The trend of highbrow meets casual is very much in play this week, as is the growing popularity of caviar and other fish eggs. We see it at The Butcher’s Bar, a new restaurant in the Waco, Texas, suburb of Woodway, where the kitchen is headed up by Hell’s Kitchen contestants Alejandro Najar and Alyssa Osinga. Najar created the thousand layer potatoes that are topped with crème fraîche and trout roe.
And it’s also at Noisette in Denver, where Tim Lu makes a fancy fried chicken — wings stuffed with chicken sausage — and tops it with American sturgeon caviar.
At Valla Kitchen, a Thai restaurant in New York City, chef Chuck Valla makes a variation of som tam, or green papaya salad, by using strawberry and guava instead of the more usual fruit, and in Miami, at Lafayette Steakhouse, braised and griddled octopus is served with local burrata.
And in Nevada City, Calif., at The National Bar, rye, Licor 43, and Cynar come together for a nuanced cocktail suitable for summer.
Contact Bret Thorn at [email protected]
