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How Chefs Are Adapting Their Menus for Chilly Outdoor Dining

Restaurants faced enough pandemic-related challenges in warm weather. Now they have to combat cold pasta.

How Chefs Are Adapting Their Menus for Chilly Outdoor Dining
A server wearing a protective mask carries a tray of food to an outdoor dining area in California, U.S. (Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg)

Restaurants faced enough pandemic-related challenges in warm weather. Now they have to combat cold pasta.

A report from Goldman Sachs Group Inc. indicated that 45F (7.2C) is the temperature below which demand for outdoor dining will collapse. (In a separate report, the company projected that outdoor dining demand would fall to 5% in December before rebounding in 2021, clever design adaptations notwithstanding.)

How Chefs Are Adapting Their Menus for Chilly Outdoor Dining

Beyond diners’ physical comfort, the weather can take a fast toll on the food on their plate.

A cacio e pepe that may have been delicious hot will quickly turn gluey and unappetizing. “Spaghetti stays hot, until you start twirling it. The heat comes out fast from flat pastas, like ravioli,” confirms Andrew Carmellini, whose New York restaurants include Locanda Verde.

Pasta is far from the only food that suffers as temperatures drop. In response, places that range from Japanese sushi spots to elegant restaurants are changing their menus to highlight dishes designed to stay hot. In the process, sturdy kitchen-to-table pieces such as cast-iron skillets and fondue pots become as necessary as the heat lamps. 

Braises and Flambes

At the modern American restaurant Talulla in Cambridge, Mass., Conor Dennehy and Danielle Ayer began introducing cold-weather dishes to their menu in September. “We bought heat lamps in May, because we knew they’d sell out,” says Ayers.

Now it’s 40F (4.4C) in the Boston region, and such dishes as braised short ribs with heirloom potatoes and cassoulet served in eight-inch cast iron pans are selling well. To keep outdoor guests and their food warm, the couple also built four polycarbonate greenhouses after seeing them on social media commentary regarding Noma in Copenhagen.

How Chefs Are Adapting Their Menus for Chilly Outdoor Dining
How Chefs Are Adapting Their Menus for Chilly Outdoor Dining

In Denver, where it has already started to snow, Cody Cheetham, chef de cuisine, is serving braised elk shoulder and veal cheeks at Tavernetta. Coming soon to the menu: oven-baked pastas such as cannelloni and lasagna and other “warm, hearty dishes that stay hot for a long time.” Ordinarily, Cheetham would be focused on fall dishes that highlight seasonal produce; this year, he’s going directly to winter.

Likewise, at Walnut Street Cafe in Philadelphia, chef Jack Peterson is transitioning his summer burrata cheese to a molten, baked, soft-ripened cheese such as brie, with preserved fruits. He’s also working bananas Foster, which can be flambeed tableside. “That enables food to be served at its hottest,” he observes.

And in Chicago, the Publican is debuting a European-inspired outdoor Biergarten. The menu features dishes designed to warm guests, including spaetzle with raclette cheese and mushrooms in a hot cast-iron skillet and seafood stew with hot crusty bread, served in the pot it’s cooked in, brought to the table with the lid on.

How Chefs Are Adapting Their Menus for Chilly Outdoor Dining

Soups, Namely French Onion

Chef Tyler Akin puts a lid on the French onion soup in Le Creuset vessels emerging from the kitchen at Le Cavalier at the Green Room in Wilmington, Del. As the restaurant is located in the revamped Hotel du Pont, he inherited “a century’s worth” of classic banquet tableware, including hundreds of cloches, the dome-shaped covers designed to keep food warm at old-school restaurants. He’s using them for dishes such as chicken tagine and Moroccan couscous. 

“They really work,” says Akin of their ability to keep food hot. He’s also plating dishes on ovenproof stoneware dishes that maintain heat.

Zama in Philadelphia is known for sushi, a dish that’s chill-proof. But for cold weather, chef Hiroyuki Tanaka is introducing a program of Japanese noodle soups with such options as Okinawa noodle soup with baby back ribs in a pork and dashi broth, as well as a subtler but soulfulyuzu chicken somen noodle soup.

At Denver’s Beast + Bottle, chef Paul Reilly is putting hot soups on his menu for the first time, as well as an even more comforting dish: pot pie. “It’s basically chicken soup wrapped in pastry and baked. They are a perfect cold-weather comfort dish,” he says. At his other local restaurant, Coperta, Reilly is now starting to emphasize braises, such as pork shoulder and squash in fennel seed broth.

How Chefs Are Adapting Their Menus for Chilly Outdoor Dining

Fondue

Also coming onto menus is the molten cheese dish fondue, which has a long history of warming up skiers worldwide. In Boston, Colin Lynch, chef-owner of Bar Mezzana, is introducing a fondue section to his menu that will include a gorgonzola option with skewers of rye bread chunks, salami, and figs to dip in it; a truffled Fontina fondue comes with mushroom skewers. He says he’s currently shopping for pots.

So is Carmellini, who also owns the French bistro Lafayette in New York and has started a nightly fondue special. Although the shared aspect of fondue would seem to make it imperfect for the pandemic, the chef says it’s so popular, he has to order more pots.

“We’re doing 30 to 35 orders a night. It’s great for cold weather, it’s hot and has a fire under it.” Carmellini says he and his team have discussed whether it’s a “safe” food to eat.

“We found that people eat it with others who are in their zone,” says Carmellini. “It’s not like a lot of business meetings go on over fondue. You’re probably not going to order fondue if you’re with your client.”

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