Financing
Issues and insights on seasonal fruit
Talk to many chefs these days, especially in fine dining, and they’ll tell you that “local” and “seasonal” are top priorities when purchasing fresh fruit
Menu rehab on a shoestring
Big profits from cost-conscious changes. As food costs continue to escalate and margins get squeezed ever tighter, periodic menu fixes become even more important to the bottom line.
Greg Atkinson was buying and promoting local foods long before it became the routine thing to do for top chefs. The former chef of Seattle’s Canlis then took time off from cooking in restaurants to teach culinary arts and write about food. Now Atkinson is back at the stove in his newly opened Marché on Bainbridge Island in Winslow, Wash., where he’s again preparing the most indigenous ingredients he can get his hands on.
Operators and their customers who love meat are starting to fork over more money to put protein on the plate. The problem starts with the feed. Cattle are traditionally finished on grain, but farmers looking for larger profits are now growing corn for ethanol instead of animal feed. Cow/calf producers are currently bearing the brunt of higher feed prices.