restaurant was busy.
Bret is continuing to explore his new neighborhood of Sheepshead Bay in Brooklyn, New York, including Wheeler’s, a bar and restaurant that, like La Palapa, has been around for decades and serves large portions of perfectly fine food.
They also discussed New York Restaurant Week, which is actually a month long this year, and shared strategies for the best ways to capitalize on it (in short, don’t cheap out; put your best foot forward).
Then Bret shared clips from his conversation with Trevin Hutchins, beverage director of Aphotic, a seafood restaurant in San Francisco, where he offers a very ambitious beverage program, including house-distilled gin that has seaweed as its main botanical.
Hutchins also offers a non-alcoholic beverage pairing for the restaurant’s tasting menus for which everything is made in-house, and he went into detail about the process for putting that together.
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This week, Pat Cobe, senior menu editor at Restaurant Business, shared her take on Blank Street’s summer matcha drinks and the escalating price of lobster rolls, while Bret Thorn, senior food & beverage editor of Nation’s Restaurant News and Restaurant Hospitality, recounted his visit to Philadelphia to dine at Iron Hill Brewery & Restaurant and Zahav, chef Michael Solomonov’s Israeli restaurant.
The guest on this week’s Menu Talk is Dan Kluger, chef-partner of Greywind in New York. Chef Kluger got his start working with Danny Meyer at Union Square Café, then moved on to Tabla, where he was mentored by the late chef, Floyd Cardoz. He talks about how his experience at Tabla really molded his palate and management style. -
This week, Pat Cobe, senior menu editor of Restaurant Business, recounted her visit to Fieldtrip, J.J. Johnson’s Afro-Caribbean rice bowl concept with items like jerk meatballs and coconut yogurt, and Bret Thorn, senior food & beverage editor of Nation’s Restaurant News and Restaurant Hospitality, discussed his visit with an old friend to an Indian restaurant attached to a Hindu temple in the New York City neighborhood of Flushing in Queens, which led to a discussion of rice-making techniques. Pat uses a fool-proof rice cooker and Bret uses a traditional pot, but he finishes it in the oven to prevent the rice from sticking to the bottom.
Pat also visited Chick-fil-A’s first all-digital location, which is designed for streamlined, order-ahead takeout and has a separate section for delivery drivers. Bret also expressed his joy at the return of potato cakes to Arby’s locations nationwide, as it’s one of his favorite quick-service sides, and that segued into an observation of both co-hosts about the increased availability of merch, especially clothing, sold by restaurants, which can be both a revenue stream and a marketing vehicle.
The guest on this week’s podcast was Tin Do, the CEO and founder of Krak Boba in Southern California. The beverage concept is actually named for the legendary Polish King Krakus, who saved his village from a dragon.
Tin Do explained that Krak Boba’s three philosophical pillars are courage, service and joy, and he discussed how he empowers his own team members to live their best lives while also encouraging guests to express their own “personaliTea.” Listen as he describes how he differentiates Krak Boba as the boba tea sector continues to trend.
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Despite what are usually characterized as the “lazy days of summer,” there’s been a lot of menu action this week.
Pat and Bret both attended an outdoor pig roast at Back Bar in the Eventi Hotel in New York City. The patio party was hosted by Chef Laurent Tourondel and his team, who operate the dining venues at the hotel. They started cooking the pigs at noon, inside a charcoal-fired China box or “caja chino,” which is a Cuban style of cooking pork.
The pigs were roasted to perfection by 6 p.m. with burnished, crackly skin and tender meat. The cooks sliced the pork and sandwiched it in bao buns with a creamy, garlicky green sauce. Also on offer was chicken shawarma and elote, where the ears of corn were cooked over live fire and topped with cotija cheese and spices.
Bret was a guest at Heritage Grand Bakery, a grab-and-go eatery that’s connected to a full-service restaurant with wood-burning pizza ovens. The owner, Lou Ramirez, is into ancient grains and uses a product called “population wheat” for baking. It’s a type of wheat that results from tossing 17 different grains into a field, and whatever sprouts up is harvested and milled.
Chef Ramirez uses population wheat in pizza crust and in a whole-grain pasta that’s served with a mushroom sauce. Both check the boxes for sustainability, healthfulness and abundant flavor.
Our guest this week was Mindy Armstrong, VP of menu innovation at Perkins and Huddle House. Perkins is on a revitalization journey, recently changing its name from Perkins Restaurant & Bakery to Perkins American Food Co.
But Armstrong points out that the bakery will remain a differentiator, setting the chain apart in the family-dining segment. Pies are still menu mainstays, as are breakfast and comfort foods, but the plan is to offer more portable items, lean into sandwiches and burgers and innovate the beverage lineup.
At Huddle House, the R&D strategy focuses on the core menu instead of creating limited-time specials. And with both chains, it’s risky to get too wild with flavor.
Family-dining chains seem to be on a reinvention streak lately, with Cracker Barrel, Friendly’s, Denny’s and now Perkins and even Huddle House all refreshing their menus and images. It will be interesting to watch this segment in the months ahead.
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This week, Pat Cobe, senior menu editor of Restaurant Business, reported from Atlanta, where Menu Directions, a conference hosted by sister publication FoodService Director, had just wrapped up. Meanwhile, Bret Thorn, senior food & beverage editor of Nation’s Restaurant News and Restaurant Hospitality, reported on happenings in New York City.
Foodservice Director covers on-site dining, so attendees were mostly chefs from healthcare, schools, corporate dining, etc., rather than restaurants per se. Pat reported that they’re a nice group eager to share ideas. This year that included strategies for using artificial intelligence in menu development, as well as approaches for reducing waste—such as using leftover coffee grounds as part of a spice rub for roasted beets and meats.
Bret, meanwhile, attended a party thrown by the Mushroom Council where he enjoyed cocktails as well as lettuce wraps and tostadas made with different varieties of the fungus, and learned that the trade association is trying to make Mushroom Mondays a thing. Mushroom products also were on display at Menu Directions, blended into beef meatballs by Mush Foods, Pat said.
Bret also attended the launch of Pizza Hut’s new Chicago Tavern-Style Pizza, a thin-crust pie that’s actually more popular in the Windy City than the better-known deep dish pizza.
And he interviewed James Wozniuk, the chef of Makan, a Malaysian restaurant that started in Washington, D.C., and just opened a second unit in Charleston, S.C. The chef discussed why he loved Malaysian food, how he discovered it as a non-Malaysian, and how he went about developing the menu for Makan, which means “to eat” in Malay.
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