Palm Beach dining: Truffles take center stage in Café Boulud events
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Aromatic fungi characterized over the years as everything from “earthy” to “pungent love bombs” never fail to bring renowned chef-restaurateur Daniel Boulud to Palm Beach each December.
And this year, he has big plans in store as he and Café Boulud’s culinary team are set to celebrate winter truffles, which are underground-growing fungi that trained dogs sniff out and dig up from forest floors in Europe. (Pigs once did the job, but now dogs are used.)
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Not only is Café Boulud featuring its annual and extravagant truffle dinner on Dec. 9 — showcasing white truffles from Italy’s Alba and black truffles from France’s Perigord region — but also Boulud himself headlining a truffle lunch the following day at the restaurant at The Brazilian Court.
The expanded lunch-and-dinner roster is apropos, Boulud said, because it’s the 15th anniversary of Café Boulud’s annual celebration of winter truffles, which are only in season for a few months.
The Dec. 9 dinner and Dec. 10 lunch are co-hosted by Café Boulud’s execute chef Dieter Samijn, head pastry chef Julie Franceschini and sommelier Imre Papp.
“It’s so nice to be able to commemorate two of my favorite things — black and white truffles,” Lyon, France, native Boulud told the Daily News. “You can never get enough of them, which is why you should eat as much as you can during the short season.”
Both black and white truffles typically are golf ball-sized or larger.
“The advantage of fresh white truffles is their simplicity — you can shave them over any dish to enhance the flavor,” Boulud said. “On the other hand, black truffles can be incorporated and cooked into hundreds of recipes and can be easily preserved to extend the season.”
Café Boulud’s Dec. 9 truffle dinner ($600 a person, plus tax and gratuity) features six wine-paired courses alternating between white and black truffles.
After a 6:30 p.m. reception with truffle-accented canapes, dinner begins at 7 p.m. with a black-truffle tartelette featuring butternut squash, kumquat and Hokaido scallop.
Taleggio gnocchi with white Alba truffle, lobster and parsley root is featured in the second course.
The third course showcases Dover sole with black truffle, while the fourth course features truffle-accented Prime beef Wellington Rossini with foie gras, crispy mushroom and horseradish.
A cheese course follows, with black-truffle-accented brie served with pear-stuffed brioche.
Dessert is slated to include an almond financier with poppy-seed nougat and poppy-flower sorbet.
Café Boulud’s Dec. 10 truffle lunch includes five wine-paired courses ($400 a person, plus tax and gratuity). The menu is the same as the truffle dinner — minus the Dover sole course.
Seating is limited for both events, but truffle-lovers who miss the affairs can enjoy truffle-spiked daily specials at the restaurant.
For instance, chef Samijn periodically serves such dishes as organic Amish chicken with celery root, endive, sauce Albufera and black truffle.
Café Boulud also has served veal blanquette with black truffle; now and then, even scrambled eggs are served with white truffle shavings.
More truffle opportunities
Elsewhere on the island, other upscale restaurants also are turning out truffle tastiness.
White Alba truffles are featured this winter at Bice, where shavings of the fungi are served atop “simple dishes” to bring out the truffles’ “earthy, rich flavor,” general manager Jose Gonzales said.
Beef carpaccio topped with eight grams of shaved white truffle is $125. Tagliolini with butter, parmesan and eight grams of shaved truffle is $135 while eight grams of truffle atop a veal chop is $175.
“Winter truffles are so popular in Palm Beach,” Gonzales told the Daily News. “Nothing can stand in the way of someone who loves truffles and wants them now.”
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Daily News: Cafe Boulud in Palm Beach offering two truffle-rich meals in December
