Menu Talk

At its five locations in the Chicagoland area, Beatrix pulls in crowds all day long. Andrew Ashmore, corporate chef and partner in the Lettuce Entertain You restaurants has created a widely appealing menu with elevated touches such as house-baked breads and pastries, handcrafted cocktails and locally sourced ingredients. The varied menu includes plenty of vegetarian items for lunch, dinner and wee...

Yia Vang did not set out to be a restaurateur, but after his Hmong food popup took off in Minneapolis, he realized this was his mission. Vang emigrated to the U.S. from Southeast Asia with his family as a young child, seeking refuge among other Hmong people in Minnesota. His popup found a home in a trailer and eventually started operating as Union Hmong Kitchen in Minneapolis’ Graze Food Hall. He...

As chef-partner in Pomegranate Hospitality, Alon Shaya has shared the rich culinary landscape of Israel through his acclaimed restaurants—Saba in New Orleans, Safta in Denver and the newest, Silan in the Bahamas. But, he says, it has been one of the greatest honors of his life to help preserve one family’s legacy through the Rescued Recipes series of dinners he’s hosting in cities across the count...

Nick Graff joined Noodles & Company in 2014 and quickly advanced to the position he holds today as executive chef and VP of culinary. Along the way, he introduced scores of new ingredients, formats and global dishes. Among the standouts are veggie-based zoodles, stuffed pastas including tortelloni and ravioli in several flavor iterations, a high-protein pasta called leanguini, and Chicken Parm...

Steve Sturm, VP of Food & Beverage at Firebirds Wood Fired Grill, has been with the polished casual concept for 23 years, steering and evolving the menu from its first restaurant in 2000 to its present-day count of 56 locations. The concept’s centerpiece is its wood-fired grill, which adds bold flavor, innovative prep and dramatic flair to everything it touches. Firebirds’ signature steaks, se...

Paul Fehribach, chef-owner of Big Jones in Chicago, has operated a popular Southern restaurant since 2008, but he has always been enamored by Midwestern food. His roots are in Indiana, where German culinary traditions and farm-fresh ingredients defined meals. But the story behind the scope and diversity of Midwest cuisine has scarcely been told. Fehribach sets out to change that through “Midwester...

Sharon Arthofer had a career in marketing, retail and the snack industry before she started fast-casual Sip Fresh in 2017, but she noticed a huge growth opportunity in the beverage segment. Instead of doing just another pressed juice concept, she hired mixologists to take it to the next level. They created a menu of unique, alcohol-free juice-based drinks with on-trend ingredients like dragon frui...

Adam Crocini, VP and global head of food and beverage for Hilton hotels, is reimagining food and beverage service at all the company’s brands—from family-friendly Hampton Inn to the luxe Waldorf Astoria. With guests looking for more meaningful experiences post-pandemic, Crocini is leading the charge to create more chef partnerships in the hotel restaurants. José Andrés, Michael Mina and Nancy Silv...

Chicken Salad Chick started with one recipe created by an Alabama mom and has grown to more than 225 restaurants across the South, with units now open in Colorado and the Midwest as well. Its menu features more than a dozen variations of chicken salad, many named after their female creators or fans. Now, the chain has introduced its first warm sandwich: the Chick Melt. Based on a tuna melt but fil...

Eileen Andrade, chef-owner of the newly revamped Amelia’s 1931, started out in the fashion business. But she couldn’t resist the pull of her Cuban family’s restaurant legacy, especially that of her abuela Amelia, for whom the restaurant is named. Andrade renovated her grandmother’s diner in June, breaking through to the dry cleaner next door to add 100 seats, a trendy cocktail lounge and dazzling...

Amanda Stelly, general manager of Camp Margaritaville Breaux Bridge, remained unruffled when tasked with supervising the overhaul of food and beverage operations. She has deep experience as a restaurant manager, and even though the revamp had to be done in just a few months, she put one foot in front of the other and got it done. The Jimmy Buffet-branded Margaritaville venues were all in top opera...

Jeff Carcara, CEO of Sixty Vines, says he owes a lot to the Hillstone Restaurant Group, the hospitality company where he began his career. He followed that start with stints at innovative casual-dining players, including Bahama Breeze, Seasons 52 and Del Frisco. Carcara now leads Sixty Vines, an eight-location polished casual differentiated by its unique wine-on-tap initiative and vineyard-inspire...

Scott McCurdy earned his culinary chops working as an executive chef in high-end restaurants, hotels and other segments of the industry. As director of culinary for US Foods since 2005, he’s now on the other side, tapping that experience to help operators, particularly independent restaurants, create smarter, more profitable menus. Scott McCurdy McCurdy is a “constant student of restaurants” to st...

 Hot honey may be the hottest condiment of the year, infusing restaurant menus across the country with sweet heat. Mike Kurtz first tasted hot honey on a pizza in Brazil in his early 20s and started making his own chili-infused honey in his Brooklyn apartment. He brought samples to Brooklyn pizzeria Paulie Gee’s and soon turned owner Paul Giannone onto the idea of drizzling his pies with hot honey...

Eric Gabrynowicz, vice president of culinary for Tupelo Honey Southern Kitchen & Bar, fell in love with knives and fire when he worked in a restaurant kitchen as a teenager. From there, he graduated from the CIA, worked for Danny Meyer at Union Square Cafe and Blue Smoke, and eventually helmed his own kitchen at North Restaurant in Westchester County, N.Y. But Gabrynowicz has always been obses...

Spike Mendelsohn is a celebrity chef, entrepreneur, TV personality and food policy activist, all of which come together in his newest ventures—PLNT Burger and Eat the Change. PLNT Burger, which serves up chef-curated, plant-based versions of burgers, soft-serve, chicken fingers and other fast-food favorites, currently has 10 locations and is on a growth trajectory. Meanwhile, Eat the Change, a hea...

Matthew Padilla, culinary director for True Food Kitchen, joined the full-service restaurant group last year and quickly started innovating the menu. This spring, he introduced over 30 new dishes, incorporating hyper-seasonal ingredients and inventive global flavors, with an updated summer menu close behind. To appeal to a broader audience, he transformed comfort-food favorites like burgers, pizza...

Fabio Viviani is a native of Florence, Italy, where he started working in restaurant kitchens at the age of 11. He learned the ropes of the hospitality industry by cooking in and managing Italian trattorias and restaurants, eventually moving to the U.S. when he was 27, where he opened and operated several restaurants in L.A. Over the next 15 or so years, Chef Viviani built a hospitality empire, de...

“Chefwise: Life Lessons from Leading Chefs Around the World” is not a cookbook. In place of recipes, its pages are filled with insider insights from 117 chefs around the world, collected by author Shari Bayer. Bayer interviewed both well-known chefs like Tom Colicchio, Sean Brock, Alice Waters and Massimo Bottura, as well as rising stars, owners of Michelin-starred restaurants and operators of cas...

Robert St. John is a restaurateur, chef, writer, philanthropist, international travel guide and TV personality—in short, a modern-day renaissance man. He opened his first restaurant, Purple Parrot Cafe, more than 30 years ago in Hattiesburg, Miss., turning the small Southern city into a dining destination. While that one closed during Covid, seven other restaurants remain in town and two more in t...

Yogurtland has developed more than 200 frozen yogurt flavors that rotate throughout the chain’s 220 locations at different times of the year. The company employs a team of flavorologists, who combine scientific knowledge, market research and their refined palates to create unique flavor profiles like Thai Tea, Blueberry Pancake, Decadent Dark Chocolate Orange and Irish Mint. Limited-time flavors l...

Ford’s Garage is a 1920s gas station-themed burger and craft beer restaurant with a unique vibe. Chef Jessica Tomlinson landed at the 24-location, full-service concept after working in fine dining, baking and pastry, a farm-to-table restaurant and at Bloomin’ Brands. In a nostalgic setting filled with vintage vehicles, gas pumps and even a Model T car suspended above the bar, she offers a wide ran...

James Beard Award-winning chef Jonathon Sawyer heads up the kitchen at Kindling Downtown Cookout & Cocktails, a new 500-seat restaurant where almost every menu item touches the wood-fueled fire at some point in its culinary journey. That’s not an easy task, being that Kindling is housed in a soaring two-story space inside Chicago’s iconic Willis Tower, one of the tallest office buildings in th...

As VP of culinary innovation at Untamed Brands, the parent company of fast-casual Taim Mediterranean Kitchen and Hot Chicken Takeover, Avi Szapiro brings years of fine-dining experience to the job. He grew up in Bogota, Colombia, and thought he’d become a lawyer. But he caught the cooking bug as a teenager and never looked back. Szapiro graduated from the CIA; worked in top restaurants and hotels...

Aaron Noveshen, founder and CEO of San Francisco-based Starbird, trained as a French chef and started a company called The Culinary Edge that develops menus for restaurants. After years of helping other operators get successful concepts up and running, he felt it was time to start his own. In 2016, Starbird was hatched.   The fast-casual chicken chain now numbers 12 brick-and-mortar units and a co...