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New on the Menu

Articles on new and innovative food and beverage items trending across the independent restaurant landscape

New on the menu: A sushi sandwich and a “coupe-tail”

Plus another high-low caviar presentation, an open-faced beet sandwich, and a floral variation of the Sazerac

Bret Thorn, Senior Food Editor

April 5, 2024

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Caviar and other fish roe have been appearing on many menus lately, often in casual settings and at reasonable prices.

A case in point is the potato tots with caviar on the menu at The Ruxton, which recently opened in Baltimore.

Another popular fish egg, tobiko, or flying fish roe, is mixed into the rice, along with smoked tuna skin, for a sushi preparation presented as a triangular sandwich at the Salty Flame, which recently opened in Miami.

A toasted open-faced sandwich, or tartine, is a meatless option at The Bentwood, which is located at the new Second City comedy club that just opened in Brooklyn.

In New Orleans, home of the original Sazerac, a variation on that cocktail is available at Bayou Bar, which QED Hospitality operates in that city’s Garden District. It’s enhanced by various floral aromatics and is therefore named after the famous flower lover from a children’s story, Ferdinand the Bull.

A cocktail of sorts is on the dessert menu at Spago Beverly Hills, where the “coupe-tail” program gives different pastry cooks the chance to create their own desserts in a glass, with a new one being rotated on each month. The Violette Baroness starts with a mascarpone-cherry gelato and from there goes on to mimic the Aviation cocktail.

Contact Bret Thorn at [email protected] 

About the Author

Bret Thorn

Senior Food Editor, Nation's Restaurant News

Senior Food & Beverage Editor

Bret Thorn is senior food & beverage editor for Nation’s Restaurant News and Restaurant Hospitality for Informa’s Restaurants and Food Group, with responsibility for spotting and reporting on food and beverage trends across the country for both publications as well as guiding overall F&B coverage. 

He is the host of a podcast, In the Kitchen with Bret Thorn, which features interviews with chefs, food & beverage authorities and other experts in foodservice operations.

From 2005 to 2008 he also wrote the Kitchen Dish column for The New York Sun, covering restaurant openings and chefs’ career moves in New York City.

He joined Nation’s Restaurant News in 1999 after spending about five years in Thailand, where he wrote articles about business, banking and finance as well as restaurant reviews and food columns for Manager magazine and Asia Times newspaper. He joined Restaurant Hospitality’s staff in 2016 while retaining his position at NRN. 

A magna cum laude graduate of Tufts University in Medford, Mass., with a bachelor’s degree in history, and a member of Phi Beta Kappa, Thorn also studied traditional French cooking at Le Cordon Bleu Ecole de Cuisine in Paris. He spent his junior year of college in China, studying Chinese language, history and culture for a semester each at Nanjing University and Beijing University. While in Beijing, he also worked for ABC News during the protests and ultimate crackdown in and around Tiananmen Square in 1989.

Thorn’s monthly column in Nation’s Restaurant News won the 2006 Jesse H. Neal National Business Journalism Award for best staff-written editorial or opinion column.

He served as president of the International Foodservice Editorial Council, or IFEC, in 2005.

Thorn wrote the entry on comfort food in the Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, 2nd edition, published in 2012. He also wrote a history of plated desserts for the Oxford Companion to Sugar and Sweets, published in 2015.

He was inducted into the Disciples d’Escoffier in 2014.

A Colorado native originally from Denver, Thorn lives in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Bret Thorn’s areas of expertise include food and beverage trends in restaurants, French cuisine, the cuisines of Asia in general and Thailand in particular, restaurant operations and service trends. 

Bret Thorn’s Experience: 

Nation’s Restaurant News, food & beverage editor, 1999-Present
New York Sun, columnist, 2005-2008 
Asia Times, sub editor, 1995-1997
Manager magazine, senior editor and restaurant critic, 1992-1997
ABC News, runner, May-July, 1989

Education:
Tufts University, BA in history, 1990
Peking University, studied Chinese language, spring, 1989
Nanjing University, studied Chinese language and culture, fall, 1988 
Le Cordon Bleu Ecole de Cuisine, Cértificat Elémentaire, 1986

Email: [email protected]

Social Media:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bret-thorn-468b663/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bret.thorn.52
Twitter: @foodwriterdiary
Instagram: @foodwriterdiary

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