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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: Hummus with ramps and a boozy milk punch

Plus a black cod Ssam, multicultural octopus and Ryan Ratino’s version of beef tartare

Bret Thorn, Senior Food Editor

May 26, 2023

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Of all the cattle that we raise, dairy cattle live the longest, for reasons that are probably obvious: They produce milk for six or seven years before they are slaughtered rather than beef cattle which are slaughtered at around two years. Normally in the United States, dairy cattle meat is ground and sold as commodity beef to be used mostly in hamburgers, but increasingly chefs are finding other uses for this flavorful meat. Some are aging the center cuts and making them into a gamy sort of steak, but Ryan Ratino, the executive chef at Bresca in Washington, D.C., is mincing the meat into a tartare, enriched by the rendered beef fat, and serving it in rye tartlet crust.

In Venice, Calif., at Belles Beach House, executive chef Sydney Hunter is taking classic miso-marinated black cod and making ssam, Korean lettuce wraps, out of it, and elsewhere in the Los Angeles area, at the Delphi Hotel, which opened in downtown L.A. in April, a boozy milk punch made with Cognac and Port is served at its Delphi Lounge.

Not far away in West Hollywood, Calif., at Bombo, which also opened last month, head chef Samantha Quintero is offering a red wine octopus with multicultural influences that she says reflects her heritage as a native Angelina.

And at Ilili in New York City chef and owner Philippe Massoud is closing out ramp season with dishes including creamy hummus topped with the vegetable sautéed in Lebanese olive oil.

Related:New on the Menu: Lychee ceviche and a fattoush tostada

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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