Hotel Operations

🍞 American consumers prefer familiar yet slightly different food when eating out. Restaurants, facing declining traffic, offer items like potatoes for profitability. Major chains such as Arby's, Sonic Drive-In, and Long John Silver's innovate with potatoes; Sonic introduced "Groovy Fries" in May to 3,500 locations. Technomic reports 66% of on-premises orders include potato items, dropping to 50% for delivery. Arby's brought back potato cakes on July 1 after social media mentions surpassed 10,000. Long John Silver's added Crispy Waffle Fries in late July to its 530 locations. Chefs like Maneet Chauhan explore adventurous flavors using fries as a canvas.

🍴 Olly Oakley, Head Chef at The Harcourt Arms and The Plough Inn in Oxfordshire, favors à la carte dining over tasting menus for repeat customer appeal. Starting as a commis chef and waiter at Ascot Racecourse, he admires Joan Roca of El Celler de Can Roca, Spain. His cooking style is relaxed with a focus on flavor, influenced by English and Spanish barbecues. Oakley values hard, smart work, questioning, and learning in the industry. His essential kitchen item is a coal or wood-fired grill.

🍴 Bret Thorn, Senior Food & Beverage Editor for Nation's Restaurant News since 1999, also joined Restaurant Hospitality in 2016. Wrote for The New York Sun from 2005 to 2008. His podcast "In the Kitchen with Bret Thorn" features foodservice experts. Won the Jesse H. Neal Award in 2006. Authored entries in the Oxford Encyclopedia (2012) and Oxford Companion to Sugar and Sweets (2015). Magna cum laude from Tufts University, studied at Le Cordon Bleu, and was in Beijing during the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989. Inducted into the Disciples d’Escoffier in 2014. Lives in Brooklyn, NY. Contact: [email protected], LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter: @foodwriterdiary, Instagram: @foodwriterdiary.

🍴 Will Guidara, at age 26, took over Eleven Madison Park and turned it from a two-star brasserie into the world's #1 restaurant according to the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list. At MURTEC 2024, he discussed "unreasonable hospitality," focusing on automation with a human touch, creating extraordinary dining experiences, and fostering team cooperation for service excellence. He also provided tips on blending authority with innovation in a 3-minute video.

🍴 The National Chef of the Year 2024 finalists include senior chefs from restaurants like Frog by Adam Handling and Northcote. Top 40 chefs crafted an amuse-bouche or pre-dessert themed ‘a taste of summer.’ The finals are on October 8, with chefs refining their original menus. Past winners include Gordon Ramsay. Finalists: Adam Fisher, Cleverson Cordeiro, Craig Edgell, Danny Young, Jethro Lawrence, Lee Tyler, Matt Ramsdale, Nick Edgar, Orry Shand, Paul Gamble, with reserves Murray Cooper and Sergio Cinotti.

🍕 Curry Leaf Cafe, an Indian restaurant in Brighton's The Lanes since 2014, offers Indian street food and craft beer. Founder Euan Sey cites the cost of living crisis and rising business costs for the closure. Sey, a former journalist, launched the restaurant with chef Kanthi Thamma, who left to co-found Palmito. Despite expansion, including pub kitchens and a kiosk, only the original Ship Street location remains. Sey reflects on the brand’s future while thanking the team and local suppliers.

🍝 Corn-flavored desserts in corn cob molds are trending at Ceiba in Conrad Orlando. Tuna tartare with Persian flavors is featured at Joon in Vienna, VA by chefs Najmieh Batmanglij and Chris Morgan. Nick's Quorum Bar in Omaha, NE, serves pan-seared trout with spinach, green apple, and pumpkin seeds, while Verde at Perez Art Museum Miami offers shrimp poached in clarified butter by chef Loris Navone. Le Bilboquet’s Denver celebrates the upcoming Paris Olympics with a French gin cocktail.

🍫 Chamoy, a Mexican condiment, is gaining traction in the U.S. among consumers who enjoy Mexican cuisine. Made from pickled fruit, chiles, and lime juice, it can be liquid or paste-like, combining salty, sweet, sour, and spicy flavors. Market research by Datassential shows that 38% of U.S. consumers recognize chamoy, and 17% have tried it, often with fruits, vegetables, or in drinks like the popular mangonada.

🍷 Levan and Bar Levan focus on low intervention wines; half of Levan's wine list is devoted to the Jura region, France. Bar Levan offers a dynamic 'by the glass' list, changing weekly with 12-bottle purchases, a cellar list, and an extensive mezcal selection. Notable wine list recommendations include Brawn in East London, Bokman’s in Bristol, and Planque in East London. Raphael Rodriguez is respected for his wine industry knowledge. The best value wine at Levan is from Stajerska Kollective in Slovenia at £7.50 a glass. A memorable pairing involved a dessert with Westwell's sparkling cuvée Pelegrim, limited to 90 bottles. Andi Mann from Rheinhessen, Germany, is currently favored for producing quality, accessible wines. Alsace, France, is considered an underrated wine region.

🍴 Yannick Alléno, a French chef at Pavyllon in London's Four Seasons Hotel, admires Auguste Escoffier for modernizing cuisine with his brigade system and emphasis on sauces. A transformative moment in Alléno's career was a critique by François Simon in Le Monde, prompting a personal culinary reflection. Alléno's advice to aspiring chefs includes hard work, perseverance, and self-belief. His kitchen essential is a Mauviel frying pan from the M'ELITE collection. He prefers à la carte dining, enjoys chips as a fast-food choice, and would ban eggplant from his hypothetical restaurant dictatorship. Instagram is his social media platform of choice, and his ideal food and drink pairing is a marble-aged wine with wood-fired roasted venison served at his three-star restaurant, Alléno Paris at Pavillon Ledoyen.