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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: Eggplant standing in for short ribs and a crabcake Wellington

Plus confit duck wings, a summery gnocchi dish, house-made limoncello, and a cocktail inspired by a beloved Thai dessert

Bret Thorn, Senior Food Editor

August 18, 2023

6 Slides
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It is becoming common practice for chefs to make a dish their own by swapping out key components but presenting it in a relatable form.

That’s what Harley Peet and his chef de cuisine Phil Lind are doing at Bas Rouge in Easton, Md. Lind is from England, so offering a variation on Beef Wellington makes sense, but Easton is near the Chesapeake Bay, and so using crabcakes instead of beef brings local flair. Using summer squash for the duxelles gives it seasonality.

Not too far away at 1310 Kitchen & Bar in Washington, D.C. chef Jen Crovato takes what is arguably the beefiest of beef dishes, short ribs, and makes it vegan by using eggplant instead.

Wings are given the fine dining treatment at Landrace in San Antonio, where Steve McHugh uses duck instead of chicken, and cures it and confits it before frying it.

At Essex Restaurant in New York City, Steffen Sander brings a summertime touch to gnocchi with basil and corn.

In Fort Lauderdale, Fla., at La Fuga, which specializes in coastal Italian cuisine, food & beverage manager Marco Zaccariotto makes his own limoncello boosted by lavender, and at Mister Mao in New Orleans, bartender Madeleine Chao evokes mangoes and sticky rice with her ESL 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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