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Menu Talk with Pat and Bret

Menu Talk with Pat and Bret is a collaboration between Restaurant Business senior menu editor Pat Cobe and Bret Thorn, senior food & beverage editor of Nation’s Restaurant News and Restaurant Hospitality.

Chicago taste-around, revisiting Eataly, and dinner with Wonder

Menu Talk: Pat and Bret chat about recent eating adventures and share an interview with celebrated chef and restaurateur Michael Mina

36 Min Listen

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 on 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. 

Related:Edible glitter, tainted onions, and the evolution of American sushi

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 up a flavor notch or two.

Pat finally had a chance to try Wonder, the ordering platform/virtual food hall that curates menu items from well-known chefs and restaurants. She had several tempting menus to choose from, including one from Marcus Samuelsson and another from JJ Johnson, but she chose a hazelnut pesto pasta with shrimp along with a kale salad, both from Jonathan Waxman’s Walnut Lane “restaurant.” Pat thought it was a great deal — the order was delivered quickly, portions were large, and the meal was restaurant-quality.

For Halloween, Bret dressed as a vampire and visited his favorite bar in Brooklyn, which hosted a costume contest. He even ordered mozzarella sticks with marinara sauce that looked like fingers dipped in blood to keep in character. The effect won him first prize.

Related:Chef-inspired Crunchwraps, Cava’s all in on ranch, and a visit to Bluestone Lane

Another celebration taking place this weekend was the annual New York City Marathon. Pat lives very close to the route and had recently scored a gift of caviar. So she seized on the opportunity to host a marathon brunch, making blinis to serve with the caviar and pouring a little bubbly before everyone walked down the block to cheer on the runners.

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, Calif. — 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.

About the Authors

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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