1 6
Corn ravioli
For this dish at four-unit Indaco restaurant’s location in Greenville, S.C., executive chef Josh Begley removes corn kernels from the cob and slowly cooks them in the oven with butter, cream, and time. Then that’s blended with ricotta and Parmesan cheeses, eggs, and breadcrumbs and stuffed into ravioli.
The cobs themselves are simmered in water to make a broth, which is then simmered with butter, Parmesan cheese, salt, and pepper.
The ravioli are cooked tossed in the corn broth mixture and then plated with oven dried tomatoes, chives, and Parmesan cheese.
Price: $27
Cecina Nigiri
At Osaka Cocina Nikkei in Miami, which specializes in the Japanese cuisine of Peru, which is called “Nikkei,” executive chef Adonay Tafur makes his version of cecina, a pork jowl preparation from the Amazon region of northern Peru. It’s cured in a mixture of salt, aji panca, and other secret spices overnight. Then it’s smoked for eight hours until it’s tender but still firm. Next, it’s sliced against the grain and dressed in a creamy and spicy oil-and-vinegar emulsion and a sweet and spicy glaze made with Japanese karashi mustard. It’s then placed over sushi rice and wrapped in nori seaweed.
Price: $22
Chill Out
At Antidote in the Brooklyn, N.Y., neighborhood of Williamsburg, managing partner Nick Hwang developed this cocktail, for which a mango foam is made by combining the fruit, peel, skin, and seeds of a mango with 350 grams of brown sugar and letting it sit overnight in the fridge and then adding 100 grams of water to it. That’s strained and mixed with 400g of plain nonfat yogurt plus 200g each of St. Germain elderflower liqueur and heavy cream, plus 100g of Hornitos tequila. That’s all poured into a cannister charged with two nitrogen cartridges.
For the rest of the cocktail he shakes together 1.5 ounces of Hornitos tequila with ¾ ounce of lime juice and half an ounce each of St. Germain and agave syrup, along with a little Tajín. That’s poured into a coupe and garnished with the mango foam.
Price: $17
Living the Dream
For this cocktail at White Limozeen at the Graduate Hotel in Nashville, beverage director Demi Natoli combines 40ml of her house rum blend (Plantation 5 year Old, Plantation OFTD, and Plantation Original Dark) with 60mil of coconut cream, 30ml each of pineapple juice and Hiram Walker Blue Curaçao, 15mil of Giffard Crème do Bananae, 7ml of simple syrup half a ripe banana, and two cups of crushed ice in a blender, spins it all together and garnishes it with a pineapple wedge and other tropical accoutrements
Price: $15
Limone alla Sorentina
At Flor de Sal at the Dorado Beach, a Ritz-Carlton Reserve Hotel in Dorado Beach, Puerto Rico, executive pastry chef Mahamood Shaik simmers lemon skin in sugar, extracting the pectin so when he blends it with basil and chills it it turns into a gel. He then enrobes it in a creamy combination of lemon zest and juice and cream. That’s carefully placed in a lemon-shaped mold and allowed to set. Then it’s unmolded and coated in cocoa butter mixed with white chocolate. Then it’s sprayed with yellow colored cocoa butter so it looks like a lemon. It’s served over Italian meringue and garnished with a lemon gel (sweetened lemon juice with agar agar), and “raspberry caviar” made by puréeing raspberry with a little balsamic vinegar and setting it with agar agar.
Price: $14
Blueberry Foie Gras Torchon
At the Woodall in Atlanta, this dish can be an appetizer, intermezzo, pre-dessert or dessert that’s quick to plate and appealing to guests. Chef de cuisine Karl Gorline brines foie gras overnight in blueberry syrup. Then he rinses it, seasons it with sumac, rolls it into a torchon and quickly poaches it in sous vide at 131 degrees Fahrenheit for one minute, allowing the foie gras fat to melt so that when it cools it’s all bound together.
It’s served on a buttered brioche round with blueberry jam, Champagne gelée, fresh and pickled blueberries, and 25-year-aged balsamic vinegar.
Price: $25
