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The hit film Everything Everywhere All at Once was directed and edited by people from the Birmingham, Ala., area, so Uria Price, head bartender of The Anvil Pub & Grill in that city, named this cocktail for that. It’s inspired by the Everything Bagel that plays an important part of the movie.
The key ingredient in the cocktail is gin infused with smoked salmon, which is made by adding ¼ pound of the fish to a cup of gin, letting it sit at room temperature for a week, and then spending another two weeks in refrigeration, and then straining it.
An ounce and a half of that is combined in a shaker with an ounce of Tanqueray gin and half an ounce each of dry vermouth and caper brine.
It’s shaken, strained, poured into a coupe with an Everything seasoning rim (poppy and sesame seeds, dried garlic and onion, and salt) and garnished with capers, an olive, a pickled onion, and a lemon twist on a skewer
Price: $15
At Aphotic in San Francisco, chef de cuisine Parker Brown gets wild Pacific octopus that local fishermen catch as bycatch and cooks it in a large metal roasting pan in its own juices, with the lid slightly open for heat to escape — a process he was taught by fisherman Jiri Nozicka out of Monterey, Calif. — for about 45 minutes.
Then he cools it, cuts it into 2-inch pieces and freezes it in a nonstick metal pan. Then he passes it through a meat grinder as though making sausage.
Then he cooks it in a lot of grapeseed oil to color it, then removes the meat and adds minced shallots and caramelizes them. Then he removes them and adds sweated minced garlic and chile flake.
Then he puts everything back in the pan, deglazes it with Chinese cooking wine, and adds fish sauce and soy sauce, letting it all simmer for around 30 minutes.
That’s served over house-made udon noodles topped with sesame oil, a tempered egg yolk, and fermented mustard greens.
Executive chef Peter Hemsley said this dish originated using just the head, which was left over from another dish that used the tentacles. It started as a bolognaise sauce but ended up going in a more Asian direction.
Price: $38
At Asador Bastian, a Basque restaurant that Eat Well Hospitality opened in Chicago in March, the group’s chef and co-owner Doug Psaltis and the restaurant’s executive chef Christian Eckmann developed this dish, for which basmati rice is mixed with lardo from Tempesta Iberico pork before the rice is boiled.
More lardo is added to a sauté pan to crisp it up, and then minced garlic is added along with Plaintin truffle salsa. The rice is added to that and quickly tossed in it. Then it’s seasoned with salt and pepper, spooned into a bowl and topped with chopped chives.
Price: $28
At Chilte, which gained attention as a pop-up, and then became a food truck and now is a brick-and-mortar restaurant at the Egyptian Motor Hotel in Phoenix, chef and co-owner Lawrence Smith makes a 9-inch corn tortilla, places an hoja santa leaf on it and presses it, cooking it for about a minute on each side. He melts either Oaxaca or Chihuahua cheese on a plancha. Then, if the guest wants, he adds huitlacoche and/or chapulines (dried grasshoppers) to the cheese and places the tortilla, hoja santa-side up, on top. He then folds it in half and plates it with salsa verde, goat cheese, a drizzle of salsa macha, flake salt, powdered chile and chicatanas or ants from Oaxaca, which he says bring an earthy and slightly chocolatey flavor to the dish. The chicatanas are toasted on a comal in Oaxaca to remove the wings and preserve them and then are lightly toasted with chile and garlic. Smith imports them weekly and then smokes them and freezes them to use when they aren’t in season.
Price: $25
For this drink at The Commodore at the Ritz-Carlton Coconut Grove in Miami, mixologist Ingi Sigurdsson makes a snap pea syrup by combining equal amounts of snap pea juice and sugar, which he stirs together using a rubber spatula without heating it.
He shakes ¾ ounce of that syrup with ¾ ounce of lime juice and ¼ ounce each of three herbaceous liqueurs: Dolin Génépy, mastiha, and Galliano L’Autentico. That’s all poured into an ice-filled rocks glass and topped with 1.5 ounces of purple Empress 1908 gin. It’s garnished with a cherry skewered with a peacock feather.
“Snap pea gives a great color and even better flavor,” Sigurdsson said. “It gives a great vegetal flavor which is enhanced by the liqueurs and gin.
Price: $23
At El Fish Marisqueria, which opened on New York City’s Upper West Side in February, chef and owner Julian Medina makes this staple of street stalls in Ensenada, Mexico. He starts with a salad of jumbo lump crabmeat mixed with mayonnaise, lime, scallions, and serrano chiles. He puts that on a fried corn tortilla and then adds poached shrimp and octopus pieces, a squeeze of lime juice, a sprinkle of salt, some peanut salsa macha (made with roasted peanuts, toasted garlic, guajillo and arbol chiles, soybean oil, sesame seeds, and kosher salt), and sliced avocado.
Price: $22
Elevated Mexican restaurant elNico opened on the top floor of the Penny hotel in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Williamsburg in May with a robust cocktail program developed by Leo Robitschek, a partner in the Sydell Group, which operates the property, and its senior vice president of food & beverage.
This particular drink was developed as a way to upcycle cucumber, which Robitschek lactoferments by slicing them, skin on, and coating them in 2% of their weight in salt and letting them sit in an airtight container at room temperature for 3-5 days. The result is what he calls “this delightful kosher dill pickle flavor.”
He strains off the liquid from the cucumbers and adds sugar to bring its sweetness level to 35 Brix.
He adds 30 grams of dill to a bottle of Lillet Blanc and lets it infuse for 36 hours before straining it.
Similarly, he adds 75 grams of fresh epazote to a bottle of Boatyard Gin and lets it infuse for 12 hours.
To make the drink he combines an ounce of Lustau fino sherry with ¾ ounce each of the infused gin and regular cucumber juice, ½ ounce each of lime juice, the lactofermented cucumber syrup, and vanilla syrup, and ¼ ounce of the infused Lillet. He quickly shakes it with ice, and strains it into a Hurricane glass that has been shingled with cucumber slices. He finishes it with crushed ice.
Price: $26
At Five Acres, which opened at Rockefeller Center in New York City in December 2022, chef and restaurateur Greg Baxtrom makes a traditional Japanese vinegar-based dressing called tosazu and adds bonito flakes to give it a more smoky/savory flavor and then sets it with gelatin. He lightly smokes and whips crème fraîche and makes a shiso oil by blending neutral oil with green shiso in a blender and then whisking in a hot pan for two minutes. Those three components are placed on shucked Island Creek oysters, which are on a bed of seaweed and oyster shells. Then he uses a smoking gun to cold smoke the oysters.
The dish is named for Vanderbilt Street in Brooklyn, where several of Baxtrom’s other restaurants are located.
Price: $28
Bartender Wat Zhuo developed this cocktail at The Felix in San Francisco, for which Michter’s Rye is fat-washed with spiced beef tallow leftover from making pho. Two ounces of that, half an ounce of Benedictine and two dashes of mole bitters are stirred with ice, poured over a large ice cube, and garnished with a Luxardo cherry.
“The richness from the pho tallow mellows down the spice of the rye while still giving it that creamy finish,” said owner Matt Ho. “You can also taste the spices and aromatics that make our broth so enjoyable.
Price: $19
This drink at Four Walls, a cocktail bar at The Joseph hotel in Nashville inspired in part by Spaghetti Western films, was developed by beverage director Kenneth Vanhooser as a variation on the White Negroni enhanced by melon ice.
He makes that ice by bringing six ounces of Midori melon liqueur to a boil and then lighting it on fire to burn off the alcohol. Then he adds an equal amount of water and pours 2-3 ounces into a rocks glass, leaning it on an angle and freezing it for 12 to 16 hours.
He combines 1.5 ounces of Monkey 47 gin with ¾ ounce of dry vermouth, ½ ounce of Avèze Gentiane Liqueur, and ¼ ounce of Cocchi Americano in a mixing glass with ice, stirs it until chilled and then pours it over a rocks glass containing the melon ice as well as an ice sphere. He mists it with smoked orange bitters, evoking the bar’s Western theme with the smoky aroma, and then adds an orange twist.
Price: $19
For this cocktail at the new Hongdae 33 in Houston, co-owner Grace Xia, who also developed the cocktails for her and husband Leo’s other restaurant, Duck N Bao, combines 3 ounces of strawberry-infused soju with 1.5 ounces of Yakult drinkable yogurt, 1 ounce of Baileys Strawberries & Cream liqueur, and half an ounce each of strawberry purée and lemon juice in a shaker. She shakes all of that with ice, strains it into a flat-bottomed wine galas and tops with Lotte Milkis, a creamy South Korean soda.
Xia said this bubbly, pleasantly sweet and tart drink goes well with the restaurants savory grilled meats and Korean banchan side dishes.
Price: $15
At Ilili NYC, chef and owner Philippe Massoud makes an extra creamy hummus by soaking chickpeas for 48 hours and then puréeing it with tahini, lemon, and olive oil. He takes ramps sourced from Mountain Berry Farm in Sayre, Pa., sautés them in Lebanese olive oil and puts them on top of the hummus.
Massoud said he has used the ramps in many Lebanese dishes that use garlic and/or onion, and this dish has been the most popular. “The nuttiness of the tahini, the creaminess of the hummus, and the sautéed ramps blend together beautifully.”
Price: $22 at dinner and brunch, $12 for a smaller portion at lunch
For this menu item at the New York City location of Kyu, an upscale Asian-inspired barbecue restaurant, developed by corporate executive chef Christopher Arellanes, house-fermented milk dough is baked into buns, sliced in half and then toasted with clarified butter. The bottom bun is spread with kaluga caviar and the top is spread with a butter combined with miso and a type of scallion called negi (also known as Welsh onion), creating a sweet-salty combination that customers enjoy.
Price: $62
For this cocktail at Layla, which opened recently in the Brooklyn, N.Y., neighborhood of Williamsburg, the restaurant’s co-founder, Stef D’Osorgna, was inspired by the fennel salad from Café Altro Paradiso in New York City’s SoHo neighborhood to make this drink.
He starts by adding fennel stalks to vodka and letting it infuse for 24 hours. Then he strains the vodka and fat washes it with olive oil by shaking the vodka with the oil, freezing it for 12 hours, scooping off the fat and then straining it.
He pours 2 ounces of that in a mixing glass along with 1.5 ounces of Emilio Lustau Vermut Blanco, a dash of saline solution, 3 drops of Chardonnay vinegar and 2 dashes of orange bitters.
He stirs that with ice, strains it into a chilled coupe and finishes it by expressing lemon peel over it and then adding two skewered Castelvetrano olives.
Price: $18
Keith Larry, beverage director of Little Rascal Bar in the Brooklyn, N.Y., neighborhood of Greenpoint, was a devotee of Fruity Pebbles as a kid and has attempted to evoke that flavor in this cocktail, for which ¾ ounce each of Michter’s Bourbon, lemon juice, and Fruity-Pebbles-infused simple syrup are dry shaken with ½ ounce of pistachio milk and an egg white, poured into a rocks glass over ice, and garnished with crushed fruity pebbles.
Price: $18
Karaage is usually a fried chicken dish, but at Money Cat, which the operators of Tubiuo Sushi & Bar opened in central Houston in January, chef de cuisine Jio Dingayan uses maitake mushrooms instead. He marinates them in light soy sauce, sake, and mirin and then dredges them in a blend of potato starch and sweet potato starch, which Dingayan says is “the secret to an everlasting crunch.” The mushrooms are then fried until crispy and tossed in a sauce of yuzu kosho, Anaheim chile, rice vinegar, and local honey.
They’re plated with chives and parsley and served with house-cultured buttermilk nori ranch dressing for dipping.
The vegan offering is also a tribute to Dingayan’s and executive chef/owner Sherman Yeung’s love for Buffalo wings.
Price: $12
PastaRamen started as an invite-only pop-up featuring what co-founder and chef-partner Robbie Felice calls Wafu-Italian, a cuisine that follows the traditions of Japanese and Italian kitchens. After two years of events across the country, Montclair Hospitality Group eventually opened a brick-and-mortar PastaRamen in Montclair, N.J., where it serves this dish, for which Felice heats mozzarella, stracchino, and Parmigiano-Reggiano cheeses together to form a thick paste that he then cools and pipes into gyoza wrappers, which are steamed, fried and then topped with cracked black pepper and Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese.
Price: $22
On the new fall menu at Nama Ko, a modern Japanese-inspired restaurant by chef and restaurateur Michael Schlow, executive chef Derek Watson prepares his own interpretation of kakuni, a dish of pork belly braised in a sweet dashi broth with brown sugar and served with rice porridge and Japanese mustard.
He starts by curing the belly in shio koji for two days, and then braising it in dashi sweetened with mirin instead of brown sugar, plus “a lot of” ginger, garlic, and scallion.
He also adds ginger and lemon grass hearts to the rice that he cooks into porridge. Watson says the addition of the aromatics lightens the dish.
On the pickup he bathes the braised belly in a yuzu hoisin sauce. “The yuzu especially adds a light acidity, but more importantly a delicate floral note specific to this Japanese citrus that really lifts the flavors and brings everything together.”
He finishes the dish with a chili crunch along with fried onion, sliced scallion, and a soft-poached egg.
Price: $26
Chef Ryan Walley developed this dish for the new brunch menu at Plank Seafood Provisions in Austin, Texas, under the direction of Flagship Restaurant Group’s chief culinary officer and co-owner Tony Gentile.
The dish starts by simmering together dashi, butter infused with bonito flakes, bacon, ginger, and scallions, and reducing it until it coats a spoon. Then Sun Noodle Ramen noodles that have been cooked in pasta water are added, along with a little yuzu juice, sesame oil, and salt.
Once the noodles are coated they’re then placed in a bowl and topped with two sunny-side-up eggs and garnished with negi scallions and sesame seeds.
Price: $19
Roast pork, broccoli raab, and sharp provolone cheese are the foundation of a sandwich that is popular and widespread in Philadelphia.
It’s less readily available in Washington, D.C., but Chris Morgan, co-founder and chief culinary officer of Pizza Serata in that city is doing his part by offering his own version of it. He toasts focaccia that he makes with local flour from Wade’s Mill. He spreads two slices of it with garlic aïoli, then adds roasted porchetta, sautéed broccoli raab, pickled cherry peppers, and melted provolone cheese
Price: $16
For this salad at Sado, a sushi-focused restaurant that chef Nick Bognar opened in the St. Louis neighborhood called The Hill in late March, the chef starts this salad with Japanese oshinko-style quick-pickled cucumbers. He also slowly cooks baby carrots in mirin to make them soft and sweet. He blanches snap peas and coats them with sugar. He also adds steamed, shelled edamame. He places all of those vegetables over a purée of edamame and jalapeño peppers and sprinkles them with a house-made furikake blend of seaweed, roasted pumpkin seeds, and sesame seeds. It’s topped with fried lotus root chips and a classic miso-ginger dressing.
“It’s a cornucopia of flavors and textures,” Bognar said. “It’s the perfect vehicle to highlight the best of our seasonal vegetables.”
Price: $12
Pod, a longstanding Japanese-focused Stephen Starr concept in Philadelphia’s University City neighborhood, had briefly been rebranded as Kpod and was serving Korean American food. But now it’s Pod again, and has a new Japanese menu developed by Starr Restaurant Organization’s director of culinary research & development, Mark Hellyar.
He said this particular dish has its origins in the southern Japanese island of Okinawa, where shelf-stable goods such as dried spaghetti became staples after the Second World War.
At Pod the spaghetti is cooked and then tossed with Japanese mayonnaise, butter and mentaiko, which is pollock roe cured with garlic and chile. The pasta is twisted over an egg yolk to give it a feel similar to spaghetti carbonara. It’s garnished with shredded nori seaweed and more mentaiko.
Hellyar says it has been a hit with guests and is selling well.
Price: $18
The Turk’s Inn in the Brooklyn, N.Y., neighborhood of Bushwick is a full-service restaurant that also has a takeout doner kebab stand. Head chef Joshua White uses the spit-roasted spiced chicken that’s a kebab option and turns it into a brunch dish. He chops it and cooks it in duck fat with sautéed peppers and onions and parboiled diced Yukon Gold potatoes. He seasons it with salt, paprika, and his “Ottoman spice mix” that includes Szechuan peppercorns, cayenne, garlic, cumin, and MSG. It’s placed in a bowl and topped with two poached eggs and red sauce that is a blend of Fresno chiles, bell pepper, herbs including cilantro and dill, and ketchup. It’s garnished with cilantro.
Price: $17
At Ubuntu, a West African inspired vegan restaurant that opened in West Hollywood, Calif., at the beginning of August, chef Shenarri Freeman makes a roux using flour and palm oil-based vegan butter and sweats mirepoix in it, seasoning it with salt, cayenne pepper, and paprika. She deglazes that with mushroom stock, adds bay leaves and fresh thyme and simmers it. Then she purées it all, returns it to the pot, adds plant-based heavy cream, brings it to a boil and reduces it. She garnishes it with deep fried strips of hearts of palm tossed in Old Bay seasoning along with fried garlic, chives, and parsley oil.
Price: $12
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