With just about a gazillion pictures of food on blogs and websites, accessible at the touch of a BlackBerry button, it might seem a little ho-hum to stage a museum show of food photography.
But an exhibition at the Getty Museum called "In Focus: Tasteful Pictures" is anything but boring. In just one room, the exhibition, drawn from the museum's permanent collection, traces food photography over 150 years, from the mid-19th century to today. It includes meticulously staged still lifes, a performance art photogram and an enormous jumble of contraband food. Not one of these pictures is made with a digital camera, said Virginia Heckert, associate curator in the museum's photography department and curator of the exhibit. She said the images are meant to illuminate the history of photography, not just show off what someone ordered in a restaurant. The pictures also are intended to show how the photographers used the technical aspects of their art. The exhibit came to be in part from a desire to show for the first time "Supper With Heinecken," by Floris Neususs and acquired in 1999 from Susan and Graham Nash, he of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young fame. The 1983 piece — a photogram the size of a dining table and placed in the center of the one-room show — was made after a workshop that the photographer Robert Heinecken gave for Neususs' students. Auto reversal paper was spread over a table in a darkroom with only a safelight on, Heckert said. The guests sat, and the paper was exposed for five seconds at the start of the meal and again at the end of it, with food and drink spilled all over. The resulting photo shows hands and wine glasses, a bottle opener, noodles and forks, grapes and shadowy forms that are hard to discern. The guests also signed their names. "Everyone wants to leave their mark. No one wants to be forgotten," Maite Gomez-Rejon, who combines art and food in classes she gives at museums and elsewhere, said after seeing the show. The picture, she said, reminded her of ancient Roman floor mosaics that depicted fish heads, lemons and other food people ate. The piece documents the ephemeral activity of the meal. "It's kind of messy, but it's also fabulous," Heckert said. In contrast, the oldest photographs in the exhibit, made in the 19th century, mimic the composition and style of Old Masters still-life paintings. In a studio photograph, Adolphe Braun presents a boar posed with its snout to the ground, between vine-covered branches. The horn and the gun of the hunt sit alongside. "It's carefully staged to emulate the aesthetic standards" of higher arts such as painting, Heckert said. Such pictures also show tastes change. "People would have been salivating" over the boar in its time, but today it seems grisly, she said. That also might be because the painted boar is more appealing than the photographed one, which "just looks like a dead animal," Gomez-Rejon said. The exhibit includes work by Man Ray, Weegee, Edward Weston and Roger Fenton. One set of photographs, taken in the 20th century, shows off the mechanics of the art, focusing on cropping, abstractions, shadows and the elimination of the context of the subject — everyday foods like noodles, bananas and chocolate bars. Among them is the exquisite "Peas in a Pod," taken about 1935 by Edward W. Quigley. The picture makes it impossible to see the peas just as nourishment; they're elegant and weighty. Although all the pictures are of food, they're not all necessarily about food, said Heckert, who considered nearly 100 pictures for the exhibit. For example, a 1930 Weston photograph of five ripe, spotty bananas tangled in a basket is about the shape, "how the camera could reveal that essential form," not unlike his photographs of nude women, she said. A few photos were taken for commercial use. Among the latter is a photograph by Man Ray from 1931 called "Kitchen (Cuisine)" and commissioned by a Paris utility company to promote the use of electricity. It shows a bed of rice topped by a chicken that's scrawny by today's standards. From its tail end emerges a coil, added in the darkroom and suggesting a heating element. It's hard to imagine that picture endearing people to the L.A. Department of Water and Power. The two most recent pieces, including one from Martin Parr's "British Food" series that is on view for the first time, show food in ways that can be unsettling. Parr's 1995 piece is made up of 24 small photographs, among them a full breakfast, white bread on a white plate, and a plate of bangers, or sausages, that look a bit like slimy worms. The garish nature of the pictures helps create an impression of the British "not really as a culture that savors food," Heckert said. The final picture, taken in 2005, shows an astonishing pile of plant and animal contraband confiscated from travelers at JFK Airport in New York over just 48 hours. Near the center is a whole pig's head. There also are African cane rats infested with maggots, all manner of fruit and Andean potatoes. Taryn Simon's photograph, with its lush, saturated color, documents a modern moment and captures the feeling of a Baroque still life, Heckert noted. For Gomez-Rejon, many of the pictures told stories. And Simon's reminded her of her Texas childhood, near the border of Mexico. When her family would bring mangoes back over the border, she recalled, her mother would light a cigarette to mask their scent. She imagines the owners of the contraband as people like her family, but who happened to get caught. The exhibit is part of a series at the Getty called "In Focus." Others in the series have included "The Nude" and "Making a Scene"; "Tasteful Pictures" runs until Aug. 22. "Still Life" opens in September. mary.macvean@latimes.com
0 Comments
Thomas Keller runs a food empire that started in Napa Valley but now extends to New York, Beverly Hills, Calif., and Las Vegas. The chef's flagship restaurant in Yountville, the French Laundry, has three Michelin stars, as does his New York restaurant, Per Se.
Mr. Keller recently discussed celebrity chefs, his favorite places to eat and the differences between running restaurants in various parts of the country (hint: there isn't much of a difference). The 54-year-old Napa Valley resident chatted while at the Pebble Beach Food and Wine festival last week—in between a demonstration on how to perfectly roast a chicken and preparing a nine-course dinner for 100 guests: WSJ: There is an influx of celebrity chefs opening restaurants in Napa County. Is it becoming a bit like Las Vegas? Mr. Keller: I don't think Vegas is a bad thing. As long as the chef respects his standards and his reputation, then he is going to do really good food. Vegas had the image at one point that chefs went there to make a lot of money, but I don't think that's really the case. When you think about Napa Valley, it's the only place in our country where people go to eat and drink. That's all they go there for. It's not New York City, where you've got the cultural aspect of it, where you can go to the MoMA or the Statue of Liberty. Napa's got the greatest wineries. You've got to have great restaurants. Wine and food just go together. So from a chef's point of view, where would you want to be? In New York, people come to Per Se because it's a closing [of a deal] or they're going there before the theater—there are all these different reasons to go to restaurants. But in Napa Valley, that's it. They're there to eat and drink. WSJ: So what's the difference between operating a restaurant in Napa and New York City? Mr. Keller: Outside of local regulations, really nothing. They're unique in the sense of their place, French Laundry being in the country in Napa Valley and Per Se being in the middle of an urban environment. For example, we have the three-acre garden in Napa that we can't have in New York City because that would be a big part of Central Park and I don't think they would like that. WSJ: How are the diners different? Mr. Keller: They're not. You're not the only person that it sounds odd to, and I'm not sure why, because when you're dealing at that high-end level, it's the same type of client. It's the person that appreciates the quality. We don't think about our guests. We think about what we're doing. We do what we believe in, not what our guests want us to do. WSJ: What do you make of the trend of celebrity chefs? Mr. Keller: I don't understand the celebrity chef thing. [The media] can give it and take it away, so it's something that's really irrelevant to me. When I started cooking, it didn't exist. There were certainly no national celebrities in the restaurant industry. There were a few around the world but those were always associated with France where there has always been that deep respect for the culinary world. Our culture didn't have that. Of course, what Americans do the best is to elevate things to unrealistic platforms without a lot of foundation behind it. We fall into this trap of having to have celebrities. WSJ: You're a celebrity chef, though. Mr. Keller: I don't establish myself as a celebrity. You would establish me as a celebrity. I try to keep arm's length at it. WSJ: How have celebrity chefs affected cuisine? Mr. Keller: It's certainly made it better. The quality of the produce that we have in our stores is because chefs demanded better products from suppliers. Guests would come into my restaurant, see baby lettuce, go to their marketplace and say, "Where can I get baby lettuce?" All of a sudden the demand is created. WSJ: What are your favorite places to eat in the Bay Area? Mr. Keller: Certainly, Chez Panisse has always been a favorite place to eat, for me. In San Francisco, I'd probably have to say Delfina, although I haven't been to Delfina for five years probably. Taqueria [on Mission and 24th Street]. That's a great restaurant. Write to Ben Worthen at ben.worthen@wsj.com We imagine most restaurant menu meetings focus on what's in season or maybe what dishes customers particularly enjoyed. But Grant Achatz worries about nothing less than the whole culinary world closing in. In a particularly revealing video posted to the Alinea's YouTube channel, Achatz meets with his fellow chefs to discuss changes to the menu, and his unending search to "push it more."
He seems concerned with the problem of developing a style without getting stuck in a rut. The culprit of his self doubt is a dish of squid and green garbanzo beans. Achatz's girlfriend Heather Sperling, who is also the Chicago editor of Tasting Table, mentioned that it was her favorite dish on a recent visit to the Publican, which reminded him of a dish on their own menu. "Did they get that from us, or did we get that from them?" The Publican version of the squid and green garbanzo bean dish is off the menu tonight, though it will probably be back on by Thursday. Let us know if you try it. See the video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgriXQZVHCk&feature=player_embedded NEW YORK (Reuters) - What's the value of a pint of beer? Let the market decide, says a new restaurant in Manhattan, where prices for food and beverages will fluctuate like stock prices in increments according to demand.
The Exchange Bar & Grill, set amid the bustling shops and pubs of the Grammercy Park neighborhood, is replete with a ticker tape flashing menu prices in red lettering as demand forces them to fluctuate. Customers can move prices for all beverages and bar snacks such as hot wings ($7 for 6 pieces) or fried calamari ($9). The prices will fluctuate in $.25 cent increments, but will most likely plateau at a $2 change in either direction. A glass of Guinness starts at $6 but could be pushed to a high of $8 or a low of $4, depending on popularity. So if one drink is in heavy demand, its price will rise, causing the cost of other equivalent drinks to drop. A rush on a particular beer would increase its price, and cause other beers to drop. Owners Levent Cakar and Damon Bae admit the stock exchange theme is a gimmick but hope a good deal on drinks and their hamburger's tastiness will win over customers. "Its definitely something a little bit different," said Bae. "There is a little bit of a twist." Bae, 35, who has an MBA from Georgetown University and Cakar, a veteran restaurant hand, combined forces to open the airy lounge, which serves up to 60 people. The Exchange Bar & Grill has a long bar facing the ticker tape -- and flat screen televisions -- as well as a few tables in the back where patrons can eat in greater comfort. Restaurants in New York and across America have had a tough year because consumers have slashed discretionary spending in a tough economic climate. New York has about 23,000 restaurants, with about 4,400 opening each year according to the city's Department of Health, which tracks establishment licenses. The number of sit-down restaurants in New York dropped 9 percent from the fall of 2008 to 2009, according to market research firm NPD Group. Good prices and a good location should be enough to make their project work, Bae said. And, Cakar added, put in a dash of speculation and you've got a winning recipe. "Why couldn't we play with the prices like a stock market?" said Cakar, who explained that when he mentioned the bar's concept to his liquor distributors, they laughed at him. "One day you are all going to come to me to put your drinks on my ticker tape," he told them. The restaurant opens April 1. Fresh off the heels of our first wine dinner with Eddie Kurtzman and Morgan Clendenen, we are proud to announce a few notable items... First off, included in this email, our first review. The folks over at NJ Monthly, broke the seal and officially welcomed us to the NJ restaurant landscape! We are more than pleased with the reaction the critics have had to our cuisine and service! Be sure to follow us on the blog, http://uprootrestaurant.blogspot.com, as more exciting news and reviews, regarding NJ's best new restaurant begin to surface! Check out the details on our GM Jonathan Ross, and his band of bar keeps as they usher in the spring/summer season, with some really interesting and fun cocktail classes! Additionally, we will be participating in Autism Awareness's campaign, "Light it up Blue". On both April 1 & 2.
See below for all the details. Our First Review April 2010 There’s much to love about this passionate and perfectionistic restaurant, whose mission, says executive chef Anthony Bucco, is “to sustain local agriculture while feeding the community well.” At Uproot, which took root in Warren in November, culinary zeal and customer service come together in exemplary fashion. The owners, Catherine and Andrew Farro, are longtime Warren residents who are in the construction business. “Somerset County needed a sophisticated, Manhattan-level restaurant,” says Catherine. “Uproot aims for great cooking with informality and affordability, too.” The vibe is young. The Farros’ CIA-trained 26-year-old son, Mark, is sous-chef to Bucco, a New York Restaurant School alum who, at 34, is the old salt on the premises. Uproot is managed by sommelier and mixologist Jonathan Ross, 26, whose toothsome retro cocktails—often based on rye or bourbon—are mixed with finesse by bartender Danny McGill, 29. The chefs and manager are Jersey boys who met at Stage Left in New Brunswick, where Bucco ran the kitchen from 2000 through 2006 and also opened Stage Left’s sister restaurant, Catherine Lombardi. “We shared a vision about serving fresh, natural, delicious cuisine in a feel-good, unstuffy environment,” says Ross. “The vision we had in mind became Uproot to a T.” Located in the Corner Village at Warren, a new single-story retail plaza with subtle signage, stone walkways, and elegant brickwork, Uproot was designed by Riscala Agnese of Manhattan, whose Jersey dossier includes Nicholas in Red Bank and Daryl in New Brunswick. Diners enter through a dramatic red-glass vestibule that opens into a high-ceilinged bar and lounge space. Overhead, a handsome white sculpture of abstract tree branches—an uprooted tree—commands the lounge, with its fifteen-seat granite and mahogany bar, leather club chairs, sofa banquette, and small round tables. This warm and welcoming nook is ideal for savoring a pre-prandial cocktail: perhaps a deftly spiced verjus sour, or the Tree, a Ross cocktail of Plymouth gin, brandy distilled with Douglas fir bark and needles, and house-infused thyme syrup. The seductive bar menu includes Moroccan-style beef meatballs with whole pine nuts, cinnamon, currants, and a mint pesto. Bucco’s generous goat cheese tart (“a nod to the French chefs I’ve worked with, including at Provence in Soho”) should not be missed. It’s a kind of crispy white pizza whose flatbread crust is enriched with Guinness (“I’m half Irish,” he notes) and anointed with French chèvre, caramelized onions, and bits of Niman Ranch smoked pork. (The tart is not served in the dining room except at lunch, along with other lunch-only items like a Vietnamese banh mi-influenced pulled-pork sandwich on baguette and a pasta du jour.) “We’re cooking the kind of full-flavored, honest, earthy food that people love to eat,” Bucco says. “We cook from the heart and don’t overthink or overhandle our food.” Bucco revives the thrill in dishes that have become clichéd. He serves duck-liver foie gras from Quebec with pistachio-studded brioche bread pudding. Or consider his house-smoked-and -cured salmon, which is diced, pressed into cylinder shape, and delectably garnished with caviar, frizzled onions, and sliced pears. Other captivating appetizers include succulent dayboat scallops from Barnegat Bay, scrumptiously paired with earthy, puréed sunchoke root (also known as Jerusalem artichoke) and lush, smoky Canadian wild boar belly. Quail is stuffed with chicken, duck, mushrooms, rosemary, and bits of the quail’s skin. Even better, it’s bedded on a luscious mushroom risotto. Another starter, potato gnocchi, is rendered irresistible with slices of Virginia ham air-cured for over a year. Among entrées, butter-poached lobster is as rich and comforting as it sounds. A kiss of vanilla infuses the Maine crustacean, whose ocean-sweet meat stuffs a quartet of house-made agnolotti that share the plate. Long Island duck is confited to crisp the skin and make the meat creamy. Uproot’s impeccable steak, a 10-ounce New York strip dry-aged 21 days by DeBragga & Spitler, one of the East Coast’s choicest meat purveyors, is juicily cooked in the Wood Stone oven and served with confit potatoes slow-baked with rosemary and duck fat. The venison hails from New Zealand, beyond the 200-mile food-sourcing circle that Bucco tries to maintain. (“It’s simply the best venison I’ve tasted,” he explains.) Its lean, pleasantly gamy meat is set off by tiny huckleberries cooked to an intense sweetness with verjus (tart grape juice) from Ontario. A vegetable cake au gratin with rutabaga and apple adds even more wattage to the plate. Sumptuous almond-crusted pork loin from Niman Ranch is slow-roasted with almond oil and acacia honey. Bucco’s oven-roasted free-range Giannone chicken is from a Quebec farm that air-chills rather than freezes its birds, a flavor-enhancing process similar to dry-aging. This deeply chickeny chicken is companionably paired with savory root vegetables and carrot purée. Bucco finds rewarding ways to add excitement to fish while still showcasing the meat’s delicate flavors. He dusts arctic char with black trumpet mushroom powder for an earthy note; steams snapper in green tea and serves it with beet-hazelnut tapenade; and does cod with a grapefruit beurre blanc and slices of Venezuelan Cara Cara orange, celeriac, salsify, and Peruvian purple potatoes. Uproot’s desserts, from Bucco and Farro, range from a superlative brownie concocted with Valrhona chocolate to arty, slightly spare sweets like a Twinkie-homage carrot-parsnip cake that could use more frosting. There’s a nice, light pineapple semifreddo; and a cheesecake caressed with thyme honey. Ice creams, made daily in-house, are spellbinding. Rotating flavors include Valrhona chocolate with airy, crackly chocolate chips; chunky peanut butter; spearmint chocolate chip; and caramelly dulce de leche. Au courant sorbets cover lavender, basil, and fruit essences like kaffir lime and Cara Cara orange. I’m not completely sold on Uproot’s name (“Everything we use comes straight from the earth,” Ross explains) but I’m interpreting it this way: You will not want to uproot yourself from the table. --------------------- Uproot Cocktail Classes/The Define your Drink Series A new series of cocktail classes for the Uproot barflies! We’ll be featuring special ingredients, fun spirits and a lot of technique. Shake, muddle and stir along side the barmen of Uproot as we Define Your Drink! Inaugural Class: Thursday, April 8th @ 6:30pm Bar Necessities How to stock the home bar, fresh juices and recipes that will make your house the new hot-spot! We’ll be starting with the basics. Manhattans, Martinis, Sours and Margaritas Class #2: Thursday, May 6th @ 6:30 Cocktails from the Garden Incorporate all of those fresh herbs and flowers in your garden. Sip in the Spirit of Spring. We’ll be doing a lot of muddling here! Mojitos, make herbed sodas for mixing and incorporate many of the gardens fine herbs into great cocktails. Class # 3: Thursday, June 3rd @ 6:30 pm (outside?!) Give me a triple shot of that stuff Celebrate the upcoming final race of the Triple crown. Each Race has its own cocktail. The Mint Julep, The Belmont Breeze, and the Black-Eyed Susan. We’ll revive the original Belmont cocktail, the White Carnation, and make up some of our own racy libations! Class # 4 Thursday, July first @ 6:30 Cocktails for the beach, backyard, and the kids. The forth of July cocktail you really want to serve, a cocktail to sneak onto the beach, some non-alcoholic cocktails for kids and the expecting! Here will focus on refreshing crushed ice cocktails, making our own adult juice boxes for the beach and create non-alcoholic cocktails using fresh juices, made from scratch grenadine and real ginger ale! Cocktail Classes will last for approximately 1 ½ hours. Each participant will be provided all of the necessary ingredients and equipment to make each cocktail. Light fare will be provided in addition to parting gifts. $40.00 per person/$125 for the series. Classes are by reservation only and can be made via phone 908.834.8194, or via email to jonathan@uprootrestaurant.com --------------- Join Uproot in raising Awareness for Autism To commemorate the third World Autism Awareness Day (WAAD) on April 2 and Autism Awareness Month, Autism Speaks has asked businesses everywhere to do something “blue” on April 1 and 2. Here at Uproot restaurant, we will be printing on blue paper and featuring a "Blue" cocktail at our bar, because we want to shine a bright light on autism. Uproot restaurant supports Autism Speaks in its efforts to raise worldwide awareness of autism spectrum disorders which now affect 1 in 110 children. Learn more at www.AutismSpeaks.org. http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/video?id=7343896
NEW YORK (Dow Jones)--A rosy outlook from Morton's Restaurant Group Inc. (MRT) late Wednesday shows demand is starting to return to the upscale restaurant segment and corporations may be starting to loosen their purse strings when it comes to business lunches and other discretionary spending too.
The restaurant company projected current-quarter profit and full-year earnings and revenue above analysts' expectations, while adding it began seeing a modest increase in same-restaurant revenue beginning in December, which carried into January and February. Though consumer confidence has continued to struggle, retailers from restaurants to home-improvement companies have seen sales pick up in the last few months as the economy starts to turn around and consumers cautiously start spending again. Morton's operates upscale steakhouses under the name Morton's of Chicago, as well as other restaurants. The company suffered last year as luxury consumers cut back and as the recession sparked downturns in business travel, conventions and entertaining. The company does a big portion of its business through expense-account purchases and business travelers. A restaurant-spending survey from RBC Capital Markets published last week showed consumers planning to eat out at restaurants more often and at home less frequently, and said consumers are trading up more, skipping beverages less and ordering more expensive meals more often. Guest frequency is also improved, the survey said. The outlook, and particularly the hints of better same-restaurant sales in the current quarter, boosted shares of Morton's and fellow restaurant operator Ruth's Hospitality Group (RUTH), which operates upscale restaurants including Ruth's Chris Steak House. Morton's shares were recently up 5% to $4.61, while Ruth's, which traded below $1 as recently as November, hit a high not seen since September 2008, rising $8% to $4.18. Though Morton's is up against easy same-restaurant sales comparisons from a year earlier, analysts at Wells Fargo said they're encouraged by improvement into the first quarter, "which appears to reflect a pick up in weekday trends resulting from increased business travel." The company's overall results for the fourth quarter didn't see such a boost. Morton's posted a loss of $68.1 million, or $4.28 a share, compared with a year-earlier loss of $8.1 million, or 51 cents a share. Excluding items, such as a $30 million write-down, earnings from continuing operations fell to 25 cents from 29 cents. Revenue declined 9.4% to $79.2 million. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected earnings of 24 cents and revenue of $81.1 million. Same-restaurant sales fell 12% for the fourth quarter, which had an extra week compared with a year earlier. A recent survey of 1,389 chief financial officers in the U.S. conducted by Duke University and CFO Magazine showed expectations of increased capital spending over the coming year as the economy and confidence continue to recover, which could lead to businesses loosening allowing more discretionary spending on items such as business lunches, benefiting Morton's and Ruth's. -By Kerry Grace Benn I just got back from a long weekend in Philadelphia, and I didn't see a single nettle on the menu. It was a very enlightening trip. Traveling to other cities is one of the most important aspects of a critic's education. When we don't get out, it's easy to take for granted what we do well in the Bay Area, and not focus on the things we're missing.
There's a lot of excitement on the dining scene in Philadelphia these days, and it was impossible to cover all the new places that had opened. I was there with friends and colleagues from around the country, so we'd go out at night and compare notes the next day. I could write several posts on my meals, but I'll cut to the important part: the elements of the dining experience that made me wish we had something similar here. First thing I'd do if I had my way is to plunk Zahav down South of Market near my house. Michael Solomonov offers his interpretation of Israeli food, in a space that has an industrial edge with large windows overlooking Society Hill, an open wood oven and a kitchen sequestered behind paned glass, where diners can sit at the counter and watch the heated action. On entering, diners see Solomonov warming his back in front of the oven as he rolls out flatbread and places it in the oven where it quickly puffs and browns. He then removes it and loosely drapes the hot bread next to the creamiest, most intensely flavored hummus I've encountered. The small plates menu also includes such items as cauliflower that's browned to a mahogany hue and accented with yogurt flavored with chives, dill, garlic and mint; crispy haloumi with dates and pinenuts; and grape leaves stuffed with veal. Chifa showcases Jose Garces Peruvian/Cantonese food in another stylish restaurant that features a collection of blue and white jars covering the walls and huge industrial fans hanging from the ceiling. I'd love to see his red curry with king crab, tofu, eggplant, coconut and jasmine rice show up on a menu here. His ceviches are pretty special too, but at least we have similar items at places like La Mar and Limon. From Amis, which is Mark Vetri's new Roman trattoria that's been open only about two weeks and has a very San Francisco vibe, I'd love to transport the mortadella mousse, where the whipped charcuterie has the texture of whipped butter, served with slices of toasted baguette. I also long for someone to recreate the artichokes, where the frilly ends are browned and crisp, giving way to a nutty, soft interior. At the sister restaurant, Vetri, I had the tasting menu that included a haunch of baby goat. Vetri procures animals that are between 16 and 21 pounds and slow roasts them over mesquite. They're strongly flavored but the sweetness of the meat still shines. The polished, knowledgeable service orchestrated by Kristina Burke at James is another thing I'd like to send to San Francisco. In fact, at all of the places I was impressed by the professionalism of the staff. When it comes to food, I longingly remember Jim Burke's tender ribbons of pasta lightly tossed with duck ragout, shaved chocolate and orange. We ordered it as a challenge, and gave up any pretense of doubt about his talent with the first bite. And then there are the local specialties: the soft, buttery pretzels that are the best I've ever tasted from Miller's in the Reading Terminal Market, and John's Roast Pork, where owner John Bucci, Jr. carries on a tradition started by his father in 1930. The seasoned meat is sliced thin and piled into a soft bun with sharp provolone. I also fell in love with the cheesesteak and the fried chicken wings, generously coated with fine bread crumbs mixed with paprika, cayenne and salt, and then fried to a resonate crunch. These are a relatively new addition and found their way onto the menu when the restaurant added a fryer in 1988. Yet, something like Philly cheesesteak connotes such a strong sense of place, it may be one of those dishes best preserved in its own locale. It only gives us another excuse to go to Philadelphia.
The restaurant industry is expected to report slightly higher sales in 2010, benefiting from the gradual economic recovery, according to the National Restaurant Association's forecast.
The association said it expects industry sales to reach $580 billion this year, a 2.5% increase in current dollars over 2009 sales. When adjusted for inflation, however, sales are expected to be essentially flat. Restaurants have been bruised over the past two years, as a drop in demand led to deep discounts to drive consumer traffic. Fast-food purveyors and casual-dining chains have recently looked for ways to wean consumers off discounts, similar to a trend seen in the retail segment. On Wednesday, the National Restaurant Association said it expects quick-service chains to fare slightly better than full-service chains as diners remain focused on value and specials. Quick-service restaurants are projected to post a 3% gain in sales, while full-service sales are expected to rise 1.2%. The eating-and-drinking segment is expected to grow 4.5% The group also expects job growth to return to the restaurant industry, after it lost jobs in 2009--only the second time that has happened in nearly half a century. Growth opportunities can also be seen in delivery and other off-premise options, cooking classes and social networking to drive traffic and orders, the association said. Other trends the association noted were efforts by restaurants to "go green," or invest in energy-efficient equipment and fixtures. Consumers are also looking for more locally produced and ethnic food options. |
BLOG
News from our manufacturer's & re-posts from publications around the hotel and restaurant industry. Archives
January 2013
Categories
All
|