Aged tuna tartare

For this dish at Present Tense, which opened in Nashville on May 16, chef Ryan Costanza uses Spanish and Japanese techniques to bring out robust flavors in this dish. He starts by dry-aging tuna loin for between five days and two weeks, checking it as it ages for the desired flavor and consistency. “We don’t go crazy with it, but we will eventually go longer,” he said. “It actually mellows out the flavor as opposed to making it more funky.”

He bakes sourdough bread with nori and wakame seaweed folded in. Then he slices it and soaks in tare — a Japanese sauce that’s made by simmering soy sauce with mirin and sugar — and then grills it over charcoal. He makes a sesame aïoli by emulsifying egg yolks with lemon, garlic, sesame oil, olive oil, and a little wasabi and spreads that over the grilled sourdough.

He chops the aged tuna, seasons it with a little ponzu and lemon, places it on the bread and finishes it with a drizzle of clarified wagyu beef fat, which Costanza says coagulates slightly and adds depth and dimension to the dish

Finally he garnishes it with marigold and calendula petals, which provides a peppery note to the dish.

Price: $19

EggNot

Khan Saab Desi Craft Kitchen in Fullerton, Calif., only offers spirit-free cocktails at its bar, including this one, for which resident mixologist Ahmad Hosseini combines two ounces of Seedlip Spice 94 — a non-alcoholic distilled drink flavored with allspice and cardamom with a citrusy finish — with two ounces of oat milk, an ounce of coconut cream, and half an ounce of date syrup in a shaker half filled with ice. He shakes it, strains it into a glass and sprinkles it with powdered cinnamon.

Price: $12

Duck confit paella

El Raval, a new restaurant in the Austin, Texas, neighborhood of South Lamar, is named for a diverse, multicultural neighborhood in Barcelona that chef Laila Bazahm fell in love with when she was working in Spain. The food reflects the global influences that can be seen in El Raval, the neighborhood, as well as Bazahm’s own Philippine heritage.

East Asian influences are brought to bear in the broth for this dish, as well as the garnish.

She soaks kombu seaweed overnight in cold water. 

Separately, she makes a broth of chicken and duck bones that she roasts with onions, leeks, carrots, garlic, and lemon grass, deglazes with white wine, adds the kombu-infused water and lets it simmer for four hours before straining it.

She makes a duck confit by curing the duck in salt, sugar, shallots, and garlic overnight and then cooking it in duck fat at low temperature for three-and-a-half hours.

She makes a sofrito by slowly cooking onions, red bell peppers, garlic, and tomatoes for three hours. 

In a paella pan she pours some garlic-infused oil along with the sofrito and bomba rice, cooks it for a couple of minutes, adds saffron threads and then gradually pours in the kombu broth, letting it simmer and cooking it risotto-style for around 40 minutes. Then she finishes it with seasonal vegetables such as green beans and snap peas.

She reheats the duck confit, plates it over the rice, and garnishes it with dots of aïoli mixed with hoisin sauce and shichimi togarashi.

Pineapple flambée

Alexandra Puglisi, the pastry chef of Le Coucou in New York City, slices pineapple thinly and covers it in a brown butter caramel. She roasts it at low temperature for several hours until it takes on an amber color similar to that of a tarte tatin. She stores the pineapple in the caramel while she bakes banana bread with French meringue folded in to keep it light.

Next, she caramelizes slices of ripe bananas in sugar and butter. Then she makes a passion fruit curd by bringing the juice of the fruit to a boil and pouring it over egg yolks beaten with sugar, cooking it until it thickens. 

She makes coconut ice cream by toasting coconut flakes and soaking them in milk overnight. She strains that and spins the milk into ice cream.

The last component is a brown butter crumble, which is a sable Breton cookie mixed with caramelized milk solids.