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At Cultura, a new restaurant in Asheville, N.C., executive chef Jacob Sessoms cold-smokes raw, shell-on lobster tail. Then he uses a blowtorch to heat the shells, loosening the lobster meat and allowing him to remove it raw. He slices the lobster meat thinly and serves it with black sesame purée, Tokyo turnip, a white Philippine seaweed called guso and a lobster chile salt that the restaurant makes by dehydrating roasted lobster shells and fermented sweet and hot chiles, grinding them and blending them with kosher salt.
Availability: For the next several seasons, possibly with different garnishes
Price: $16
The Las Vegas location of Estiatorio Milos is featuring a board of Greek mezze, or shared appetizers, accompanied by a Greek wine made with a recently discovered grape from the slopes of Mount Pangeon that doesn’t match anything in current wine databases. Winemaker Ktima Biblia Chora is calling this grape Biblos, and Milos is serving a rosé made from the grape with a board laden with four cheeses: Barrel-aged feta, grilled manouri, kefalograviera and haloumi. It also has three spreads: tzatziki, taramosalata and a red pepper version called htipiti. Additionally, there are crostini topped with bottarga, endive, eggplant purée and capers; black sesame lavash, grilled eggplant and peppers, Kalamata and green olives, seasonal fruit, house-made bread and extra-virgin olive oil
Availability: At least through summer
Price: $120 (serves 2-4 people), with additional bottles of Ktima Biblia Chora Rosé priced at $65
Kamuela Provision Company at the Hilton Waikoloa Village, on the state’s Big Island, does a meaty take on the trendy raw fish appetizer poke by making it out of beef. The dish features rare USDA Prime ribeye with daikon, grated ginger, bean sprouts, smoked ponzu sauce, fried garlic and green onion.
Availability: Indefinitely
Price: $26
At La Ventura, a new restaurant in New York City’s West Village, sunchokes are seasoned in Jamaican jerk marinade, salt and pepper and then skewered and roasted until tender. They’re served with garlic fry bread; salsa of tomatillos, jalapeños, ginger and garlic; and refried lentils made spiced with jalapeños, onion, garlic and Parmesan cheese.
Availability: Indefinitely
Price: $19
Craig Strong, the chef of Ocean at Main in Laguna Beach, Calif., makes this vegetarian dish that resembles beef tartare by mixing roasted beets with minced shallots, chives, Minus 8 vinegar, olive oil, salt and pepper. It’s served cold with crème fraîche, horseradish “snow” (dehydrated and finely ground horseradish) and a “yolk” made through a molecular gastronomy process called “spherification:” Roasted yellow beats are pureed with sea salt and a little calcium chloride, poured into a mold, frozen and then dipped into a sodium alginate bath that reacts with the calcium chloride to partially solidify the “yolk” so it to maintains its shape.
Availability: Indefinitely
Price: $16
At Onward restaurant in Chicago, chef Patrick Russ tempura fries soft-shell crab and then coats it in a seasoning of freeze-dried corn, garlic powder, salt and the Korean chile flake gochugaru. He serves it over tatsoi dressed in a gochujang-based vinaigrette along with turnips and a sweet corn pudding made by cooking corn in bacon fat, onion, garlic and chicken stock until it’s reduced to a pudding. Then he mounts it with a little milk and dispenses it through a whipped cream cannister charged with nitrous oxide.
Availability: Through soft-shell crab season
Price: $16
The Tulalip Resort Casino in Tulalip, Wash., is celebrating blackberry season with special dishes at many of its restaurants, including this sandwich at its casual Cedars Café. The sandwich features the resort’s seasonal blackberry jam along with bacon jam, brie, Havarti cheese, roasted jalapeños and turkey breast on grilled sourdough.
Price: $12.95
Availability: Through Aug. 31
