Plate and Cork: Summer affords Palm Beach chefs time to create new dishes
Palm Beach’s restaurant chefs are creating a bevy of new dishes as summer’s slower pace affords a dash more time to experiment in the kitchen.
From stuffed zucchini flowers to lobster delights, their new summer creations are featured as daily specials.
Some of the specials — or versions of them — may become menu mainstays by fall, chefs say; but for now, they’re the brainchild of “experimenting and evolving. That’s what makes it fun,” Cucina executive chef Kent Thurston said.
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Summer specials at Cucina include blackened prawns with watermelon, charred feta, Hawaiian lilikoi fruit and fennel pollen.
Ahi poké — a salad spotlighting cubed and raw marinated yellowfin tuna — also has been a summer hit at Cucina along with Mediterranean octopus with sauteed gigante beans and grape tomatoes, Thurston said.
At Florie’s at the Four Seasons, chef de cuisine Nino La Spina has been inspired this summer by such ingredients as zucchini flowers, edible blossoms plucked directly from the zucchini plant.
He’s stuffing and steaming them with basil and Gratitude Garden Farm mushrooms. “During the warmer season,” La Spina said, “I love trying new combinations I think our guests will find light yet fulfilling.”
Pork has some of chef Brendan Long’s summer attention at Almond.
One of his July pork specials has become a brisk seller and a possible candidate for the restaurant’s fall menus: bone-in pork chop with grilled trumpet mushrooms, blistered shishito peppers, sweet chili, pickled red onions and Aleppo pepper.
Almond’s other summer specials have so far included a vegetarian ceviche starring star fruit, coconut, cucumber and leche de tigre.
Creating new brunch dishes is a summer focus at Café L’Europe, which plans to debut brunch service this fall.
The restaurant’s dual executive chefs Benoit Delos and Alain Krauss have been collaborating on “perfecting” rapini-and-feta quiche, mac-and-cheese with bacon, eggs Benedict and chicken pot pie, among other brunch-oriented dishes.
Meanwhile, Le Bilboquet in Palm Beach has introduced such summer specials as heirloom tomato salad with Szechuan pepper, marinated cucumbers and basil but lobster has taken center stage at the French bistro.
"We have worked hard to create a new dish rivaling the wow factor of our lobster curry that's been so popular since we opened in Palm Beach (in January 2021),” said Camille Martin, executive chef of Le Bilboquet Group, which also includes locations in Sag Harbor and New York.
The result? Poached lobster tail and knuckle meat alongside a lobster chou farci (cabbage stuffed with lobster, lemongrass, cilantro and shallot) with corn espuma and grilled maitake mushrooms.
That dish, Martin said, is destined for “our seasonal lineup" in the fall.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Daily News: Palm Beach chefs use summer months to experiment with new dishes
