Articles on new and innovative food and beverage items trending across the independent restaurant landscape
Plus plankton tagliolini, cheesy bone marrow and salmon belly crudo
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Insects had a moment in American cuisine back around 2016. Well, maybe not quite a moment, but people were sampling them a little, both as a startling garnish and as a sort of “stealth health” ingredient in flours and pastas.
Insects are nutritious — a very good source of lean protein — and extremely sustainable, with a negligible carbon footprint. They also are arguably low on the cruelty scale because they’re generally dispatched painlessly through freezing.
The problem is that Americans as a general rule really don’t want to eat them.
But some operators are trying again, with crickets. In fact, this week you can take a look at two approaches to incorporating crickets into your menu, with cricket flour in the tortillas at Coyote Crossing in Conshohocken, Pa., and front-and-center in the ice cube of The Jiminy cocktail at The Fed at The Langham in Boston.
If plankton is more your cup of tea, so to speak, you can try that folded into the pasta at Ancora in San Francisco.
Another dramatic presentation can be found at Patio Isola in Miami, where cheesy garlic bread is given the bone marrow treatment, an upscale approach that makes the $19 price tag more justifiable.
Looking for something a little more mainstream and you can find it at La Neta in Las Vegas, where chef Israel Castro is offering a salmon belly crudo.
It says something about where we are from a culinary perspective that the least unusual dish being featured this week includes raw fish. We’ve come a long way.
Contact Bret Thorn at [email protected]
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